PHS Friday Letter

When I started teaching at Presidio Hill Open Air School six years ago, many of this year’s class of graduates were very small ... as radiant and vivid as they are now; their colors as clear and as finely spun as the rays of the sun ... but pudgy, too. More round around their edges, easier for them to tumble and roll and not get hurt. Around the time that I met them, I also became a part of the PHS community, and started thinking a lot about the role of emotional honesty in teaching. As adults amidst a daily sea of young people, it was obvious to me that our shared responsibility was to be attentive and responsive to the feelings and needs of our students. And it seemed a common practice for teachers, as it is for most workers, to set aside our feelings, aches, pains, joys, and struggles, in order to “focus on work”; in our case, to generously, if not instinctively, make room to hold the feelings, aches, pains, triumphs and struggles of our students. Although a number of teachers and I still laugh about the fact that it is only upon exiting the building that many of us notice that we actually feel tired, thirsty, hungry, or in need of a bathroom pass, I began to feel unsure of this kind of physical and emotional disconnect pretty early on. And, as I continued to teach a class where, every day I was asking my students to do the very vulnerable work of being present, aware of and responsive to their own momentary feelings, thoughts and impulses, this disconnecting on my part started to feel a little bit dishonest, a little bit cheap, and a little bit too safe.

An acting class is not a therapy session, and neither the kids nor I share what is going on in our personal lives with each other. The details of our experiences aren’t relevant to our subject. But an awareness of our inner experience is. And so class is a time where people are asked to be aware; to not remove or section off any part of themselves, but to bring themselves wholly to the stage, feeling right where they are. This kind of honest self-awareness creates transparency, or what some people call “honest acting”. More simply, I think, it lets performance be a real, lived experience, rather than a confused attempt to manufacture or imitate life. When actors realize that it is themselves — awake and responsive and alive in the moment — that an audience wants, they become relieved from the confusing job of pretending to be someone else, and they become free to simply engage.

Truth be told, I am interested in seeing your children find this freedom in their lives outside of the theater as well. I would love to have them know that they get to bring their whole beings with them into their lives, and that they do not have to section of, or leave parts of themselves behind in order to be effective, accomplished people. This desire brings me back to the question of how I myself model this possibility for them, and how the other adults around them do, as well.

How do we show our young people that emotions are not something to be either denied or overwhelmed by? How do we model the possibility of being informed and even empowered by our inner lives… aware of emotion, and still able to be reliable, responsible, effective adults? And, especially during this time of marked transition, how do we show kids that the parts of them which we consider so precious, and so worth protecting ... their curiosity, creativity, hope, innocent wisdom and freedom of feeling ... that we have successfully integrated these qualities into our own lives?

In honor of graduation, and of this year’s graduates, and of step up day, I am inviting the adults in our community to reflect on how we care for the facets of ourselves that we hope to preserve in our children. So that they may look to us and see that growing up doesn’t have to mean obscuring their own bright lights… And so that, as their edges become more refined and crystallized, their new skills and habits and forms may only more clearly reflect the full spectrum of lights that are inside of them.

For me, right now, this means being honest about my own sadness in saying goodbye. It will be hard for me to see this class go. And, I am also full of love and hope and joy for each one of them. I am so excited about their lives, and so proud of the people that they have become, and that they have always been. All of these feelings ... all of these colors right now.

With love,

Janna Sobel
Drama Teacher