Ready to take the Cuomo Challenge?

An Open Letter to NYS Gov. Andrew Cuomo

RE: Taking the Cuomo Challenge - Transforming NY Schools

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Dear Gov. Cuomo,

On April 17, you challenged us all to transform, to look at things differently. Now, I challenge you to follow your own words as you make the choice on reopening New York schools this fall.

I am a National Board Certified high school teacher in Schenectady, with a wife who teaches in Averill Park and two daughters who are AP students. I  know that every teacher wants more than anything to return to school with their students - when it is safe. While the likelihood of students or staff dying from COVID-19 may be small, the only acceptable number of deaths is 𝟬.

It seems clear from early comments on local school plans for reopening that there is not a single answer that will satisfy everyone. Not so long as we must change our pre-pandemic norm of in-person schooling. So let us take the opportunity to radically transform education for the time being with a full scale virtual model.

Will this be easy? Absolutely not. 

Will a new wave of COVID-19 infections force us to do this at some point this year? All indicators points to yes.

One of the things that made virtual teaching so challenging for everyone last spring is that we were thrown into it and adjusted as we went. It was “crisis teaching,” and everyone did their best. But now, rather than dilute our efforts with working on different reopening models (in-person, hybrid, virtual, virtual/hybrid mix), I suggest focusing our efforts on how best to do remote learning. After all, we saw how poorly unfocused efforts by different states worked to make things worse for public safety.

Building a transformative virtual model would:

     * allow students to learn 21 Century skills that many of them are lacking, better preparing all students for college and careers

     * allow teachers to study, share and perfect best practices in virtual learning models

     * allow school districts to target their limited funding to long-term solutions (e,g, 1-to-1 computers, Internet access) rather than pouring money into temporary health and safety measures that one day we hope we will no longer need

     * allow parent-groups and communities time to focus on safe child care alternatives 

     * allow the state to help schools in this effort to become a model for the educational system across the country and the world.

Most importantly, this model would allow every student and school staff to remain safer at home in the deadliest pandemic of our time.

You challenged us to transform, I used your words in an assignment for my 12th graders last spring to Try Something New. They stepped up to the plate, as they usually do. They are very resilient. They want to do well. Consistency works best for students, and in this time there is so much out of their control. Let’s build that consistency from Day 1. It would help focus students, teachers, district leaders, everyone on addressing the only problem that they can: learning in a pandemic. Safely.

You said that this was a window of opportunity to change things for the better, and “shame on us” if we did not. I have accepted your challenge. Will you?

Roger Gaboury, NBCT

Freedom Writer teacher

ELA teacher, Schenectady High School

Brilliant connections from my 7-year-old

“Somewhere inside all of us is the power to change the world.”     - Roald Dahl

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NOTE: This story was written several years ago but got lost in the depths of my documents folder until I discovered it today. Alex is almost 16 now - God give me strength, she still loves reading, still wants to be a writer, and is still making brilliant connections.

My daughter Alex gives me great hope for the future.

She was 7 last summer and on a kick of reading books by Roald Dahl. (Loved James and the Giant Peach and The BFG, but hated The Witches and put that one down after several pages.) Trying to support her interest, I picked up a Dahl essay “Ideas to help aspiring writers” because it shows some of what he thinks when he writes, and because Al herself is an aspiring writer.

“Any good story must start with a strong plot that gathers momentum all the way to the end. My main preoccupation when I am writing a story is a constant unholy terror of boring the reader. Consequently, as I write my stories I always try to create situations that will cause my reader to

1)      Laugh (actual loud belly laughs)

2)      Squirm

3)      Become enthralled

4)      Become TENSE and EXCITED and say, ‘Read on! Please read on! Don’t stop!”

As I read it to Al before bed, I understood her yawns and lack of interest in this piece of nonfiction. I get no less from students – even honors-level students in my International Baccalaureate English class who are 10 years her senior, so I bring the essay to a logical close before its end.

