What Are My Options?
The world is full of entertainers eager to visit your school! Some are really amazing! Many are very good, and many are not. And quite a few, sadly, are really bad. (Some are erratic and can be great on Tuesday afternoon and terrible on Thursday morning!) But they all have one thing in common. Actors, musicians, mimes, clowns, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists all spend a large amount of time trying to find ways to make a living. At some point in our history, one very clever individual hit on the idea of doing his act in a school. And the PTA paid for it. And the kids loved it! And the teachers were happy for a little break from class. And everyone had a really good time. And thus was born an industry which, to this day, most of the world doesn’t know exists.
But before long, performers found that many times entertainment was not enough. Educators made it clear that to justify taking kids out of class the programs should contribute to the educational process. Now here is where it gets interesting, because that term, “the educational process”, is open to many different interpretations. Books have been written, doctoral papers have been completed, lectures have been given and debates still rage over what exactly constitutes “the educational process”. Some maintain that anything cultural, artistic, scientific, literate, psychological, sociological or even just entertaining is an educational contribution. Others hold fast to the idea that nothing justifies taking kids out of class. “Time on task” is their mantra! While others are comfortable with whatever is related to what students are learning. Entertainers have been happy to oblige, turning their skills in entertainment techniques (Warning - see “Magic Shows in Drag”) to the task of engaging students’ imaginations and getting them excited about educational concepts. What kind of concepts? All of them. You can now find multitudes of programs focusing on a variety of core educational areas.
In addition, from time to time, ideas and concepts become “hot-button” issues as schools are encouraged to focus on certain specific concepts. Examples of this lately include the focus on anti-bullying, or climate change, or self-esteem. Some schools and districts are only interested in using assemblies to expose students to fine arts such as Ballet, Classical Music, visual arts or Theatre. Others only want traditional core curriculum subjects like science, history or writing. Lately, with the emphasis on testing of Reading and Math skills, a need has arisen for programs that focus on these areas. In our opinion, they are, if done well, all good. Whatever contributes to engaging a students mind and imagination will ultimately lead to a broadening of that students understanding of the world.
So first, you need to determine your needs. You want the program to be entertaining and exciting, obviously. But what field, what discipline, what subject? Fine Arts? Science? Writing? If you are able to have several programs in a year this is an easier question to answer, but if your budget limits you to one or two then you need to make some hard choices.
The best place to start is with the teachers and the principal. Try to find out if the staff have ideas or wants or needs. Is someone focusing on Earth Science? Maybe a grade level is focusing on astronomy or the founding fathers. Perhaps the whole school is struggling with writing scores, or math scores. There are school assemblies available (from Mobile Ed and elsewhere!) that cover all these themes. So start with the staff and find out if they need or want something specific. They don’t need to have a presenter or a company in mind necessarily, just an area of interest.
The next step is looking for options to fill those needs. We will talk about that next time!
Geoff Beauchamp is the Regional Manager of Mobile Ed Productions where "Education Through Entertainment" has been the guiding principal since 1979. Mobile Ed Productions produces and markets quality educational school assembly programs in the fields of science, history, writing, astronomy, natural science, mathematics, character issues and a variety of other curriculum based areas. In addition, Mr. Beauchamp is a professional actor with 30 years of experience in film, television and on stage. He created and still performs occasionally in Mobile Ed's THE LIVING LINCOLN