In October, I wrote a piece about teaching remotely in an empty theatre. It got to the heart of what was an impressive depressive moment using Hamlet and absurdism. Usually I am unable to write when things are so dark, and the fact that it went to well had me thinking I could try again. Six months later, second depression cycle, it can't be worse.
This has been edited three times. It is what it is. Enjoy.
My new mantra is to say "I've been here ten minutes". Like my name, my quips have changed with the district. I am now "Miss K", no longer "Kmart", and I've never said "It's fine, I'm fine stop looking at me I'm fine." None of this was intentional, it just happened. Since I'm remote, and my name on the screen is "Kristen Martin", and I introduce myelf as "Kmart", kids this spring started calling me "Miss K". I like it better than "Miss", which is typical for the ELL kids to call me. At least I get an indentifying letter after the saluttion.
I used to say "It's find I'm fine stop looking at me I'm fine" because I had a student who did that, and it was hilarious. It started with her, and then ingrained itself into my every day axioms. I was not aware I'd stopped using it until this week. I haven't had a studnet ask how I'm doing, so the answer was not necessary. It's phrased differently in this disitrict with AP's, they constantly ask "What support do you need?" Nobody here asks how you are doing. It's weird. However kids do ask a lot of questions about the spinning Covid Remote Hybrid Cohort In Person roulette wheel, the history of the theatre, the future of the theatre, why the district makes certain decisions...and I have no answers, so I shrug and say "I dunno, I've been here ten minutes." At the beginning of every day I feel like I'm at the end of a hard day where eveything was on fire and I had only a plastic bucket from the dollar store for water, and on the way home I had to stop at the grocery store to figure out dinner and when I walk in the door the kids say "The toilet's clogged, the dog pooped and what's for dinner?"
"I dunno, I've been here ten minutes."
Every. Day.
So, in Acting 1 we were reading Alone, Together ---I read a lot of plays when teaching theatre remotely--a collection of plays commissioned for UC Santa Barbara's LAUNCH PAD during Covid. They are written specifically for Zoom performance. They do not suck. We did a virtual "Whodunnit" in the fall that was pretty craptastic, but these pieces have heart, and soul, and themes and symbols and are truly wonderful.
Since we all lived through this plague,I skipped my usual "Here is the playwright's bio and history of the time period". It is my favorite part of teaching Shakespeare or Tennessee, but it didn't seem necessary for over 30 writers, all creating in a pandemic lock down that we all lived through. We're in cohorts and five of the ten students enrolled have been showing up, all online. None of the three in person had showed as yet. On this day, one of them appeared in the room. I did not recognize her from the fall session since she was masked, I thought she was lost. She looked around the empty room and I shrugged, "There are only three of you in Cohort B, and R---chose to stay remote and G---has never shown up. You don't have to stay in person if you don't want to." She replied that she really needed to be in person even if I was the only one present. She sat at the table, opened her computer and we read the first monologue in the play collection with the five online. The monologue is a piece written from the perspective of a Nursing Home Chef, who is now cooking alone due to the plague. His clients are also confined to their rooms, so he has to knock on their doors and deliver the meals to a rack outside the door.
It was devastating. Honestly engaging and deeply impactful.
After the reading, the lone masked student asked how everyone was doing with Covid, she said the monologue made her wonder about other personal experiences besides her own.
An hour later... they were wrapping up sharing and I was gobmacked at how honest they'd been online, and how kind and supportive and politically and socially active they are. They opened their mikes and shared while the support was written in the chat. I read a lot of "You have the right to feel like that" and "You are valid" comments. What I hear is "To thine own self be true", but they didn't read Hamlet. They seem so mature to me.
A moment of absorbsion, and then the question came to me. "How are you, Miss K?" I laughed at first and said "You've been looking at nothing but my face since last fall, you can't tell?"
I realized: nope, they can't tell. I shifted into neutral back in October. My Janus masks of comedy and tragedy merged to create a steel neutral mask that I could hide behind in order to get through this. How Am I? I suddenly begin by running the popular Taylor Malik slam in my head "What do I make? Let me tell you..." but I switched it to "How am I? Let me tell you...."