The next day, Alex was sitting on the couch reading The BFG on her own when she called me over to point out a particularly gruesome part where Dahl explains how the other giants, other than the BFG, eat people, and how she laughed at it in spite of herself. “Dad, that’s like what you said about how the writer likes to make you laugh but also likes to make you squirm.”

“Alex, that’s incredible,” I replied. “You’re making connections that I try every day to get my students to make. And they’re big kids.”

“Really?”

And so I’ll continue to give Alex the outside texts that may help her continue making her own connections between books, characters, themes, and authorial intent. And I’ll continue my efforts to keep pushing all of my kids – at home and in the classroom – to build their intellectual collection, connections and personal meanings. And for anyone who says this is above their heads, that they must be carefully led through scaffolded steps toward these individualized connections and meanings (i.e. the teacher’s), I’ll tell them, “Hey, an 8 year old can do it.” Or just bring in Alex to teach it.

Maybe Groucho Marx was right when he said, “Why this is so easy a four-year-old could understand it. Now run out and find me a four-year-old. I can’t make head nor tail out of it.”

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The Roles We Play

"As a warning, let me say -- between us two -- 
Don Juan, my master, is the greatest scoundrel you 
Will ever find."
                                  -- Sganarelle, Act 1, Scene 1  

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The Roles We Play

I was described so often in high school and college as "nice" that it became a four-letter word in the truest sense. What I longed for was a difference - to be a rogue. And yet I continued to wear and ear the reputation of the white cloaked knight. 

That changed when director Barbara Leavel Smith cast me as Don Juan in her new play. It's my first lead role and just the challenge I was seeking.

Fortunately for me, Barbara is a director who believes in evolving a play organically, with input from the actors. So is Don Juan actually a rogue, or a "soundrel" as his valet Sganarelle says? Various interpretations see Don Juan as a sort of Don Quixote or a Hamlet, two vastly different characters. Barbara sees him as a dashing Errol Flynn/Douglas Fairbanks Jr.-type -- or Tangled's Flynn Ryder, for you young'uns.

Since this is a study in Don Juan, it's good to look at all the possibilities, including the archetype that he represents. I have attached a link to a site that puts Don Juan in the Rebel family. 

The Rebel Archetype 

The article adds an interesting quote from German philosopher Fredrich Neitzsche about this type: “The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything.” Interesting. Maybe it's that. 

But another quote I like even better describes the archetype in this way: “I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring.” -David Bowie

The good thing about literature is that power is in the hands of the reader. And the actor. Find out yourself which way you see him.

Welcome to the world of Don Juan

"Hypocrisy, my friend, is quite the fashion now.
The man of principles is just a role we play."
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Welcome, Don Juan readers!

I am happy to share my journey into the role of Don Juan with my students this year. I look forward to hearing your comments as you read along.

This new play is based on Dom Juan or Le Festin de Pierre by the French author Moliere, newly translated by Daniel Hoyt Daniels. The director is Barbara Leavel Smith, who directed my first community theater efforts in 2016 with Shakespeare's As You Like It at the Sand Lake Center for the Arts. This new play will be performed in late May and early June at the Ghent Playhouse.

Don Juan, the Libertine, is described as: "Don Juan’s life of insolence, debauchery and philandering ways have left his valet believing that such behavior will only bring his master to an evil end.  While actually detesting Don Juan’s actions, the valet has remained faithful, frequently cautioning his master.  But how will God tolerate Don Juan’s insolence and arrogance?  This is one of Don Juan’s greatest escapades."

Look forward to more posts and updates on this site as well as on our Google Classroom site.

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Don Juan, the Libertine, will be performed at the Ghent Playhouse with 7 pm shows on Fridays and Saturdays (May 24-25, May 31, June 1, June 7-8), and 2 pm Sunday matinees on May 26, June 2 and June 9.

Play, music!

“Come, Balthasar, we'll hear that song again.”

“O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice/To slander music any more than once.”

(Don Pedro and Balthasar, Much Ado About Nothing, 2.3.37-9)

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I never would have believed that the crescendo of my Saratoga Shakespeare experience last summer would come down to a song.

