How to Help Kids Balance School and Theatre
by Hannah Crawford, Guest Editorial
As a youth theatre educator, this is one of those topics that we look at and cringe at. We know that it is essential, but we also know that it can, unfortunately, get in the way of the show. And as we all know, we theatre professionals are notorious for having the attitude of “well, the show must go on.” While this is true, it cannot be to the academic detriment of the student.
“It’s Not My Responsibility”
I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard that phrase from both theatre professionals and parents. Let’s first correct this: the child’s complete well-being (academics included) is 100% on the parents–period, end of story.
However, as theatre instructors, we cannot have the attitude of “it’s not my responsibility,” so if students fail a class, that’s on the parent. Whether you are a theatre professional at the school, the child is attending or a theatre professional at a third-party theatre, we all have to help hold students accountable.
For example, I worked with a youth performing arts center that wasn’t a part of a school. It was completely separate. However, it was important to me that students do well and thrive in their academics. Even though I wasn’t a part of the school they were at, I was still an instructor in their lives.
If we as instructors (academic and extracurricular) learned to work together to help students see the importance of balance, students would have better grades and extracurricular activities, making them more well-rounded humans.
We Have to Prioritize Academics and Extracurricular
The older I get, the more I realize the importance of the academics we’ve learned in school. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been asked what high school I attended before people even asked if I went to college. Just this past week, I was working on getting to know some new co-workers, and they talked to me about high schools before they asked if I went to college. It truly does follow you wherever you go.
The education we receive in school is vital to our success as humans and professionals throughout life. Of course, I’ve heard the “But, Miss Hannah, I’ll never use algebra or history in the real world.” Yes, we’ve all come across courses that we feel are a complete waste of time; however, they are important for our overall education.
The number of times I’ve heard that “theatre is useless” would be too much for me to talk about in this blog, especially from students who were forced to take my class as an extracurricular activity by parents. Even if they aren’t going into a career in theatre, it can teach them invaluable skills such as the following:
Public Speaking - interviewing, giving presentations, attending conferences, networking events, etc.
Improv - problem-solving, coming up with quick solutions, thinking outside of the box, etc.
Memorization - memorizing important facts, staying on a deadline, learning other people's parts to help you do yours better, etc.
So, no, I didn’t graduate from high school and desired a life of algebra. In fact, numbers is probably the subject I hated the most. However, it helps me balance my marketing budget in my full-time career as a Marketing Manager. Math helps me when I have to talk to board members or shareholders who are all about numbers. So, yes, even though I technically have a very creative career, numbers come up, and I have to use the skills taught in school.
We have to teach our students to excel in the subjects they are given. No, they may not ace every class, but students should not purposefully fail classes just because they don't want to put in the time. This is where we, as academic teachers and extracurricular instructors, can come together to foster an environment where we can teach our students how to prioritize their time.
How Theatre Helps Students Prioritize Time Management
The one really great thing about theatre is that we have excellent time management skills. For me as a professional, both in theatre and outside of theatre is the one expertise that I strongly excel at. Theatre helps with time management skills through the following:
Rehearsal schedules: we can teach our students how to balance rehearsals and show schedules.
Deadlines to opening night: We teach our students how to manage our workload, as we have the end goal of “opening night” in mind.
Time awareness: when we have goals to meet every rehearsal (such as getting through specific acts, being off-book, costume night, etc.), students can often be hyper-aware of the time allotted and take it seriously.
Time management skills like this can far extend into their academic studies. They can use the skills they have learned in theatre to help them better manage their time with their other classes.
Focusing On Open Communication and Support With Families
Back to the “it’s not my responsibility” part –we have to work with families who may be struggling with helping their child to take a class seriously or for those who do take it seriously but are failing.
As a theatre educator, I take good grades very seriously. I regularly check in with my students to see how they are doing. But not just stopping at the student. I would also check in with the parents. We have to communicate openly about the importance of good grades with the families we work with.
However, we also have to extend the “support” to them. For true theatre lovers, the threat of being suspended from a show is a real threat that many could take seriously. I used to have many conversations with my students about pulling up a math, literature, or history grade to remain in one of my acting classes or even a production.
Since I wasn’t part of the school system, I never required my students to submit report cards. Rather, I built rapport with parents to let them know I was there to help. If a student weren’t taking their grades seriously, I would partner with the parents to help the kids see that they were indeed important.
Most of these conversations happened with my theatre nerd kids—the ones who would “absolutely die” if theatre was taken from them. Although I never had to be the “bad guy” to dismiss a student based on grades, I had parents who withdrew their kids because of that. And I showed my support by being 100% behind them on it. Even though it’s obviously disruptive to have a student drop out of a theatre class, for me, it was more destructive for a student not to take their grades seriously.
Imagine a world where we all support each other at home, school, and in extracurricular activities. It is so much easier to help mold the next generation when we have one another's support. Let’s teach our students how to shine both in and out of the spotlight by learning how to balance their academic and theatre lives.