"Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself." - Chinese Proverb

When I took weekly juggling classes from Randy Pryor, he expected us to work at home between classes. Sometimes he assigned homework that he expected us to have ready the next week. For example, he asked that we select a theme and create an entertaining juggling act based on the theme to perform the following week. I selected the Clue board game. I used three different methods to make audience members select the game cards I wanted them to. Then I revealed I knew the selected cards by juggling a Green Ball (for Mr. Green), a candlestick, and a book (representing the Library). After we had performed the basic routine he wanted us to write comedy lines to accompany it. I did some for my routine which weren't too successful. One of the other students juggled three Fish crackers. Together we worked on comedy lines for her routine. Some turned out to be very good, and I have used them in other fish themed routines.

When Randy didn't give us specific assignments, he expected us to work on the tricks we were trying to master and to bring in ideas for new routines. Each week we had to demonstrate the progress we had made since he had seen us previously. Randy knew that juggling is something you can learn only by actually doing it. He realized that by holding us accountable, we would be diligent in our own practices. We had to practice during the week. Just practicing the day before class would not result in the progress that he expected.

He also knew that if we only performed the tricks he knew we would not develop to our potential. He was not trying to clone himself, but to help each of us find our unique style that would bring us the greatest success. When we showed him a new idea, he would make suggestions. Often he was able to see possible adjustments that made the trick easier to perform. By having another creative person looking at our idea, we often came up with something much stronger than either of us would have developed on our own. The main thing he did was start us on a path of discovery that allowed us to learn how to develop our own new routines so after we left his class our progress did not end.

I had another great teacher when I was taking theater classes at California State University - Long Beach. His name is Herb Camburn. I took several different classes from him including prop construction, costume crafts, advanced costume crafts, and design courses. He always expected us to challenge ourselves. His assignments were just the starting point we were to use as an opportunity to explore something that interested us. For example, making a hat was a costume craft assignment. One of my friends made an 1890 style woman's hat. He studied hats of the era. (Herb was an expert on costume, furniture, and architecture history. He would comment if he thought our research was inadequate and demand that we spend more time in the library.) He used an appropriate hat from a thrift shop as his base and embellished it with fabric, netting, feathers, and other objects so it looked like it had been constructed in that era. Another friend assembled objects purchased from thrift shops to create a crown similar to what might have been worn in ancient Thailand. I started from scratch with a piece of felt, created the forms, and blocked an oversized cowboy hat that could be used as part of a clown costume. My hat didn't turn out very good, but I got a high grade because I selected a difficult project and learned a lot in the attempt. That hat wasn't useable, but several years later I created another oversized cowboy hat that I wore in performances with the Carson & Barnes Circus. More than once Herb commented that his goal was not to teach us the content of the class, but to teach us how to challenge ourselves, strive for continued improvement, and explore new fields of interest. He said that way we would continue to learn through out our career, not just during the term of his class.

When you take a class, what work do you need to do to learn what is taught? How can you use the class content as a starting point for further exploration?