| | I've just finished T.J.'s Level 5 at i.O. Chicago. On our last day of class, T.J. told us, "I'm sending you to Noah. His teaching style is different from mine. He will not cuddle* you with his words."
Our first exercise today with Noah Gregoropoulos was to take turns standing silently and neutrally in front of the class for about forty-five seconds. Then, the class made observations about what neutral looked like for each person. ("Neutral" meaning no intentional layers of added quirks or character choices.) What unconscious ticks or habits did we observe? If this person was a character just as they are, what character would they be?
For instance, one guy stood with good posture and a smile. He had straight, white teeth. He also happened to be wearing a tie. Even without the tie, he seemed like a salesman or a politician. It was in his confidence and the way he was smiling. One girl stood with her eyes wide and her lips pursed so that she looked either angry or nauseated. She means business either way, and she won't talk to you unless she has to.
I was at the end of the line to go. I stood for my forty-five seconds and then listened to the discussion. After noticing that I was standing very straight (a side-effect of seven weeks of modern dance class), they noticed that I look with my eyes instead of with my whole head.
Then they discussed what kind of character I made them think of. For the record, these people were all strangers. I'd been in classes
with a couple of them before, but most of them had never met me. These
are first impressions.
One guy said, "She seems like that person at the library or on the bus who keeps looking over at you, not because she's interested in what you're doing, but because your iPod is too loud or you're tapping your fingers on your book. She probably won't actually tell you to shut up, though, unless you really do something to push her over the edge."
Another guy said, "Really? I thought of her more like that teacher that has a great connection with her students. She's amazing in the classroom, and the kids love her and work hard for her. She doesn't fit in with the teachers, though. If she has to spend time in the teachers' lounge, she sits in the corner and reads."
The last comment was from a guy named John. John said, "I thought she looked like that woman who is staring out the window and trying to be calm, but she knows that the gremlins are coming. They've come often enough that she knows she shouldn't be startled, so she's trying to play it off like she's not upset, like this is just another day with the gremlins."
So that is the first impression I give off: a passive-aggressive, misfit teacher whose home is often plagued by gremlins.
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Congratulations, Greenville DI. The East Texas region is tough, but GHS made a pretty clean sweep of it. Makes me nostalgic. I can't decide if I'm more proud of Tech (because Thomas is on it) or of Improv (because they're my progeny).
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We'll give you a complex and we'll give it a name ...
*Part of me wonders if I heard T.J. wrong, or if he meant to say "coddle." I prefer the image as I heard him say it.
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| | Posted 3/3/2008 1:53 AM - 139 Views - 11 eProps - 6 comments
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