Dear Readers,
At the middle school where I used to work, all the teachers were supposed to put together websites to help parents keep track of what their kids were doing. Students could also use the websites to keep track of homework and stuff. Here’s the teacher website I put together:
http://bbird.myteachersite.org/teacher/site/index.cfm?page=910
In a few months that link won’t work anymore, so I decided to copy and paste most of the stuff from the website to Telemoonfa Time. Enjoy:
March 24, 2010 letter about the plays
Dear Parents/Guardians of CMS drama students,
March 24, 2010
In drama class so far, we’ve learned the basics of using our voices and bodies to create distinct characters, performed monologues and performed scenes, and now we’re getting ready to perform one-act plays.
First Period is doing these three plays:
1] Miss Louisa and the Outlaws by Frances B. Watts. It’s about two outlaws who hide in a one-room old-fashioned schoolhouse in the old American West. Miss Lousia, a strict and clever schoolteacher, keeps the outlaws in the schoolroom until the Sheriff arrives.
2] The Saga of Davey Rocket by Ruthe Massion Tausheck. It’s a melodrama about a futuristic family, the Dimplewarts, who is about to get their home taken away by Scorpio. The villainous Scorpio claims to have the deed to the lot of land the Dimplewart’s house is built on. One of the Dimplewart daughters contacts Davey Rocket, a hunky space hero, and Davey Rocket helps to save the day.
3] The Bookworm by Gwen Chaloner. It’s about a little girl, Betty, who stays in a library afterhours and encounters a magical creature, the Bookworm. Books come alive as the Bookworm opens Betty’s eyes to the wonder of books.
Second Period is doing these two plays:
1] Visit to the Planets by Hathaway Kale Melchior. It’s about two boys who build a spaceship with imagination and fly around the solar system and learn about the planets.
2] A Doctor for Lucinda by Margaret Mantle. It’s about a young woman, Lucinda, who pretends to be mute so she can avoid marrying and old rich man who her father wants her to marry. A quirky doctor enters, identities get mistaken, and hilarity and slapstick ensue.
Second Period will perform their plays on Tuesday April 27th at 6:30 pm on the middle school stage in the cafeteria. First Period will perform their plays on Thursday April 29th at 6:30 pm, in the same place. I’m encouraging all my drama students to come to both performance nights, but they are only required to come the night they are in the performance. The performances are free.
Basically, I’m asking for these three things:
1] Provide transportation to get your child here by 6:00 pm on the night of performance. There will be no busses for this activity.
2] If necessary, rearrange your child’s schedule so he or she can participate in this play. If something can’t be moved, or if your child becomes sick, let me know as soon as possible so that we can get a replacement actor.
3] Come and enjoy the show!
Sincerely,
Mr. Telemoonfa
Course Information
Drama One is an introduction to the exciting world of the theatre. In this class, students can expect to harness the power of their wonderful voices and bodies and apply that power into the age-old craft of acting. Students will also learn about playwriting, collaboration, technical theatre, script analysis, and other theatrical subjects. Students will also get the chance to be a part of a real theatrical performance. It is my hope that students will leave drama with an appreciation for the theatre, a basic familiarity with several plays, and a boosted confidence in their own public speaking and public performance skills. And maybe they'll even get bit by the acting bug!
About Mr. Telemoonfa
I grew up in Tucson Arizona. I’m married and my wife and I have one darling little daughter.
I recently graduated from Northern Arizona University with a double major in English Education and Theatre Education. Being a drama teacher at Combs Middle School is my first foray into teaching.
I have been involved with theatre since high school. In addition to performing in various monologues and scenes during drama classes, I played Rusty in Up the Down Staircase, The Narrator in The Good Doctor, and I wrote and directed a one-act comedy called SpaceApe Takeover.
At Eastern Arizona College, I played a concentration camp inmate in Another Gate, a mobster in Psycho Night at the Paradise Lounge, a psychiatrist in Ace of Hearts, Richard Diamond and Mr. Bickerson and others in An Evening of Old Time Radio, and George in The Actor’s Nightmare.
At Northern Arizona University I played Granpa in The Grapes of Wrath and the Logician in Rhinoceros, and I directed a one-act tragedy called The Youngest Shall Ask.
Aside from educational settings, I played a pizza delivery boy in a full-length comedic movie that a friend of mine made called Pizza Men. I also played Editor Webb in Our Town at a community theatre in Flagstaff.
I also enjoy reading and writing poetry, and I actually won second place one time at a Poetry Slam in Flagstaff.
I love theatre and I love teaching theatre to youngsters. I hope to be able to pass on my love of theatre to the next generation.
Thanks for reading, and have a nice day.
