All you need is Love

Charlotte Tervit - Vice Principal 

If you live on planet Earth (or at least South Africa) you would spent the past few weeks with a barrage of red hearts, love songs and mountains of chocolates - every shop selling heart shaped goodies, radio stations blurting out love songs and all tv channels airing rom coms. Even schools are on board with friendship days and anonymous cards and roses handed out by the dozen.

This has made me think a lot about the "love" our kids experience when at school and at activities such as drama.

In this context love equates, for me, to kindness, respect, acceptance and compassion. These are all principles we hold very dear at Helen O'Grady Drama Academy. One of our overarching rules is that you never hurt someone, their feelings or their bodies. We respect each other and always choose to be kind, rather than cruel, regardless. We embrace our differences and similarities and celebrate the wonderful diversity of our students.

As one mom recently told me, part of her attraction to Helen O'Grady as a drama option for her son is the great diversity in cultures and backgrounds of the children in his class.

But in order for the diversity of our students to work and be a positive aspect of our classes there needs to be a whole lot of kindness, respect, acceptance and compassion. In other words, LOVE.

Interestingly we have spoken about love and kindness quite a lot since the start of the year with our Kindy students (ages 3-6), first about loving our pets and currently we are talking about loving ourselves. We read a wonderful book called  "I Like Myself” by Karen Beaumont in our theme called "All about Me"

I've often written about how drama classes must be a sanctuary for our students, a place where they feel completely comfortable being themselves, and it all starts with liking yourself, nay, LOVING yourself. And by not letting what other people might think or say about you get you down. Now, this is not easy for anyone, not even for adults, let alone tweens and teens! But drama is the perfect space to do exactly that!

In "I like Myself" my favourite lines are:

"And I don't care in any way what someone else might think or say."


"I may be called a silly nut or crazy cuckoo bird - so what?
I'm having too much fun, you see, for anything to bother me!"
"No matter if they stop and stare,
no person
ever
anywhere
can make me feel that what they see is all there really is to me."












What an amazing opportunity and privilege we have to make kids feel comfortable in their own skins, feel confident in their own "silly nuttiness" or "crazy cuckoo birdyness" and know that their true value lies in what is inside and not on the outside.

If that is how you see yourself you can't help but see and treat others in the same way - look past what is on the outside and really care about who people are on the inside. Respect them and show true kindness and compassion.

So, in the end, all you really need is love 😊
                  ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️



Article by Charlotte Tervit

I like to move it, move it!

 Every week we include Movement in our Drama Classes. Why? You may ask...Did you know that there are three main parts to acting? Creative work, voice work, and movement. It is vital that you embody your character both emotionally and physically, and this is one of the reasons why movement so is important! There are other reasons, like self-awareness and spatial awareness. What is my personal space? How do I fit into and move around in the space I am performing in, be it a room or stage, or even a designated outdoor space. And very importantly, how do I share the space with my classmates?

 

During the past few weeks we have looked at rhythm and what the difference is between even and uneven rhythms. How do the even and uneven rhythms make us feel and how do we change the way we move when we change from the one to the other? We work on this step by step and eventually we apply this to character work during our Mime to Music activities. Students love this part of the lesson where they can explore creative ways to move their bodies!

When working closely with students on Parent Presentations or our Year End Productions one realizes how important it is to include movement skills as part of the drama lessons. While performing on stage, students have to know where to stand, where to move to and make sure they use different levels and their space effectively in order to make the show appealing to the audience.

Movement activities help the students to be “stage fit” as they need to be able to move, talk and sing during a performance. During the course of the year, we work on this multitasking skill, so that they can perform with gusto and energy when the time comes for their Year End Production!

At Drama we make "Magic Mistakes"

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Our children’s lives have become so stressful and they are under so much pressure academically, on the sports field and even in their social lives, they have come to believe that failure is not an option and mistakes are not acceptable. This however is simply not the truth. Mistakes are the most magical moments in which one can learn and grow and find out what would work better and sometimes even who we really are and want to become.

  

 

I would love to say there is no such thing as a mistake in Drama and that you can never do anything wrong, but that is not always true. When improvising or workshopping a performance piece, sure, there is no right or wrong as it is purely your imagination or your interpretation, so how can you get it wrong? But, for instance when you are in a play and you need to memorise lines, where to stand, when to enter and exit, and so forth, you can get it wrong. In such a case it is very important to get things right for the sake of your fellow cast members and the play as a whole. Fortunately, making mistakes, more often than not, lead to exciting new discoveries or a better understanding of what one was supposed to have done or said.

 

I can’t tell you how many times one of my students would “make a mistake” and start apologising, only for me to stop them and comment that I actually like the whey they said the line, moved across the stage, or the timing of the punchline much better than the way it was intended to be or how I originally envisioned it. Sometimes the “mistake” can open the door to a discussion of why we have to do or say something in a certain way and all the students benefit from the discussion, walking away with a better understanding of the spoken language or performance technique.

I know most people hate the dreaded “WHY?” but to tell you the truth, as a teacher I love it when the kids start asking why when they’ve made a mistake – it shows their curiosity, their desire to learn and improve, and their confidence in our relationship as teacher and student that they will not be ridiculed for being wrong or wanting an explanation. 

So, I challenge you from now on to make a magical learning experience out of every mistake, and show your students or your children that there is space in their lives for mistakes, and failure is not the end, but just a doorway to new knowledge, experiences and creative discoveries.

By Charlotte Tervit

Vice-Principal