JAMES BECK’S ADVENTURES IN MIDDLE SCHOOL

Onion Man Productions is renewing our commitment to give back to our community as we move into 2013. This initiative is part of our Community Garden, which includes a program for mentoring young artists. Recently, OMP Founder James Beck visited a local middle school to work with young playwrights. But in this situation, who was really the teacher, and who was the student?

I was anxious. Maybe it was the experience of walking into a foreign setting to do something that I had not done before that gave me a feeling of unease. Lanier Middle School is part of a modern school complex in Gwinnett County, close to Lake Lanier. I had come to Lanier Middle to help my friend, Joanie McElroy (part of the OMP team), by providing feedback to her drama class. And so at 8:00 AM in the morning, this 47-year-old part onion, part man walked into a middle school to help young people.

I was there early because I really don’t know any other way to arrive at an appointment. They didn’t have middle schools when I was growing up in Dekalb County. We went to seventh grade and then headed to high school in eighth grade.  Middle school seems like a far more sane way to slice the educational experience. So, everything about this experience was new. Yes, I would be helping the students with the plays they were writing, so that was familiar. But I also knew I would have to find a way to communicate so I could actually be helpful.  Therefore, I drew on my faith that I would find my way to the right approach.

Chaos comes quickly in a middle school. Young people approached Joanie, now “Mrs. McElroy,” with questions and the need for copies of their scripts to be made, and she artfully conducted the molecules of middle school to orbit around a space where there was a small stage. There was a lot of energy in the air from the kids for 8:00 AM. I would have been dragging, were it not for the two cups of coffee I had already consumed that morning. So, we dove in. The young playwrights cast their plays with other students and we listened. One student said she needed props for her reading. Had an adult asked the same thing at a workshop, it would have been hard not to hide my disdain. But, here it seemed fun. After all, we had talking reindeers, so how could you not enjoy yourself?

The whole experience flew by. I tried not to give too much feedback and instead I just made a quick strong point or two. My feedback seemed to make sense and register with the students. I could not have been more impressed by these young people. They are all so far advanced compared to the kids of my generation. And I was really struck by the teachers and administrators, who spend their day nurturing, instructing, and providing opportunities for the wild random fluctuations of human spirit contained in those growing bodies. These youngsters walk in the doors daily with the emotions and reality of what they experience at home, both good and bad, and they are in need of so many different things. It is quite a job that the teachers have day in and day out. And it would seem really hard not to care, love, and occasionally, want to pull their hair out. My part in the morning was small. Hopefully something I said helped or added to the molecular middle school mix in a positive way.