Task 2d: Inquiry

What in your daily practice gets you really enthusiastic to find out more about?

My current daily work practice involves touring with a theatre company and performing a show about educational PSHE issues that teenagers in schools face. Whilst T.I.E work is familiar to me, I have not previously worked for the company that I am currently employed at. My duties now as well as an actor include that of a workshop leader following the performance, in which the students engage in an hour long drama workshop to reiterate important messages and allows them to reflect and evaluate what they have just seen. With the hope to one day continue my career and go on to teach drama in a secondary school, the prospect of this workshop excited me greatly. I distinctly remember ringing my mum when we were a day or two into the tour and relaying everything that had happened so far. My mum said to me that she knew that teaching was meant for me one day and that it was the right thing for me to do because of the passion with which I had been describing the workshop and the student’s involvement in it. I am very enthusiastic about undertaking more work like this in the future as it will allow me more experience with working with children and provides me with fresh ideas and inventive ways to tackle delicate subjects.

Who do you admire who also works with what makes you enthusiastic? 

The company I currently work for has been created by two men, great friends and now business partners who are ex-actors and educational facilitators who have not long been out of their business. Their passion was clear for all to see during the open auditions held late last year in which they were searching for a new set of touring actors for the upcoming season. I left that audition thinking that it was a company that I would very much like to work for and I wasn't wrong. My enthusiasm for the workshop section of the performance has come, in part, from one of the above mentioned men who is very experienced in the creation and implementation of interactive workshop sessions for secondary school students. I believe there is much I can learn from him and take away from my time with this company for use when I myself am a teacher, I also admire my fellow actors that I work with daily for their constant energy and enthusiasm. The job is so much more enjoyable when working with like-minded and eager individuals such as myself. My two colleagues may not want to go into teaching after this or have as much experience in it as I do, but they throw themselves into the workshops giving 100% which feeds my enthusiasm to be able to deliver important messages in a fun and vibrant way.

What gets you angry or makes you sad?

The attitude young people can have towards the performance orientated subjects, dance/drama etc can and has angered me on occasions. I hate that it is sometimes seen as a ‘dossy’ lesson option choice, with no real energy or effort required by the students to succeed. This can certainly be seen when thinking back to my GCSE drama group in secondary school whereby the vast majority of the group had no passion for the subject, no real enthusiasm and no desire to further pursue their skills. This made it incredibly hard for myself and others in the class to be able to fully embrace all of the tasks we were given to work on, especially when having to work closely with said individuals. One way of dealing with this would have been to become incredibly frustrated and upset with the lack of effort and energy members of my team were giving me. This breakdown and outburst of emotion did happen from time to time and was probably important in releasing some tension. However, another way of dealing with this was to focus, head down, and power on through the negativity. It was important for me to be able to take a step back and realise that at the end of the day, I was going to be assessed on my talents and capabilities and not those of others. However much more difficult I would find it working with the people that I had to, I would learn from it and be able to take this knowledge with me when I pursued my career in performance.

Who do you admire who shares your feelings or has found a way to work around the sadness or anger?

I have great admiration for my dram teacher during my three years of professional study. A very talented man, he seemed to have ways in which he could reach out to people within the year group who did not share his passion for drama or perhaps lacked confidence and found ways to make it much more enjoyable for them. As it was a musical theatre course, we naturally had people who excelled in one or a number of fields and who may have preferred one discipline over the rest. This was certainly true in my case when fairly early on, I began to realise I was standing out in my drama class and excelling in that side of my course more so than others. I particularly struggled with my singing lessons as lacked a lot of confidence. Upon reflection, the singing teacher’s attitude to students such as myself was one I do not wish to and hope that I never do emulate. Towards the end of my course, she no longer seemed interested in students who were not filled with confidence and as a result, her lessons were aimed at those who were. When I go on to teach in a secondary school someday, her method of approach has spurred me to find ways to include every individual in my class, to find ways to engage their imaginations, whet their excitement and include a range of teaching in order to incorporate their potential difference in learning styles.

What do you love about what you do?

In short, the excitement and variety of my career as a performer and being able to share that passion and excite others with my teaching. I believe certain people are destined to work in a particular environment and others are simply not. Personally, I couldn't ever imagine myself working behind a desk in an office 9-5. Whilst there is nothing wrong with this career choice at all, it just isn't for me. I may have to accept that I may have to undergo a short period of employment in a field that I do not wish to be in to pay the bills, but I know that such is the unpredictability of the life as a performer, it will not be forever. An opportunity may arise that sees you whisked away from behind yours desk and onto a four month theatre tour educating year 8’s about the dangers of substance misuse! In terms of teaching, it is not all about the really talented students. I love to see the improvement in a student that has never danced to any real standard before. I get a huge feeling of achievement and pride at watching them progress. Similarly, if one student is struggling on a particular phrase of choreography, the moment you see it ‘click’ for them and fall in place, perhaps through changing the angle at which it is being approached is an emphatic feeling!

