I’ve been working with a group of young people in a school the last couple of weeks, teaching them about improv. I really think teaching kids about the mechanics of improv, and the values that really make it work are so important and life changing. There’s about 30 kids in this class, a whole spectrum of characters behaviours and attitudes. Some are always looking for the fun, some just want to be obidient. Some bore incredibly fast, some are attentive or the whole workshop. I really hope what I’m saying is really getting through to these kids, before social conformity and compromise dulls them.
I’m simultaneously excited by how much this notion of helping people drives me, and daunted by how many I think could benefit from the ideas in improv that could help them. I care deeply about strangers I’ve barely met because I believe so much of what stops them from being happy is choices an beliefs they are making.
I guess I see a lot of myself in other people, and that I’m still trying to help myself, in the hope that I can learn to help anyone.
