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The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of Education "YOU NEVER UNDO THAT PROMISE TO YOURSELF": IDENTITIES AND AGENCY IN AN ANTI-BIAS, INTERACTIVE THEATRICAL TROUPE A Dissertation in Curriculum and Instruction by Sharlene E. Gilman Copyright 2011 Sharlene E. Gilman Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2011 ii The dissertation of Sharlene Elinor Gilman was reviewed and approved* by the following: Patrick Shannon Professor of Education Dissertation Adviser Chair of Committee Gail Boldt Associate Professor of Education Affiliate Faculty Women's Studies Yvonne Gaudelius Assistant Vice President & Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education Professor of Art Education & Women's Studies Jamie Myers Professor of Education Language, Culture, and Society Glendon W. Blume Professor of Education Graduate Program Coordinator for Curriculum and Instruction * Signatures are on file in the Graduate School iii ABSTRACT Identity, self, or voice are not fixed once-and-for-all, not static achievements, but are always in play, in process of becoming, in being achieved, broken, slipping apart, and being reconstructed as several and multiple – sometimes coherent and sometimes in contradiction. Butler (2005) drawing from Foucault's techniques of the self and Levinas' encounter, argues that as we try to make ourselves intelligible or recognizable to one another, we come to interrogate our and another's norms and conduct, and cultivate responsibility for one another. In interrogating assumptions of belief and action and their disruptions of habitual thinking, Dewey (1922/1952) suggested that, to make decisions more conscious, we engage in "dramatic rehearsal," finding choices in imagining and finding alternatives. This study of a high school, anti-bias and anti-bullying theatrical improvisation troupe, the Tolerance Troupe from Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania is both reflective and empirical. It intended to examine arts-based activism in play and in practice, set against social aggression in the school climate. It first establishes the need for anti-bias work in the schools, and then examines the ethical pedagogical work of an exceptional African-American teacher, the founder and mentor of the Tolerance Troupe to address it. Second, it looks at the students' Troupe experience as it shapes student-actors and Troupe alumni's stances and self-making through a community of practice, shaping identities, choices, and discourses. Last, it seeks to reveal ways this theatrical experience teaches and how and what its student-actors learn. I suggest that student awareness deepens from improvisation and practice at identification with multiple roles, as the actors create opportunities to see the constructedness of bias, of identities, and of rationalizations associated with these narratives and behaviors, turning theatrical play into an avenue of agency and hope. iv Table of Contents Prologue: On the Bus 1 Playbill: Acts and Scenes 7 Introducing the Tolerance Troupe: Overview 11 Youth identities and acting for justice 12 Cast of characters 13 Students and alumni 13 Harvey Edwards: Director, founder, mentor & activist 14 The Narrator 15 Setting: site, participants, and method 19 Time & place: location, location, location Plot: School climate and the hidden curriculum of identities 22 Social typing, cliques and consequences 23 Site and situation 1, Going Local: Micro-climate by the numbers 26 Site and situation 2, Going Local: Micro-climate, personal and political 30 First Contact, Youth Leadership 32 ACT ONE: Harvey Edwards, Director, Founder... 34 Scene 1, Action! Edwards in media res 35 Scene 2: Edwards' Narrative and Exemplars 42 All the World's a Stage, and Art is loving the World 47 Scene 3: Edwards' "Joker" As Cultural Pedagogue 51 ACT TWO: Performing Selves in a Ritual of Shock, in Ritual Time 66 Scene 1: Freshmen on Notice 66 Scene 2: Theatre Play as Meta-work 86 Scene 3: Return to the Rules of the Game, Principal in Performance 93 ACT THREE: Communities within Communities 98 Nesting Doll to Living Tree, Diversity into Collectivity 98 Scene 1: Lived Demographies 99 From the mainstream: "Race, it's a big thing..." 100 "No one ever calls it like it is" 102 "At first, maybe you did want to hear the jokes" 104 Perceived trade-offs 107 Scene 2: The Troupe at School 108 Cohesions and tensions 112 More than friendships 117 "I don't know if we would have ever crossed paths" 118 Strength in differences, strategic values 123 Scene 3: Becoming the Troupe 126 Audition is only the beginning 127 Questioners at the interview 130 Answerers at the interview 133 Learning in community 135 v ENTR'ACTE: Identity Bridges 142 A Moment of Exposition 143 ACT FOUR: Differences & Identities of Race and Gender 148 Scene 1: Difference and Identity: Students of difference on race 150 Scene 2: Anglo Students Talk Race 163 Scene 3: Gender and Teen Women's Sexuality 169 ACT FIVE: Multiplicity Matters 182 Scene 1: "There's not one way..." 183 "In life you see people act badly..." 