September newz

Hello Lockdowners,

By now most of you who are owed money will have received your first checks. If not, they are on their way to you! Extra special thanks to Michael and Fila who defered payment til we get more money in, I appreciate it very much. I will let you all know when final payments are ready.

Many thanks and big hugs to each and every one of you for your patience and understanding. It was wonderful to have an opportunity to touch base with you all on the phone, either directly or through your parents, last week. It was great to hear your news, and about all your awesome summer adventures.

"Lockdown" was a huge success. Working on it was definately my highlight for 2008-9, and this was 100 per cent due to the pleasure of meeting and working with each and every one of you. Thank you for being part of my life and for the amazing opportunity to create this wonderful work.

As most of you know I faced a number of personal challenges this year. Living with cancer was/is one of them. But having our workshops to look forward to helped me stay positive through very difficult times. Also, my business took a big hit from the recession, and being sick didn't help. There were a number of opportunities I could not take advantage of because of my illness. Once again, your understanding meant we were able to stick together as a creative team. The result is an amazing product, proof that Art surmounts all challenges!

I know and hope that the rich experiences you gained while working on Lockdown will serve you well in many situations to come. Feel wonderful, because you are powerful, talented and loved. Keep in touch and let me know how you go, where your life journeys lead you.

Finally, I want to let you know that we will remount the play in the Spring of 2010. Auditions are scheduled for January, and there will be workshops/rehearsals in April to take the script and production to the next stage. Performance dates are the last two weeks of May, 1st week of June. Let me know if you are interested in participating and I will keep you posted going forward.

All best wishes and much love,

Frances-Anne

LOCKDOWN Learning Activity Guide

For students aged 12-19.

Before the play

Reflect on the title, Lockdown. This word seems to be in the newspapers a lot these days. What sort of play are you expecting to see? (This might be a group discussion prior to the first viewing)

Google "high-school"+"Lockdown". Collect and print out newspaper articles, editorials and other documents that you come up with. Discuss it with a group partner and, together, make a list of five questions that you both agree that you would like to have answered. Keep these until after the play. (An activity for partners)

Write down any personal experiences you may have of a Lockdown.

During the Play

Students should focus on the content (that is, the storyline, topics, issues, ideas, etc.) as well as on how the content is presented (language, music, drama, movement, etc.) If at all possible, students may jot down notes as they watch.

After the play - Group Discussion

What are the main topics/ideas of the play? Give reasons for your responses.

Get together with the partner with whom you created five questions. Decide which questions were answered while you watched the play and what remains to be answered.

Prepare to share your questions and the answers “received” during the play with your class.

What questions were the most common within the group? Were answers similar? Discuss differences and similarities in the questions and the answers. (#1 & #2 could be debriefing exercises for the whole group right after viewing.)

(The following may require seeing the play more than once)

Discuss the methods of presentation. Then, discuss their effectiveness. Would you have done anything differently? What and How? Why? Explain. (This could be a small group or partner activity.)

Individual assignments

Either:

Write a newspaper/magazine review of the play. Remember to award stars!

Or:

Discuss the play (on tape or video that you have created) as if you were a television film critic. Remember to give “thumbs up” or “thumbs down”.

Or:

Design a Lockdown Playbill. This should include a brief outline of the play as well as a short review.

Caribbean Camera :The Learning Curve

The Learning Curve
Caribbean Camera July 4th

In large states public education will always be mediocre for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad. –Friedrich Nietzsche

If you haven’t been to this year’s Fringe Festival to see Lockdown be sure to catch one of the final two performances, Friday or Sunday. You’re doing yourself a disservice by missing this play, especially if you graduated high school more than four or five years ago. The minimalist set and strategic lighting keep the story moving along swiftly, using the whole stage and 13-character ensemble to full advantage. Lockdown juggles so many issues so effortlessly it is best summarized as a theatrical version of that age-old paradox, irresistible force meets immovable object: primal youthful exuberance vs. modern institutional bureaucracy.
It offers slice-of-life laughter, but these moments simply reinforce the sense that the tension is being ratcheted up throughout. Knowing this play offers an honest portrayal of the current high school environment may leave you unsettled, but that’s precisely the point. What may shock you more than the action on stage, however, is the realization that this lamentable state of affairs could be irreparable.
In May the Canadian Council on Learning (CCL) announced that “for the first time Canada’s overall score on the Composite Learning Index has declined.” The CLI tracks both formal and informal learning indicators in 4,700 communities across the country, “whether in school, at home, in the workplace or in the community. The indicators are grouped under four pillars—Learning to Know, Learning to Do, Learning to Live Together, and Learning to Be.” And only one of them is responsible for the CLI decline.
“This landmark drop in overall CLI is being driven by a decrease in the index’s ‘Learning to Be’ pillar, which includes informal learning,” said CCL president Dr. Paul Cappon. “This includes attendance at museums, art galleries, performing arts or cultural events, and reported household spending on magazines, newspapers and other reading materials.” Federal funding for these informal learning resources has been repeatedly slashed over the years, a trend Stephen Harper heartily endorses since he considers the arts “a niche issue” at best, subversive at worst. The ‘Learning to Do’ pillar prevented a larger overall drop in the CLI thanks to its “marked increase in work-related learning.” In other words, if it ain’t earning it ain’t learning.
But even within a fiscal-centric paradigm, discerning a coherent overall strategy is difficult. In 1999 education spending absorbed 6.6% of Canadian GDP. In 2002 it was 5.2% of GDP despite a cumulative GDP increase of 10% over the same period. And although the number of people 15 years and older attending school, including part-timers, decreased by 1.344 million (7.2%) from 1996 to 2001, StatsCan figures show we spent 6% more in actual dollars in 2001/02 than in 1997/98. As the population grew (1.16 million or 4% from 1996 to 2001) so did the economy and education spending increased accordingly, in terms of real dollars. But the amount spent as a percentage of GDP and as a percentage of total government expenditure continued its long-term decline. Whereas education made up more than 15% of governmental spending in 1980, by 2001 it had fallen to 12.5%.
It would be tempting to infer the real dollar increase was instrumental in reducing the national pupil-teacher ratio, which fell from 17.6 children per teacher in 1996/97 to 16.2 in 2001/02, but these numbers are deceptive. Support staff who are not regular classroom instructors, such as special education teachers, librarians, principals and vice-principals, were included in the calculations. The 94,000 additional employees (a 9% increase) in “educational and related services” from 2004 to 2008 will help maintain funding increases and will in all likelihood help reduce pupil-teacher ratios further, but they won’t reduce the number of pupils per classroom.
“My principal aim is to secure the means for directing political and moral opinions,” said Napoleon Bonaparte when as Emperor he created a publicly funded, compulsory school system in post-Revolutionary France, the world’s first. And as Lockdown illustrates, motives have changed little since 1806. With the tantalizing promise of becoming whatever one chooses, children are offered little incentive to choose any one thing in particular. The standard, one-size-fits-all formula is simplicity itself: get a good job after a degree, make a few bucks and spend them on thee.
Sadly, until or unless we start cultivating young minds instead of grooming them to be consumerist zombies, Lockdown’s skilfully crafted dystopia is here to stay.
7 juillet ’09