Who do you admire who also seems to love this or is an example of what you love? 

A very close personal friend and also a teaching college is an example of someone who shares my passion for teaching. We originally danced together at our part-time dance school growing up before she left to pursue a professional career at M.A.D.D. However, although being a brilliantly talented dancer, she did not complete her course and left to become a full time self-employed dance teacher. Years later, she finds herself working 60 hours a week for a number of different schools and organisations and is still just as passionate as the day I met her. Her patience is something I particularly admire, she very rarely allows herself to become angry or to raise her voice even when having to deal with very difficult classroom situations. Her choreography is always fresh, inventive and inspiring. One particular job that I have worked with her on was for our local council authority, where we found ourselves being sent to secondary schools to try and engage the girls aged 11-16 in full time education in street dance lessons as a part of their curriculum. The ways she led her sessions and retained their attention, even the most unwilling of students, will be something I take carry with me and hope to apply to similar situations in the future.

What do you feel you don’t understand?

What I struggled to understand when I first entered this profession, and occasionally manage to get my head around, is how so many talented performers struggle to get work. It is something that was discussed frequently at college, how cut throat this business can be and yet once I had left, I still found it surprising. Yes there are fewer and fewer jobs that in previous years, due on some parts to the large budget cuts the entertainment industry have faced, coupled with the financial crisis that the UK has seen during the last decade. Suddenly, it wasn’t a priority to spend money on going to see a piece of dance or theatre or even to the cinema for a bit of culture. The priority became putting food on the table and petrol in the car for work. Unfortunately as a result of that, jobs have been more scare and harder to obtain in this industry. Schools are churning out fresh batches of fit, young wide-eyed and eager graduates each year who now join the race for employment alongside those who have been in the industry for years. Looking at individuals who I believed to be highly talented and seeing them out of work shocked me. I then came to the realisation that it was more important than ever to be adaptable in this business and for a person to have many strings to their bow. In that sense, I feel I am fortunate enough to enjoy teaching and that I am good at it, so that I am continually provided with the opportunity to continue to do what I love whilst the work outside of teaching may be scarce.

Who do you admire who does seem to understand it or who has found a way of making not understanding it interesting or beautiful, or has asked the same questions as you?

One of my closest friends during my three years of training was very quick to realise how difficult it could be to find employment often enough fairy soon after she graduated and has already begun broadening her range of skill sets. She too, in fact, is a student at Middlesex University and like me, is working on the BAPP course toward a degree. I admire her for her maturity and ability to have seen this far earlier than I did. I believe she too would like to go on to teach in secondary school someday, but there is nothing stopping her, or wither of us for that matter, continuing to go out and audition for performance roles upon completion of this course. She and I will both be able to come back to teaching at a time of life that is suitable to us personally. Not only that, but she is also working towards completing her qualifications in personal training which will enable her to keep fit and in shape for auditions, but also provides her with another source of income. It is not about not understanding why so many talented performers don’t get the roles or contracts they audition for, but realising it is what it is, this is the industry we have chosen to enter into and ways in which we can increase our skillset and therefore employability.

How do you decide the appropriate ethical response in a given situation? To what extent are disciplinary responses different to that you might expect more generally in society? For example, what level of physical contact would you deem appropriate (and not) from another professional that you would find unacceptable more generally? Why?

As both a current and an aspiring teacher, it is of the utmost importance that I should be able to decide on the appropriate ethical response in a given situation. To do this, I have to take a step back away from the situation often and consider it from an outsider’s perspective. A teacher will spend many hours, week and potentially years teaching her same students and naturally will develop bonds with them. So with this in mind, I have to consider the implications of my actions from a future employer as opposed to a teacher who has a strong relationship with her class. Should the delicate information that has just been disclosed to me by a child be passed on to a higher body of authority? Is the young child that wants comforting aware that I am their teacher and not their mother? These are all issues that I have faced and could face regularly when teaching. Disciplinary responses differ to those generally expected in society as it is children who I work with most often and it is important to protect them as well as myself as a teacher. Growing up in my dance school, it was generally an expectation that the teacher would and could use physical contact in a dance lesson when trying to demonstrate an idea, e.g. the correcting of a plié, sing force to gently show the student that their knees should not be pushing forwards, but instead, outward. Nowadays however, it is important that teachers should not physically correct a student, especially the ages with I work, but recognise the power and the importance of the spoken word in order to be able to correct and alter technique.