To teach is to perform.
To teach is to be an example (turning into Bo Jones – be afraid!).
Maybe this is why sometimes I rail against the fact I teach. I must be an example. I should be respectable. But perhaps I don’t want to be? Maybe this is partly where this new tangent sprang from? My frustration that as a teacher I must behave in a particular way… or is it that I must appear to behave in a particular way sometimes irritates me… so that I feel my work should show the frustration, show that I am aware of what is going on, that I put on the mask and perform, but it’s not the “real” me?
But the problem is, it IS the real me, part of me anyway. I show off, I do perform, I do put on the attitude, the persona, as I welcome the children into the room. I am acutely aware this room has a magic that shouldn’t be broken. Every part of the performance says “this place is different” “you can be how you want to be in here”. The door opens, the stage lights go on, they come in, and on a really good day, they participate in the performance. On a bad day, I fail, and it has turned back into a classroom. The performance is shown up to be exactly that. False, fake, sham… you see the strings and the little wheels, the smoke and mirrors, and the people dressed in black, shuffling stuff about.
So perhaps this work about respectability has these elements too to be explored. There is the whole myth(?) about the Art Teacher… I must be respectable to keep my job, but as an Art Teacher, there is an expectation also of an oddness, an otherness, I can wear my flowery trousers, and get away with being filthy by the middle of the day, and sing loudly and out of tune with my iPod in my ears. When I have the children crawling around the floor pretending to be ants, and a visitor is brought in by the head teacher, I am introduced: “This is Mrs Thomas, she is our Artist” the visitor nods wisely and the scene is instantly understood/excused.
So I’m exploring the “clothes” of respectability. I might even start wearing some to school to see who notices. A sort of un-performance…
I am confusing myself.
This is exactly why I need to do more exploring here.
So if you see me in a twin set, and a box-pleated skirt, with leg-coloured tights and shoes with a heel, having straightened and contained my hedge-like hair…. I’m looking that weird on purpose, because I’m playing at being respectable.
All the time I did the MA in “Art Practice and Education” after all…. I beat myself up frequently about how/if/whether I should take my practice into a primary classroom. Well, almost 6 months after it’s finished… it appears I might be onto something…