But there it was. The first day that the intern ensemble read through our play, Much Ado About Nothing, we reached Balthasar’s “Sigh No More” song, except there was no Balthasar in our stripped-down version of the play.

“Let’s have … Antonio lead us in this song,” director’s instigator Doug Seldin said.

Wait, what? I’m Antonio. And while our ensemble includes many talented trained singers, I’m certainly not one of them. But I recalled how I wanted to immerse myself in this experience, not just be a passive observer. I didn’t know what I was doing. It was probably like Will Ferrell’s Elf singing to his dad. “Sigh no more, ladies. Sigh no more…”

“No,” Doug interrupted. “I want it in four-part harmony.”

I don’t even know what that means. But I continued, “Men were deceivers ever…,” trying my best to lead the group through to the end of the song. Fortunately, Doug assigned the play’s other song to Brett, a much better choice with an angelic voice that fit that heart-breaking

romantic scene of Claudio over the supposedly-dead Hero.

But I guess I did okay. Or Doug really wanted to make me uncomfortable. (He actually did give that specific direction to a flirtatious Ursula during a party scene.)

After that rehearsal, I kept trying to find a more proper rhythm to the song, fully expecting to have the song continue as my responsibility. I had fun as I experimented with a way to match the beat of the song to Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies”; even imagining my cast mates and me imitating the bouncy leotard-clad dancing from the video. (I guess I can be thankful that never saw the light of day!) I also found a way to singing it to the tune of a John Denver song and conclude with “Thank God I’m a Shakespeare boy!” Finally, in keeping with the audience interactive tone that Doug and director Tim Dugan were shooting for, I sent an email suggestion that I sing it to the tune of AC/DC’s thumping “We Will Rock You.”

Tim had other ideas. “You know Bill Murray’s lounge singer character from Saturday Night Live. Try it like that.”

He sent me the video to watch and it was obvious he wanted me to ham it up. Singing talent not really required.

The next day I tried it Tim’s way. The first verse. “More,” he said. Then the second. “More.” Then, I don’t know exactly what came over me. I stopped the song between the second and the final verse, threw one hand in the air, and started counting off, “One, two, three…” before switching to heavy metal rocker mode, complete with gruff head-banging tone. “Sing no more ditties, sign no mooooooooo. Of dumps so dull and heavy. The fraud of men was ever so, since summer first was leafy.” And then encouraged the audience to follow, “Sigh no more,” to stage left. “Sign no more,” to center stage. “Sign no mo-----------re,” to stage right. Then once more to each section before ending with “Big finish! Hey … non----ny, non---nyyyyyyyyyyyy” with Pete Townsend one-armed windmill flourish punctuated with a fist shake.

I was breathless. I was dumbfounded. I was exhilarated. My cast mates’ applause and my own laughter surprised me. “I don’t know where that came from,” I said.

It was the first time I felt truly a part of this brilliant young cast, and felt truly accepted as part of the ensemble. Even if the only one I had to convince was myself.

Over the next few days, I worked on Tim’s directions to add even more. It was a challenge. It was fun.

Our costumer, Gaby, found a velvety blue and purple smoking jacket to wear. They gave me Arielle and Amanda as backup singers. They threw me a mic to catch to open my song. By the time we were practicing the play outside behind the Canfield Casino at Congress Park, I challenged my vocal projection to get the farthest weekend picnickers to look over.

By the time we started performing, I was taking Tim’s direction to move into the audience during the song and involve them. I delighted when, as my song came up in a boiling 100-plus degree day, a mother in the audience bit on my setup question if my jacket made me look warm. “You look hot,” she said. “You hear that? She called me hot!” I winked. (The setup didn’t work as well when we hit the big stage in Congress Park, forcing me to ad lib something different.)

After that fourth and final performance, Tim congratulated me on making the song my own and making it stand out.

“But why did you guys select me for the song?”

“Just an instinct.”

It’s exactly what they were teaching us to do. Listen to your instincts. Find yourself in the character. Trust yourself to make decisions and changes. Even if it looks, and sounds, goofy.

I never expected to sing this summer. But looking back now, I can’t imagine the summer without it.

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