Minkgirl Muses

Classes at my college start next week, and this week is all about preparing the syllabi: choosing readings, brainstorming assignments, crafting the class by class plan. Whenever I do this kind of work, the teachers who have made the biggest impact on me seem to be sitting on my shoulder like angels. They nod approvingly when I come up with something innovative to include; they shake their heads when I try to reuse old material.

One of these angels is Mr. Wilke – a high-school Acting teacher and the faculty advisor for the student theater club. I joined the club as an actor my freshman year, and directed my first play with the club as a junior. Mr. Wilke could tell I was pretty serious about the theater thing, so one day he told me to meet him in his classroom after school. When I arrived he told me to take out my notebook and pen. “If you are serious about drama,” he said, “then there are some playwrights you need to read. Write this down…Brecht, Buechner, Pinter, Albee, Anouih…”. “Wait… how do you spell that?”

He proceeded to give me a list (sorted by country) of the world’s greatest dramatists. He encouraged me to check their plays out of the library. To read widely. To discover what I liked. That small encouragement was the start of my a life-long passion. I might have found my way to these dramatists on my own eventually, but his acknowledgment of my interest, his faith in my ability to read and comprehend the “big boys” of world drama was a huge shot in the arm. It made me want to learn. It made me want to be better to make him proud.

Labels: Gratitude Project

# posted by Christine Young @ 9:51 PM