194 Scene 2: "I'm, like, wow, a Tolerance Troupe skit" 197 ACT SIX: Teaching, Learning, and Living It 206 Scene 1: Alumni Lifelong Learning 207 Why discuss alumni first? 208 International feel 211 Leadership is living it 214 "Ever since I had kids..." 224 "It's not strangers, but it's about friends" 226 Scene 2: Ready, Set. Action! Interactive Pedagogy 229 Scene 3: "Practicing, like Practicing for Real Life..." 239 ACT SEVEN: "Nobody's Perfect..." Constraints 251 Scene 1: A Tale of Two Troupes 253 Scene 2: "Something Would Fall Out of my Mouth..." 260 Scene 3: Tolerance Discourse and Denial 265 A New (and Limited) Hope 270 "It's a good way to make a difference..." 274 "You have to be willing" 279 1. "You're just not going to change the entire world..." 280 2. "Tolerance has its place" 283 3. "If not now, maybe later" 285 4. "Making a difference is not saying to change a person" 286 Importance of adult support "A lot of people believe in you" 289 ACT EIGHT: High School Musical, Conclusion, and Coda 293 Scene 1: Action requires intervention 299 Scene 2: "What is to be done?" 303 A Coda in Two Songs 305 REFERENCES 313 APPENDIX: Interview Questions 323 1 PROLOGUE: On the Bus Mr. Edwards, the Tolerance Troupe, and I are riding back to Selinsgrove on the big yellow bus, an hour and a half each way through the green, rolling, Pennsylvania countryside in May. The Troupe and Edwards have just completed three performances for a high school assembly more than an hour's drive north, and everyone in the Troupe is quiet, tired. In a burst of energy, Edwards and the students sing along to a pop song they know that comes on the radio, and Edwards jokes around, dramatizing the lyrics, moving down the bus aisle, singing along with Troupe members who stay in their seats as he sways down the aisle. Everyone laughs and then grows quiet again. A few students are studying for a quiz they will take when they get back to Selinsgrove Area High; some are listening through earbuds to their private preferences in music, and most Troupe members are dozing; it's been a long day, and an intense one. The Tolerance Troupe travels where a school or organization asks them to. This high school that contracted this day's performances reported having interracial and ethnic fighting. The district, school site, or community organization lets mentor and originator of the Troupe, Edwards, know what issues will be most relevant to their student body or public audience, which skits would be the most helpful, the most effective to stir up thinking. The needs that the Troupe sets out to address are locally generated, but many of the topics represent common points of aggression and conflict in schools and communities. Generally, the Troupe acts out two separate skits as a set; at this rural school, they perform the ethnic intimidation skit and the homophobia skit, three times repeated with slightly different iterations for different ages of assemblies. The ethnic intimidation skit has special bite this week. Edwards prepped the Troupe at rehearsal when the first verdict of the Ramirez trial was announced. Out of the four all- American high school football players from Shenandoah, Pennsylvania who were charged with 2 the stomping-to-death of Luis Ramirez, only two students were charged in the assault and murder. On May 1, 2009, the two players charged with third degree murder and ethnic intimidation were acquitted, and convicted instead of misdemeanor simple assault (Urbina, 2009). The verdict came two days before rehearsal for Benton. Shenandoah High School is located in coal country, about forty-five miles from the borough of Selinsgrove. Residents of Shenandoah, who were quoted in the both local news accounts and in The New York Times report, disavow that the murder was a hate crime but only a street fight gone wrong, four against one, replete with racist slurs. Ramirez was here in central Pennsylvania as an undocumented worker. One community supporter of the three football players charged with beating Ramirez, interviewed on WNEP television news, asked rhetorically, "If he hadn't been here, would he have died? Would any of this had happened if he hadn't been here?" (November 13, 2008). Her views are consistent with at least a sizeable, vocal minority in the state and in the "neighborhood", including Selinsgrove's so to speak, and certainly in Schuylkill County, due east. During rehearsal for this traveling performance, Edwards started skit practice much like he starts his English classes at Selinsgrove High School, with current events, a fact or quote for the day, or a controversy in the news. This year, much of Edwards' "reading the world" begins with updates on the Ramirez case.