Redding School District

Jimmy was being a nuisance.  So much of one that Mr. Durband, the director of the school play, stopped the rehearsal cold.

“What seems to be the problem?” Mr. Durband asked. 

Jim, eyes dancing with mischief, pointed to himself feigning astonishment that he had been singled out as the cause of some disturbance.  Of course, Jim was quite often the cause of the disturbance. Especially of late.  So it was only reasonable that the weary director to proceed as in fact he did.   For the better part of two hours, Jim had been making half-whispered wisecracks, Dr. Durband observed, and then he exclaimed, “There will be no further disruptions this evening.  Is that quite clear?”  

Jim nodded, suddenly sober-faced, and assured Mr. Durband that he understood and at that moment the director felt a pang of sympathy for the harmlessly troublesome teenager.  

You see Jim had auditioned for the part of the Earl of Warwick.  An important role in Shaw’s classic St. Joan.  However, along with the many talented young thespians trying out was the particularly gifted Peter Sissons and it was he who got the part.  So Jim was given the inconsequential part, the non-speaking role of a monk.  A monk who only appears in the final scene of the play, standing in the background and presumably Jim was disappointed and restless.  And boy did he irresistibly interject irreverent asides throughout rehearsals.  I must have a talk with that young man Mr. Durband silently decided.

Therefore, at 8 pm following the evening’s rehearsals in privacy he did.  The director said, “You know choosing Peter over you was nothing personal.”  The boy very unconvincingly said that was all right and it didn’t matter.  “It’s your voice,” continued Mr. Durband.  “You speak so softly most of the time down in your throat swallowing your words. That what you are saying doesn’t carry across the room much less across the footlights.” 

“But what could he do about it?” Jim besieged. 

The director studied Jim’s expression and realized how very much this meant to the young man.  “Being heard takes more than just being loud,” he said.  “Certainly Jim Sissons had a big voice but it was his personality and his passion to make himself understood that projects what he says all the way to the back row.” 

Jim took it all to heart and he disrupted rehearsals no further.  The night of the play, he seemed content to stand quietly peering from the monk’s cloak. 

Peter Sissons, who magnificently portrayed the Earl of Warwick, became a newscaster one day. 

Jim? Whatever happened to him?  Well, his voice has been heard many times around the world.  For once upon a lesson profoundly learned, an aspiring young actor turned troubadour impressed himself on his own and each subsequent generation as few in history have.  The next time you reflect on that English schoolboy who swallowed his words without projecting you think about the brilliant future of Jim.  Yes, think about James Paul McCartney.

This story reminds me of the utmost importance of feedback.  Daniel Pink, the author of Drive states, "When we make progress and get better at something, it is inherently motivating. In order for people to make progress, they have to get feedback and information on how they're doing."

Every day we help our students work on understanding on how they can improve.  Sometimes that feedback in the classroom and sometimes it is in the hallway.  Feedback provides information that is necessary to the learning process. Even if the adult doesn’t provide feedback, students use some sort of information to take next steps in learning. Those steps can be anything from negative and counter-productive (“I flunked, as usual. I’ll throw this work in the trash on my way home”) to positive and very productive (“I wrote a great poem. Maybe I should try writing more poems”) and everything in between. At this point, hundreds of studies of feedback have been published, and reviews of these studies routinely conclude that feedback is the most important or nearly the most important variable affecting the amount and quality of student learning. 

I want to encourage you to think about all the interactions that we have with students each and every day and how you are helping students grow and learn through your feedback.

Have a wonderful weekend and thanks for all that you are doing to support our families.

Rob