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It might be fun to contrast the rosy picture I tried to paint for parents via my teacher website with blog posts like this one. Ha ha ha. What actually happened in my classrooms and what I tried to pretend were happening in my classrooms were very different things, especially near the end of the school year. Near the end of the school year, things got really bad. I shut the door and I shut the curtains. When things were going bad, I was so scared that at any moment the Principal or a parent would come walking in and see my circus of a classroom.
Maybe I shouldn't compare my classes to a circus, though. Circuses are fun and entertaining.
My classes were more like The Lord of the Flies.
Ha ha ha.
I consider teaching to be one of the biggest failures of my life.
I've told that to a few people- I failed at teaching. And when I told them that I failed at teaching, they tried to comfort me and said something like, "well, it's not really failure if you learned more about yourself and about the world," or, "Oh, you didn't fail, you just... succeeded in a different way."
But I don't think I'm looking for consolation when I tell people that I failed at teaching. It's been almost three weeks since school got out, and so I've had some time to think, and now I think I'm at peace with my failure. I recognize that I failed, but that's OK.
I don't teach anymore.
Sure, I could be bitter. I could blame the system. I could say that the schools aren't strict enough. I could say that corporal punishment or uniforms or prayer ought to be put back in schools. I could say that parents these days don't do a good enough job of instilling respect into their children.
But the truth is, even with all those systemic problems, some teachers are flourishing; some students are doing wonderful things in our public schools.
(I think I could have succeeded at teaching, maybe, if I just would have tried harder, or maybe if my personality was different. It's hard to say. I don't want to discourage people who want to be teachers. Maybe they'll be great at it. The nation needs good teachers.)
Remember Jaime Escalante.
According to educational folklore, and the movie Stand and Deliver, Jaime Escalante dealt with students much worse than the ones I dealt with. And he taught in a much more troubled school district. But Mr. Escalante did amazing things with his classrooms. Amazing, glorious things.
Too bad there aren't more Jaime Escalantes around.
When I finished cleaning out my classroom and turning in my keys, near the end of last month, it was like a huge burden had been lifted off of my shoulders. I felt so free and happy.
I don't teach anymore. It feels so good to say that.
Oh, I suppose I teach some of my new co-workers things, and I suppose I teach Primary on Sundays at Church, and once in a blue moon I give a home teaching message and a family home evening lesson, but those are very different kinds of teaching.
And a funny thing is, some of my students might think that I succeeded in teaching. There were some students in some of my classes who really learned. They were the good kids, the smart kids who took initiative. Yeah, it's nice to think that some of my students really liked drama and got a lot out of it, and will continue with it in high school or in community theatre.
And I had a few good months there. January and February and early March were pretty good. But then in late March, and in April, and in May, my classes went downhill. The monsters took over.
Now I've got a different job that I really enjoy. The Lord led me to the job I have now.
I like the people I work with.
I love the people I work with, honestly. They're great people. They're happy people. And they're good workers. And I love the lack of bureaucratic nonsense that was so prevalent at school. I love the way my new job makes sense. Everything about it makes sense. I know when I'm working hard. I know when I'm doing a good job. My muscles get a little tired, and I sweat, and I find myself smiling a lot. I find myself having great conversations with my co-workers as we work together. I respect everyone there, and people respect me.
The company I work for, Severtson Corporation, is a beautiful, shining example of what can happen in America where people are willing to work hard, take risks, make investments, and rely on God. It's getting harder to grow a business these days, with all the crippling government regulations, and with the rising costs of health care, and with cap and tax looming, and with taxes increasing. And it's a shame the way manufacturing has slowly been exported. But still, there are American businesses out there that are doing well. I was lucky and blessed enough to find one of them that was hiring.
And I really feel like I can be myself there. I couldn't be myself at school. No way. I had to be all stiff and official. And if I tried to be silly or crack jokes, the students would take advantage of me and break the rules I tried to enforce.
Plus, I'm thankful to simply have a job right now, in this economy. Gosh, the news can be depressing sometimes.
And I'm not stressed out anymore! I used to hate going to bed at night when I knew that the next day I had to face a classroom full of monsters. (Not all of them were monsters... in fact... they were all decent human beings... you know what I mean) I used to fret about school all the time. I was grumpier then, when I was teaching. I was stressed out. I thought about how the students were judging me, about how the administration and my fellow teachers were judging me, and about how the parents were judging me. I used to worry about my lesson plans. I used to worry about the students misbehaving in class. I used to worry that at any moment I could be sued for negligence because some kid would get hurt in my class.
But now I don't have to worry about that stuff anymore.
Goodnight.
Sincerely,
Telemoonfa
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