![]() This background information will be very general to serve as a basic foundation. ![]() This will be followed by the history of theater. Several suggestion have been made by my colleagues.īefore reading and analyzing plays I will provide the students with background information in a condemned introduction to the theater. For this reason, it’s going to be real important to select an excerpts that are realistic but not too real, positive without being too much fantasy, and on the reading level of the students I teach. They have to be able to see both sides of the economic line. ![]() I am going to show them through theater that they can believe in Bill Cosby but also that they don’t have to be ashamed of Sanford and Son. They don’t have to be prostitutes and drug-dealers. If we want our children to have high aspiration in life we have to show them that they don’t have to be a junkman or a maid but that they can be doctors and lawyers. These are shows I grew up watching and identifying with but this is not the only picture in the real lives of African-American. Students would be more ready to accept Sanford and Son, The Jefferson, or Good Times before they would accept The Cosby show. And there was a time when there were no black programs. I’m not knocking the other African-American programs because they have paved the way for Bill Cosby. “How often do you see a black middle-class family that has parents who are a doctor an a lawyer,” is the statement many African-American made, because these roles were untraditional roles for African American to play. Both adults and children had a problem with it because they weren’t used to seeing it on television. It was very difficult for African-American to believe in the Cosby show. The students see these images so often that they don’t believe it’s possible for any other roles to exist. Julien Virey, a Frenchman whose works were widely read in America, supported this view when he asserted: “All the facts which have been collected concur to prove how constant and indelible are the natural and moral characteristics of negroes in every climate, not withstanding a diversity of circumstances, which condemn him to indolence and degradation.” Regardless of climate, condition, or circumstances the Negro retained his native African characteristics. I was compelled to explain to them that the term Sambo came about during slavery because most whites felt that the natural traits of the Negro character were so deeply ingrained that they were immutable. I was really troubled when I took a graduate course at Southern Connecticut state University and students in the class, who are currently teachers, felt there was nothing wrong with the book Sambo. But there are still many programs which reinforce the sambo image which stems from the roots of slavery. It is true that more is being done to help them now with television programs becoming more inclusive. I mentioned the fact that television does very little to help young African-American children feel happy with who they are. With this in mind I would like to remove them from such harsh realities and expose them to another way of life. They see drug-dealing, and physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. The students see a great deal of crime in their everyday lives on television and on the street. Instead of playing the role of a drug-dealer or a prostitute, which they see quite frequently on television, they will play a role of a doctor, lawyer, or businessman. The students should be able to relate to characters that don’t fall into the stereotyped scheme most often displayed on television. I want the young actors’ experience to be one which will make them proud of who they are, where they come from and where they are going. For this reason, one of my major goals with this project is to select materials which will not only be age-appropriate for the levels I teach bit will also provide a positive description of the image of African-American. I know, based on my own experiences and also the experiences of my students, that the schools curriculum doesn’t always meet the specific need of certain ethnic groups. Most of the schools I teach have either a racially mixed population or a population of predominantly African-American students. I teach seventh and eighth graders in the New Haven public middle schools. I work as a drama-dance instructor for the Comprehensive Arts program. ![]() My curriculum unit will deal with the preparation of a play to be performed before a school audience.
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