SOMETHING GOOD ABOUT PUBLIC EDUCATION

You know, I've spent a great deal of time here bashing the institution of public education, and rightfully so. However, despite the many, many problems embedded in the overall system, I would be remiss if I didn't give at least a tip of the hat to the good work that numerous teachers manage to do under oppressive circumstances. A teacher I had in fifth grade is having a birthday party tomorrow, and her daughter asked me to write a little something in her mother's honor. What I came up with does a good job, I think, of making that point:

There is so much mythology built up around what our culture understands as education. There are films and television shows, novels, songs, all of which seem designed to aggrandize the role of the educator in our society. Of course, I, myself, have recently spent six years teaching high school theater, so I understand that much of that mythology is rubbish--perhaps the real intent of these myths is to give teachers the psychic strength to get up every morning, year after year, and selflessly jump into the gigantic institutional machine that we call "public education." Who can really know about these things? What I do know from personal experience is that teaching is hard work, very stressful, and very draining of life's energy. It is quite easy for a teacher to wonder if he or she is really making a difference in their students' lives.

It is impossible for me to know what kind of long-term success I had when I was an educator. However, here's one thing I do know: Carolyn Herman Baldwin, once known to me long ago as "Ms. Shaddix," did, indeed, affect the course of my life in an extraordinarily positive way.

I'll never forget her directing me in a musical production of Robin Hood performed at Foster Elementary back in 1979. (Or was it 1978? It's been so long.) I played a villain, Prince John, and it was my first real taste of acting. I had been on stage before, but never playing a fully realized character in a full length play. This was my first time to learn about the concept of blocking and stage movement, to learn about the many ways an actor might speak the same line, to interact with other actors on stage, to be directed, to wear stage makeup. At around the same time, HBO was running the film The Goodbye Girl, about an aspiring actor in New York City, almost constantly: performing in Robin Hood somehow merged in my mind with my love for that film, and, unknown to me at the time, the course of my life was suddenly set in stone. I was going to be an actor.

It's been a rocky road over the years, my life as an actor, and I've tried to change course on more than one occasion, but the bug that bit me so long ago, the bug I caught in part from my "Ms. Shaddix," always comes back, always stronger than before. And here I am, nearly thirty years later, making another go at it: I'm almost midway through my second year of professional actor training in the graduate school at Louisiana State University. I'm currently rehearsing two shows, currently earning points toward membership in the professional stage actors' union, and busier than I've been since I was in high school. But I'm loving every minute of it. Over the years, I've been helped out by many people, but I owe the fifth grade science teacher who also doubled as theater teacher more than most. I can honestly say that I wouldn't be the person I am today if not for her.

Thank you so much, Carolyn Baldwin, for casting me in my first real show, and for giving me an experience that shaped the course of my entire existence. You really did make a difference in my life. Frankly, I don't think I could ever repay you for that; such a difference is beyond value.

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