Theatre in Education: A Teacher’s Perspective

Published in Theatre in Education magazine for the Production of 2010 "Beyond Boundaries"

Dec 2008
When I decided to leave the lucrative IT Industry to pursue a career in teaching, many people dissuaded me but none from their hearts as all could see the fruits of following your dreams. I planned it for four years and finally I undertook a 17 day road trip from Bangalore to Delhi to prepare my mind for the change. On hindsight it seems ridiculously funny, like a child contemplating whether to enter a play area in a park is a good idea or not.

June 2009
This was not the first time I crossed a “mind” made boundary and once I entered Christ University and stood in the massive auditorium on inauguration day listening to the VC addressing, I knew it would not be the last. I could sense the tingling magic that was floating around. The soaring roof and beautiful stage beckoned my soul to rise and my heart was in my throat. The lines in my hand danced around mesmerized at the very possibility.

July 2010
I always loved theatre. When I was in school and college, I was fortunate enough to have acted in many plays, script some and direct a few. I used to look back on those days with nostalgia. TIE poster attracted my attention this summer and my mind started wondering of the possibilities of a second helping of theatre.

My days are very tight with teaching and mentoring students in the Department of Computer Science. Taking time out in the early morning for this seemed a bit difficult. The Certificate Course in Playback Theatre was meant to be more of a hobby when I started but it has been such a learning experience that it is hard to put the impact into words.

Two hour classes from 6:20 to 8:30 AM actually put in me so much energy that I feel I had gained more time in a day
• I was getting up at five in the morning
• Practicing for a corporate play from 4:30PM – 6:00PM
• Taking Theatre Workshop for MBA students on Sundays
• Directing two plays
• Giving moral support for my students of CMS / CME for Darpan
• Squeezing time to see Darpan Stage Events
• Teaching Computer Science using Theatre
• Activities/CIA to make a song/play on a computer theory paper
• Workshop for Placement based on Theatre

I feel I have become more expressive when I teach in class. I have discovered more sections in the library I did not know existed. When I tell stories to my kids in the night, they seemed to be enjoying it more than before. I actually wrote a poem after four years called Playbacker’s Prayer. I have expanded my student network in Christ University to different courses.

I am a peer of fellow play backers who are immensely talented and with electrifying spontaneity. I am a student of an outstanding teacher whose methodology is treading the fine line between the real and the spiritual world. I am an actor working under two directors who have a passion and vision which makes you just stare at the direction they point.
August 2010
It has been only a month since this teacher joined Playback Theatre but one thing is clear you will not be able to take the theatre out of this teacher because “Theatre in Education” is his new mantra.

“Success is counted sweetest by those who ne’er succeed
To comprehend the nectar requires the sorest need”
Emily Dickinson

Playbacker;s Prayer

Background : I am taking part in a Certificate Course in Playback Theatre, it is an amazing experience as you get to think, act, innovate three times a week for 3 months. This poem was inspired by a great teacher and a very energetic and innovative class.

(half way thru the course)

Dear Lord,

If life is a play
Teach me to act according to your way

If life is a walk
What pace will I take
What friends will I make

If life is a freeze
What opportunity will I seize

If life is machine
Teach me to make my repetitions fine
Happy even on a production line

If life is a tableau
Teach me to add value in the show
And innovate on my toe

If life is a fluid sculpture
Teach me not to rupture
The very fabric of your structure

If life is a script
Even I have no line I am fine
But if I have one, not my wish but thine

If life is a play
Teach me to act according to your way

Think First Workshop

Conducted a 6 day workshop this summer holidays for the B.Sc students here at Christ along with other teachers in the department.

The basic idea of the workshop is that students try coding , debugging on their own ..... and maybe some would come to have the "Joy of Programming" ..... and other to atleast "Think First before they Google"

We tried to mix Interactive Sessions, Theory Classes, Leadership Games and Lab on these six days. I enjoyed preparing for the same and even more enjoyed conducting some of the sessions.

