'Wrestle the Great Fear' offers a dynamic look at teaching tonight at EMU

Posted on Wed, Sep 15, 2010 : noon

'Wrestle the Great Fear' offers a dynamic look at teaching tonight at EMU

By Scott Beal

My man Jeff Kass is performing his one-man show, Wrestle the Great Fear, Wednesday evening at the Eastern Michigan University Student Center. If you are now or have ever been a teacher or a student, then I highly recommend that you see this show.Â

As an entertainment, Jeff's show is dynamic and fascinating. Weaving together poetry, drama, music, video and wrestling, Wrestle the Great Fear is an energetic tour-de-force. Jeff's poetic takes on the challenges of being a professional teacher cover the full emotional gamut, from probingly serious to riotously comic, from devastatingly tragic to fist-pumpingly joyous. It's a riveting experience for brain and body.

This is also a necessary work. Over the past year, especially, our community has grappled repeatedly over our understanding of teachers -- how we value the work they do, their role in our children's lives and in our culture and economy. Wrestle the Great Fear provides an unflinching look at the teacher-student relationship and unpacks the layers of expectation, distraction and responsibility that bear on both sides of that relationship. It's no sort of cheerleading, pro-teacher propaganda; instead it's a galvanizing call for teachers to approach their task with passion and courage, and for the rest of us to acknowledge the web of complications that surrounds their work.

Here are a few lines excerpted from an early poem in the show, called "I Don't Know Much About You":

you might be pregnant, or maybe you just discovered your dad's new wife is, or maybe there's a burn in your neck where your mother lashed you with a cigarette, or maybe last night you didn't eat or get heat or you worked 'til 3 delivering take out, or maybe you just failed a math test or an HIV one, or saw your boyfriend's tongue exploring the gully of another lover, or maybe you just got propositioned for homecoming by that huh-huh-huh hockey hottie, and maybe the chaos in the hallway is nothing compared to the tempest roiling inside your torso

and maybe I stayed up till dawn arguing with Karen,
or soothing the terrors of my children, and maybe I
think I'm a failure--why isn't my novel already
a bestseller--and our basement's a quagmire,
and it's about the time for the calamity
when the pipes back up, and that'll be
another four hundred bucks, and I got
two hundred essays to mark, and a
principal hassling about paperwork,
and a parent cursing in a text message,
and maybe I worry I can't do this--

but here we are...

Especially at this time of year, when we are all excited and nervous about meeting our kids' new teachers and trusting our beloveds into their care, Jeff's show is an eye-opening and heartening experience. All of the teachers, parents, administrators, and students I've talked to who have seen the show have been blown away by it. If you can make it to the EMU Student Center Auditorium Wednesday night at 7 p.m., you will be too.

More info on the show here and here. The EMU Student Center is at 900 Oakwood St. in Ypsilanti.

Scott Beal is a stay-at-home dad, poet, and part-time educator.

Comments

JackieL

Wed, Sep 15, 2010 : 11:20 a.m.

Thanks for the info. My daughter and I are planning to attend tonight if we can squeeze it in. We attended Pioneer capsule night and were quite impressed with some of the teachers there. Made me want to sign up for the chemistry class and do it right this time!