The Shortest Path to "Ka-Boom"!!!

I'm a recovering teacher. That means that I'm still trying hard not to admonish kids at the shopping mall for chewing gum or using bad language. I try not to jump into any barely-perceptible lull in the conversation, or sit in the front row in a class, or be the first to leap to my feet with a question, for fear that a speaker will feel badly. It also means I can eat lunch in 5 minutes flat, have an inordinate appetite for MandMs and can tune in and out of meetings more easily than I care to say. I can tap-dance around almost any topic under discussion, and leave people thinking that I might even know something about it, even when I don't. The other thing I can do--as almost all teachers can--is know when I'm connecting with an audience, and when I am out there on stage all alone. High school students teach you that lesson really fast.

Part of my recovery program is volunteering as a docent at the Folger Shakespeare Library. One thing  old teachers like to do is teach--preferably in positions where grading papers is not involved. The Folger is a great place to teach, by that standard and by many others. We have a terrific 'classroom'; we have a subject so interesting that scholars have been studying him for centuries; and we have an audience, most of whom are not there under duress.

However, as all teachers (and docents) know-- there are audiences, and then there are...audiences. We've all experienced the recalcitrant "My (wife, sister, mom, aunt, husband, teacher) wanted to come here, so here I am" participant. Likewise, the "It's in the guidebook" or "I have time to kill before the next tour of the Capitol" tourist group.  And there's always the family who's looking for a free bathroom, or an air-conditioned someplace to cool off during the summer. How do you draw them in? How do you fan that infinitesimal spark of interest that they might not even know they have? How do you find out where they connect to Shakespeare, and get them to see the connection? You've got to read the clues--and know what to do with them when you find them.

The key is: I watch cartoons. I have seen Wile E. Coyote lay a trail of gunpowder leading to a pile of dynamite and tippy-toe back into hiding and light the fuse that burns a path to the inevitable "Ka-boom!" (that, of course, backfires on him and causes not a moment's consternation for the Roadrunner...) This is what teaching is (without, we hope, the backfire). Teachers lay a trail that leads from something you like to something new and exciting, then light the fuse to that idea that explodes in your brain and makes you want to feed the fire and share it with someone else.  We are all explosives experts, looking for the shortest path to "Ka-boom!"

With the Folger, there are a myriad of paths from which to choose. Architecture? Start with the building. History buffs? The reign of Elizabeth. Art or science? The technology of restoration. Printing? The origins of the First Folios. All roads used to lead to Rome, but at the Folger, they all point to Shakespeare. In two years of tours, I've connected to Shakespeare and the exhibits using all of the above--as well as mystery novels, TV shows, baseball, horse racing, the gas laws, ice hockey, entrepreneurship, the colonization of America, the Astor Place riots, and--not to be forgotten--the bloody hand of Ulster. I tell stories. I lay a trail, and light a fuse. Sometimes it fizzles, but when you get the right combination of fuel and fuse and the right match...it's fantastic.

Student groups are trickier because you have to generalize. In a single class, you might have extroverts, introverts, some who are readers, and some who are reluctant. Finding their intersection with Shakespeare means more of a shotgun approach, setting off small test fires with shouted insults and compliments, with costumes, with competitions, with dramatic deaths. You put words in their mouths and wait to see what comes out. An expression, a smile, a spark..or a bored eye-roll. Magnify the former by setting a similar stick of dynamite and lighting another fuse. If they love to die, give them tragedies and let the bodies fall where they may. If they're in it for laughs, a taste of A Midsummer Night's Dream might do. Forget the fuses that fizzle out. Find the ones that work.

Occasionally there will be a class like a string of firecrackers. We had one a week or two ago. One match, one fuse, launching a continuous stream of fireworks. From insults to compliments to sarcasm, from spectacular deaths to pitch-perfect mini-Hamlets, to Q and A on Elizabethan life in all its glory and all its gross aspects...they exploded on stage and off, leaving us breathless and almost out of ideas to fuel the fires.

That doesn't happen often, but when it does, it replenishes all the enthusiasm stores required to stand up every day, at the docent desk or in the theater or the exhibition hall or the Reading Room, to say with a smile, "Welcome to the Folger!" --and start looking for your matches.