Relating Theatre To My Major

Ever since I was little I always looked up to my teachers. As I grew older and older I saw where they had more and more influence on my life. Eventually I realized I wanted to be one of those teachers who are able to influence children’s lives in a positive way. I am planning on doing a dual major in Early Childhood Education and Elementary Education.


Since I was eighteen I have worked at my local YMCA Daycare. I mostly work with the pre-schoolers, three through five year olds. Preschoolers are the man age group I would be working with if I would get a job using my Early Childhood Education. Smaller children like preschoolers are especially troubled by distress in others around them. They do not understand yet the troubles of the world so a good preschool teacher needs to also be a good actress. They need to be able to hide their emotions whenever they are around the children so the children do not become upset and everything turns to chaos. There is always going to be activities that are not that exciting for adults like “Ring Around The Rosy”, but as a Preschool teacher I would have to act just as excited and happy as the kids are. With an age group like that one emotions spread like wildfire so it is my job to act as happy and excited as can be so the children can enjoy themselves. Another similarity between the responsibilities of a pre-school teacher and theatre is how the area is set up. In theatre the set is arranged to eliminate as many blind spots as possible which is similar to that of childcare. When thinking about how to set up a room we need to think about what area is going to be used for and if that area can be seen easily. Another aspect that is the same is the use of costumes. Little children love to play dress up and make believe. As a teacher it would be my job to determine what kinds of costumes would be appropriate for my kids to have and how accidently they should be constructed. For theatre use more expensive fabrics would be appropriate while less expensive materials would be more suited for children since they would most likely be destroyed in no time.
Similarly to theatre, elementary teachers need to be able to adapt older materials to new ideas. Like in theatre older ideas need a makeover every once in a while to be able to capture a new audience. An example of this is “Romeo and Juliet” for instance. The script “Romeo and Juliet” is one of the great classic love stories, but every once in awhile it needs someone to come along and give it a makeover so it can reach a new generation. In my English class in high school my teacher choose to present the material to us as a script first, then we watched a older film version of it and then finally the mid 90’s film version. Whenever we were asked about what version was easier for us to understand the majority of the class voted that the 90’s version was easier to understand. Similarly concepts taught in elementary school need makeovers at times to so they are more relatable to current students. It may be as easy as substituting apples to perform math visually or changing names in a story being taught. As with anything in life a passion for doing what you do makes any task simpler. Actors would not choose to act unless they loved it and in a similar fashion a love of teaching makes it easier to teach. In conclusion, we are all masters of the theatre in our everyday life even if we do not realize it. We create a character of what we want the world to view us as and we act accordingly. In reality sometimes we become so engrossed in acting the part of the character we want others to view us as that we lose ourselves in the process.