The 60 odd students were a great bunch to teach, and many performed much beyond my expectations.

Some Games to increase thinking:
Building Tower
Building Bridge with newspaper
Communicating with a string !!
Fairy Tale Dramatization
Presentations with Ads
Puzzles etc

Thanks for all the support from the wonderful students of CMS / CME. Looking forward to teach them Database this semester

A budding journalist in the class has also posted a blog,
Vacation Workshop

Evolution

Can you imagine how much time it takes for a stone to become a pebble.
How much time for the Himalayas to get formed that is a rise of around 8 kms from the sea level of Tethys Sea?
How many generations from early man to me? How Many Generations for Giraffe to develop his neck so long?
How many years back did my mother tongue come into being?
How did the eye evolve, kidney come into being, heart began to beat?
If man has ruled the earth for 100,000 years …. Dinosaurs have done it for 150,000,000 years …..What kind of laptops did they have ……… was man the first specie to go to the moon and watch LCD TV?
Does the DNA code have “if” conditions and “loops” like a programming language? Are A,G,S,T amino acid actually just bits like 0,1 in a computer program
Where is the DNA’s compiler, linker and loader ?
For every human alive there are a million insects? There are insects in the deserts , forest, poles, flying over Himalayas, living in crude oil well, salty water. Who is king “homo sapiens” or “mosquitoes?”
You may know Charles Darwin travelled 5 years in HMS Beagle way back in 1831 before he published “Origin of Species” but have you read his grand father’s poem !
Organic Life beneath the shoreless waves
Was born and nurs’d in oceans pearly caves
First forms unseen by spheric glass
Move on the mud, or pierce the watery mass
Then as successive generations bloom
New powers acquire and larger limbs assume


These books are great reads:
Evolution: Carl Zimmer
Origin of Species: Charles Darwin
Life on Earth: David Attenborough
Climbing Mount Improbable: Richard Dawkins
The Earth through Time: Levin

eChalk and Talk

Having moved laterally into teaching after 12 years in Industry, one area where I realized I need more practice was in the effective use of the black board. I realized early on that explaining an example on board used to take me more time compared to explaining on a pre prepared/planned presentation. Another problem was that to explain sorting, I had to juggle with a lot of numbers and presentation become more cumbersome to pull up to explain a particular doubt.
So I improvised and started using “eChalk” !! I discovered the use of MS Excel a bit more for this purpose. This led to the first excel sheet to explain different kinds of sort.
Excel can also be used to explain something on the fly, easy to type in numbers and even to make diagrams. I explained Binary Search Trees using an excel sheet
To capture brainstorming ideas or discussion points, excel can also be of help.
Some key features
• Typing Numbers
• Color Coding
• Drawing Diagrams
• Zoom in facility
So normally there is phrase used “Chalk and Talk” what do you think about “eChalk and Talk”

Check out Sorting Excel Sheet
Sorts Explained

Teaching Data Structures

I am a faculty in the Computer Science Department in Christ University

In the last 7 months I have been fortunate enough to teach Data Structures in M.Sc, MCA and even a few classes for MPhil

Attached are the samples of a few ppts I used. These are teaching aids and cannot be used as self learning tutorial.

Microsoft Presentation gives amazing flexibility in creating your deck of slides, do explore the package.

AVL Trees
BTree
Graph
Slides Deck

If any teacher finds these Slide Decks useful feel free to use the same

Recession

Context: Hope in the time of recession. Writing this article with a pen in one hand and a job in the other may seem a bit high winded but I will request you to read on ……..
(I would like to thank Pragya for giving the chance to contribute to the Comp Sc PG Department Newsletter)

Published in INFOBAHN, Christ University

I will survive

• Because challenges cannot break me
• Vultures of gloom cannot take me
• Fire cannot consume me,
• Rejection cannot drown me

Not only will I survive but

• Challenges will mold and let me grow roots
• Gloom will teach me to happy in little things and still bear fruits
• Fire will make me stronger
• Failure will make me strive higher

Because when going gets tough, the tough get tougher
Perspective

We only see the plane flying in the sky and we strive to be one. Little do we ponder as to how much time it waited patiently in the imagination of early man in the drawings of Da Vinci to the ideas of numerous others to the belief of Wright Brothers and finally to the opportunity of aviation fuel …….. that today a thing which more than 1000 kilogram can fly.

