Joseph Featherstone, a social historian, speaks about schools as society’s ‘theater,’ the large stage on which our major cultural sagas are enacted and opportunities and casualties of social change are most visible and vivid. We look inside schools – and at the relationship between schools and their communities – and see, in microcosm, the struggles over how we define and enact equality, justice, oppression, and democracy in our society. We witness the dramas surrounding immigration, assimilation, individuation, and indoctrination. . . .
Inevitably, teachers embody many of the schools’ social and cultural traits; they are the human face of the institution, receiving, absorbing, and deflecting the praise and blame. . . Teachers’ interactions with parents, then, are an expression of these broader forces. . . .
Is theater a good metaphor to describe the relationship between schools and their communities? Would anyone care to share stories (good or bad) about parent/teacher interactions?
I love a good metaphor. Let’s roll.
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I’d ask: If teachers are actors, are parents actors, stagehands, directors, or audience members?
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I’d say all 5, depending on the age of the kid, the circumstances of the parent, and the personality of the parent.
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Some parents are actors in the play called “Non School Hours.” It runs til Age 5, and then the play that runs each night and weekend. Other parents don’t cast themselves in this role.
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Some parents are audience members, expecting the teacher actors to “Do all the work.” Their kids show up for school unready to learn.
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Some parents are stagehands, shuttling the scenery around, dropping their kids off, having them dressed appropriately, etc.
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Some parents are stage managers. In this version, teachers are directors and kids are actors. Teachers “direct” by setting academic expectations for kids, and parents support the teachers by making sure the kids actually do their work, backing the teachers when the kids misbehave.
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Some parents, particularly among the well-to-do, think of themselves as directors. They do not have high regard for teachers (or coaches), and believe parents sometimes have to tell teachers what to do (often to indulge their children).
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All teachers want parents to star in the play called Non School Hours.
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Teachers in high-poverty schools want parents who at least do the bare minimum of stagehands, and preferrably act as stage managers.
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Teachers in suburban and private schools want parents who will NOT direct them, and don’t mistake “stage managing” for “actually reciting the kids’ lines for them…ie, doing their kids’ homework and projects.”
and the parents are the producers, so to speak. Maybe the politicians or the DOE are the authors of the plays. The kids are the actors in this scenario.
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Unfortunately, I find that some teachers wish that the parents would stay off the set, and just leave the “artists” alone to do their magic.
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I guess I picked up this book because I am hoping that there is a way to improve the collaboration between the parents and the teachers.
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What was that line about the strutting and fretting? If we are all actors, maybe the theater metaphor is more effective.
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Off Broadway, experimental and innovative? Or a cheap parlor trick to steal money from the real theatre? Discuss.