I'm ten years older than I was a this time last year. I hate this. I'm exhausted, remote teaching is nothing but giving energy and receiving nothing. Receiving nothing nada zip zero in return, Steven Colbert said doing his show remotely was like shouting into an Altoid can and chucking it into traffic: it's like that, that's what teaching online for 12 months is like, I do nothing but expend energy and receive nothing back on average, chucking my tin can into traffic and hoping some passerby hears, I sat on stage six months ago and wrote a eulogy for theatre because she feels dead so I moved to the classroom so I'm cut off and I can't even think of a play I've ever written to compare this disonnection to and 72% of my students are opting to be completely remote, and of those cohorts supposed to be in person, 20% are not coming in. Now, those are my numbers only, but I see it reflected in the rest of my department. Where I do not see it is in IB core classes, where all of the cohort kids are showing up -How Am I?? this is not happening because I suck this is happening because they don't need theatre to graduate and they did not sign up to do it online. NOBODY WANTS TO DO THEATRE ONLINE the only ones showing up are freshmen who will be here next year and can understand that they want to build something, it'll be open next year and they'll be here to see it happen but the seniors are over it and the juniors are frustrated and angry and just want to get out at this point How Am I? I'm screaming behind a neutral mask because every day for a year now I have to log on in front of these kids and convince them that this matters, we will be open in the fall and everything they're learning now will then be applied when we're live on stage again and I can't let them see how miserable and angry and frustrated I am and I can't answer their questions about the rest of the school year because I'm not in charge all I can control is the neutral mask. I hate it here. That's how I am.
So with four Brady Bunch faces and one masked sitting at the table in the middle of the vast, empty room staring at me, I realized I hadn't seen much on their faces, either. They have also controlled the comedy and tragedy of the last year and built a neutral mask. That's why so many will not turn on their cameras, there's a neutral mask built in to remote learning with their circle photo. The mask they are forced to wear in person or to work has become convenient.We can't read each other's faces because we're afraid someone will see the truth and we might make their day worse because there is nothing anyone can do. The only control we have had all year is over our faces.
So when she asked, I paused. These are sophomores. My adult problems are not to be shared with them. They share theirs and I'm the adult, I listen and give advice if I can, but I don't share. I do not know these kids. They do not know me. I've been here ten minutes. They are all looking at me, and suddenly the last nine months of driving into an empty school to teach kids who are at home on their computers while I sit next to an empty theatre and silent choir blasted into my head. The plays we are reading are about a variety of experiences in Covid, from student to immigrant to entitleds with boats but the theme is the same: we are not OK. We've just read the first monologue, a chef in a Florida nursing home who is now working alone. A lockdown inside of a lockdown. He is barely holding on emotionally, making desserts for imaginary birthdays to cheer up residents, knocking on the resident doors and holding his breath, waiting for the return knock of life. It's a great piece. Another student repeated the question "Miss, how are you doing?"I looked at my Brady Bunch Screen and up at the masked student, floating in my massive desolate classroom, big false eyelashes trained on my face, and couldn't speak.
"I'm fine," I stumbled. "Stop looking at me, I'm fine" and I began to laugh. "I'm fine, I'm an adult, this sucks, I hate this, I'm too old for this, I'm not even relevent, none of this is going to matter, what's the point?" They stared, silently, and I continued, unable to stop myself. "You have no idea, wait until next fall when we do Absurdism, this will make sense/ no sense. Nothing happens,nobody comes, it's fine." I realized there were tears on my face, and the mask had shattered into tragedy. Before I could switch to comedy, one of the kids said "It's OK, Miss, you're the only class I come to. I've made friends here." Through my blurred vision I saw the chat box lighting up with support. Suddenly Melissa Manchester was belting her face off in my head. "Don't CRYYYY OUUUUUUTLOUUUUUUD"
So there I was, struggling to return to neutral, downloading top forty hits from my youth, Taylor Malik and snippets of Shakespeare, whilst clearly cracking up in front of students. Their cameras and mikes were all on, they were all watching me and smiling back at me and writing "You're valid" in the chat box. Locked down in a lockdown, using a chat box to communicate because mikes are stupid in google meet. Bounded in a nutshell...but they didn't read Hamlet. Doesn't matter. I get it.
We know others have returned to their classes, their choir rooms, their theatres.
And we have not.
I'm still shouting into an Altoid can.
25 more days. I can do anything for 25 days.
