Improv is usually associated with comedy groups like the Upright Citizens Brigade or Chicago’s Second City. But classroom teachers also use improvisation exercises to help their students work together and become more creative. A new program is training city teachers how to use these improv techniques. But the program is funded by a controversial organization. WNYC’s Beth Fertig has more.
REPORTER: Every day, Fourth grade teacher Rachel Farmer at PS 165 in Brooklyn gives her students a short break from their lessons for something completely different.
FARMER: Audience, give a good audience response clap right now. And cut. And let’s begin.
REPORTER: The kids watch as six of their classmates act out different parts of a machine.
KID: Boop. Boop. Boop.
REPORTER: The machine kids stand or crouch next to each other making funny noises and coming up with their own individual motions.
KID: Chah chah,
KID: Urgh, Urgh…
REPORTER: As they move their arms and legs up and down, trying not to giggle, the rest of the class has to figure out what they’re doing.
FARMER: What are they, director?
KID: Um, a train.
REPORTER: The machine is one of many improvisation games Farmer has been using with her 24 students here in Brownsville. In this class, games aren’t just about having fun.
FARMER: They’re learning how to function as a team which is very, very important in a classroom environment.
REPORTER: Being on a team also means learning how to listen. In another exercise, several kids take turns counting with their eyes closed.
KIDS: Three, six, nine, twelve
REPORTER: If two of them say the same number at the same time, they start all over again.
FARMER: Ready, eyes closed…
REPORTER: Farmer says this teamwork has taught her students to respect one another, and nine year old Jamel Davis agrees.
JAMEL: We changed like cause last year we were arguing, and we were fighting, every day we had a fight and stuff and now because of Ms Farmer we’re a good team now and we don’t argue or anything now.
REPORTER: Rachel Farmer is one of eleven teachers – most of them in the city schools - who have spent the past year learning these improvisation activities. The program is taught by Carrie Lobman, an associate professor of early childhood education at Rutgers University. Lobman has co-authored a new book called “Unscripted Learning ” – with more than 100 improv games for teachers. She says they also help kids become more creative.
LOBMAN: Play has gotten a reputation as being either frivolous or very instrumental meaning you play something in order to learn a particular thing. And in my opinion the value of play for human beings is in the ways that it opens us up, we take risks.
REPORTER: Lobman learned these improv games when she was a Pre-K teacher. But she didn’t study at a conventional theater. She trained at the East Side Institute - a controversial organization founded by psychotherapist Fred Newman, who helped Lenora Fulani run for president. Fulani and Newman have been accused of making anti-Semitic comments. They also used to lead the New York Independence Party.
REPORTER: At the East Side Institute, Newman practices what’s called social therapy. Critics have labeled it a cult, partly because Newman doesn’t discourage therapists from sleeping with their clients. Social therapists call mainstream psychology a failure because it focuses on the individual. Instead, they describe people as performers in a group ensemble.
REPORTER: And that’s the connection to improv. The East Side Institute has a theater, and it supports a popular after-school program called the All Stars, which has gotten financial help from the city. The Institute is also funding Carrie Lobman’s teacher training program. The eleven fellows in this year’s class are getting $2,500 to study improv. At PS 165, where two teachers are in the fellowship, Principal Fran Ellers says the program is working.
ELLERS: There is less arguing between the students, there’s much more support working together, cheering each other on and that has been a major difference.
REPORTER: Ellers says she was referred to the East Side Institute two years ago when she asked some consultants for advice about team-building activities. She didn’t know about Fred Newman or social therapy. Since then, she’s seen no signs of anything controversial.
ELLERS: You know, whoever comes in to my building with whatever program they are monitored by myself and my staff and if there is ANY concern they wouldn’t be allowed back. And I have not had any concern, I had not had any complaints from parents, staff members, students.
REPORTER: When asked by WNYC for his opinion, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein issued a statement noting that the city has no contract with the East Side Institute. He added that while his office doesn’t sanction the program, it also doesn’t micromanage teachers.
REPORTER: Many educators have found a positive connection between the arts and learning. Teachers just need to have good classroom management skills. Carrie Lobman certainly isn’t the first to focus on improv. And if anyone thinks the East Side Institute is trying to gain a foothold in the public schools, by funding her training program, she says they’re wrong.
LOBMAN: It’s improv so we teach them some performance activities and they do all sorts of different things with them, so no – I think we’re attempting to help people develop. What they do with their development we don’t control or try to control or desire to control.
KAILAH: I go like this. FARMER: Next!
REPORTER: In Rachel Farmer’s classroom, nine year old Kailah Garven moves in a circle adjusting the poses of her classmates in a sculpture game. They’re supposed to be standing like rock stars. Kailah doesn’t know the meaning of the word improvisation. She just knows her class plays more than others.
KAILAH: For us in this classroom learning is fun. The games that we learn it’s also fun so, fun is games and games is for us to learn.
REPORTER: For WNYC I’m Beth Fertig