(2021) Biggest Takeaway by Asia Steele

By: Asia Steele (Wild Space Dance Company)

My biggest fear

I had to do quite a bit of preparation and applying before becoming an official Wild Arts summer intern, it was quite the process and while that whole situation was a bit nerve-wracking, I do not feel like I was really scared for the job. I was confident in my theatre skills and, while I was a bit nervous for my art since I wasn't sure if it was as good as I thought I was, I knew that in the end everything would work out. The part I was most nervous for going into this whole job was working with middle schoolers because I truthfully had never really watched kids over the age of 10 myself, let alone a group of them. As silly as it sounds, I had fears going into the job that the children would be disrespectful and mean and pretty much disregard everything I was saying because they don't see me as an authority figure. After all, they're 11-13 and I'm 17 so I knew the age gap wasn't that huge. I just wanted to be able to be a decent teacher without being walked over. Plus I was also quite nervous that the kids would all be super annoying which was another thing I wasn't looking forward to. 

When the official internship started, I wasn't quite able to get a feel for all the kids and their personalities because I, and the other intern, spent the entire first week on advertising and placing flyers out around the city. Due to this, we did not stay in the classrooms therefore we did not really see the students. Luckily, in week two, we helped out a lot more in the classrooms and I was able to get a feel for everyone. There were only 6 students and while I wasn't sure if that would be a good thing at first, it absolutely was! With a smaller classroom, we were able to get to know each student so much more personally and it was wonderful considering that all of the students had amazing, unique personalities so I would've hated it if we overshadowed one of them due to the large number of students. Turns out that playing theatre games and listening to music while painting were great ways to get the kids to break out of their shells and talk to us and one another!

In the end, I had learned that my worries were basically for nothing since all the students I had the honor of teaching for this year were really lovely. I feel as though one of the moments where I truly was most proud to be their teacher was when I watched them perform their final performance, basically the showcase of the whole program. The month-long build up- all the dance practice and theatre work and artwork- it all led up to that and they did spectacularly! Seeing that all their parental figures and guardians were there watching them and cheering them on was also super amazing! I loved this program and really would be honored to attend next year, hopefully the students will be too!