Today I asked one of my former students (an acting student) about what he learned from me. This wasn’t an internet survey but a face to face question over lunch in a common area. His answers were surprising and I’d like to share them with you. You’re never entirely certain what your students are learning until you hear back from them. Today I heard back from one of them.
The first thing was a general overall thing this student learned from college in general: Time Management. If you read my fatherhood blog here at families.com you’ll find that somewhat amusing. However, the simple fact that a teacher can make you feel personally accountable for a deadline and not accept late work is something that can motivate a student towards improved time management.
The next two things may apply more specifically to acting… though I think that they are somewhat universal in their potential applications. One of the things was to make bigger decisions faster. Keep that in mind: make bigger decisions faster. This is related to the second which was to not worry about how you look or whether you are right. These two ideas, taken together, essentially say that it is okay to fail.
Saying that sounds ridiculous: It’s okay to fail. Isn’t the goal to get an “A” or at least a “C” or something? Well, yes… but school should also be the place to dream big, try new things, and be willing to fail. Failing is learning. If you really try something and put your entire being into the work and the project fails then you have learned a valuable lesson about what does and does not work. You can probably identify the point of failure and you will certainly never fail in the same way again. Failure also teaches caution.
There are probably other things that my students learned but this one student, off of the top of his head, probably recounted the biggest and most valuable lessons he learned because they were the most useful to his continued time in school. Perhaps these lessons are worth learning yourself. What do you think?