I often go to class completely unprepared. This gives me a chance to use my improv skills and I end up teaching better than I would if I carefully prepared my classes. This term what is particularly memorable is the history class:
I am standing in front of the class unsure of whether to give them a final exam or a final project. Suddenly the pulse grabs me and I start explaining the final project as I am making it up:
You will be working on a micro-history project. You can focus on your family or on your community. You should find the oldest living relatives (or community members) and interview them. Find out their most happy memory and their most sad one. Then work down the generations interviewing people, finding letters and other objects to use in your project. What I want you to create is a work of art, an installation containing family memories and artifacts. You can use audio and video, make something out of your family or community memories. You can write letters to loved ones who have passed away as if they can hear and read what you have to say.
It is no exaggeration to say that the resulting projects were magical. The idea had come to me in a moment but this was to many of my students the most wonderful project they had had the chance to create.
The idea of being prepared is often misunderstood. Teachers often over-prepare and come across as uninspiring. Why not change our idea of what it means to prepare? Why not train ourselves to enter into an improv state of mind and each day approach life afresh?
May the pulse be with you!
Abhay
Image: Artist David Ireland whose art was inclined toward 'the unpretentious, and the unrehearsed, the unserious and amusing.'
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