When we compare man’s achievement of flying a plane and the need to get a job to make ends meet we may come to perspective. When we were young we dreamt of greatness like being a sports star, artist or scientist and here we are at the very onset of our adult life and we are choking at the very thought of failing.

· We will need to be patient (and not expect a job 6 months before)

· We will need to be disciplined and diligent (to drop a 100 CV’s in different companies)+

· We will need to maintain a positive attitude (then only company number 101 will recruit us)

· We will need to make allowance in our expectation (salary, location, profile)

· We should manage our time well and make sure our fundamentals our strong and our key skills are honed

· We need to be realistic as we may need to work in an NGO,BPO or as a Salesman

And in spite of all this we still may not get a job THEN we need to have the wisdom to see that we are jobless not because of our own limitation.

Then and only then will we have the hope that when the time comes we will get our break. Any organization would like to recruit a mind who is patient, disciplined, flexible and has a good attitude. A mind with ability to learn on his own, realistic and wise. A person whose mind, heart and soul has been molded in the fire of challenges.

Success is not dependent on IQ, it needs a brain alright but it clearly needs the head its inside should be screwed on right. And trust a challenging situation like recession to get any fault we have collected in the early years’ right.

Just like recession is temporary slump, so was the ridiculous high salary some people got at boom time a temporary jump! So do not be lamenting on the spilt milk ….. the milk which you were about to buy with the money you were about to get from the lottery you were about to win.
Recession 2001

In 2001 a whopping 2.7 million jobs were lost.

A good friend of mine was fresh out of college in that year. He dropped more than a hundred CV’s in Electronic City, ITPL, Koramangala and Jayanagar. His first salary was a paltry Rs 1500. He worked extra long working hours for more than a year. Today he has a very good pay package but does he look back and curse those time, no my friends he looks at it with nostalgia. My NCERT scholarship holding sister who lost her job in recession today earns 3 times her otherwise would be salary. CFA and MBA are feathers in her cap she added (apart from the MTech she already had before recession).

These are not exceptions as I do not know a single person who did not have a job in 2001 and who still does not have a job
Growing Roots

The biggest challenges many of the IT Companies have when they recruit from campus is that they need to arrange a training program to assimilate the new joinees. This assimilation program ideally just needs to cover the organization culture, processes and best practices. But this is far from what it is today in India. Campus program are quiet extensive. A lot of time is spent teaching programming basics, SQL and some key fundamentals. Some organizations spend considerable time also on behavioral skills.

It is the prime responsibility of each job seeker to be honing their skills, not just to clear the interview and get a job but to do well on the job. So if challenges come grow your roots deep and spread them far. Bamboo is one of the fastest growing grass at a tremendous rate of 2 feet a day but what many people do not know is that the first 4 years it does not show any outward sign of growth as it spreading its rhizome system of roots deep and wide.

So aspire to be a bamboo in the tough times ahead and success will find you. Do not become like seeds caged up in a box in a cozy kitchen but bury yourself and build your roots so that one day you may become a mighty tree.

Conclusion

O Recession, I am like champagne,

Shaking me would be in vain

I WILL shoot up without disdain

Footnotes

· Why Aviation Fuel: Leonardo Da Vince was living 500 yeas ago, pedaling up the hill is tough enough taking off like a plane !

· Heaviest plane AN225 loading capacity is around 500,000 kgs !

· 2.7 million jobs were lost according to one study in the recession of 2001

· “Mighty Oak tree” and “tough get tougher” are not my original quotes

· Check out Bamboo on Wiki, some have grown at 4 feet a day