November 5, 2004

Evergreen Elementary sixth graders perform ‘The Mystery of the Headless Horseman’

By Bea Baechle
Editor

In this day and age obsessed with educational standards, it’s a refreshing break to see someone like sixth grade teacher Brian Wheatley thinking “outside the box.” Perhaps it’s because he has 20 years of teaching experience under his belt and he knows what motivates students and gets them excited about coming to school.

Brian Wheatley’s sixth grade class performed in front of 900 students and parents in four different shows. “Anyway, there’s no complaint from Ichabod Crane.”

Or it could be the fact that he has 17 years of experience successfully producing school musicals, and he’s convinced that performing arts is an important part of every child’s education, because it gives them a chance to explore singing, acting and dancing.

Of course his students do the required classroom work, but they also just mastered a 40-minute production of “The Mystery of the Headless Horseman,” a play complete with singing, dancing and line memorization. They performed four plays to audiences totaling about 900 people, including their pen pals from St. Leo’s, who they were meeting for the first time.

For the kids who would rather walk through a snake pit than stand on a stage, no worries, they had plenty to do, too. Wheatley’s tech crew included a lights/curtain person, a sound board/CD player person, three sound effects people, a spotlight person, three stagehands/prop people and two backward projection-ists/puppeteers.

“I see many benefits for children to be involved in performing arts,” says Wheatley, who taught fifth and sixth grade at Norwood Creek Elementary for 17 years before coming to Evergreen Elementary in 2002.

“Academically, they improve focus and memorization skills.” He pointed out that the play also has strong curriculum connections with literature—Washington Irving’s ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’—and U.S.history, circa late 1700s.

“The most important aspect for me is social,” continues Wheatley. “Room 21 now knows what it takes to be a successful team. Live theater involves risk. These kids took that leap of faith and grew because of it. We learned to help, support, cover and cheer for each other. Basically, every child deserves the chance to have nearly 1,000 people applaud their collective achievement.”

Based on what his students say, Wheatley is right on track.

Karisma Desai says, “I learned it takes 100 percent effort, and it’s really hard and we need everyone’s participation. You get to feel how real actors and actresses perform. It was just a wonderful experience.”

Eric Fall comments, “We learn what actors do and how they do it and how it feels to be on stage.” Stephanie Solorio found that it’s fun to act. “It’s a really good way to express yourself—to be someone else—to be an actor for a day.”

“I learned that you have nothing to be ashamed of, and just give it out and do your best on everything and have fun,” said Alicia Silva, “and when you mess up, try not to show it.”

“It feels like another person that I’ve never been before,” says Ryan Nguyen when asked how he felt about his acting debut. Megan Hobbs agrees. “I think the play was fun because we got to be someone else that we didn’t know we were. We got to be famous and we got to have a lot of fun.”

“It’s fun because you get to act like someone else with different emotions,” said James Capurso, who told his teacher “he was born to play the role of Brom Bones.”

So what’s the next “out-of-the-box” experience for this class? Talking to Goosebumps author R.L. Stine on the phone next week. Wheatley’s class won a reading contest through BookAdventure.com, and Stine will be calling the class to offer congratulations, share a story or two and take questions.