Teacher Post: The Benefits of Building a Blanket Fort

Gonna drop some teacher tips on you guys today! So your class is clipping along at a pretty good rate and your students are pickin' up what you're puttin down every lesson. You're blitzing through curriculum faster than you could have expected because A) you're probably a better teacher than you give yourself credit for and B) your students are geniuses who were created in laboratories. Now's the time to stop and smell the roses, but how do you do it? Sometimes it's as simple as reading stories or playing their favorite games for half an hour, but sometimes you gotta go big. You gotta build a blanket fort.

My second-in-command Callie Mattox and I finishing the Blanket Fort. The students had all jumped inside already.

Okay, so you don't need to literally build a blanket fort, but that's what I did. It was summer-camp time and we had four hours on a Wednesday. The class had done a wonderful job thus far and I was ready to just do something silly and easy and relaxing. It seems like kind of a slacker's choice to build a blanket fort instead of forging ahead with lessons and what-have-you, but there's a lot to be gained from building a blanket fort!

If you're teaching a theatre class or mentoring for any group where your students have to work together, it's very important to build relationships and camaraderie. My Theatre for Children class is highly based on improvisation and support, so I want all of my young people to genuinely care for each other, themselves, and me. We've gotta take some time out of just learning about projecting our voices and moving our bodies so that we can become friends first and performers/teachers/students second.

Now I'm not saying that you've got to be best friends with everybody you perform with or teach, but you do need to have an understanding of who they are. If you're teaching young people, then yes you have to like them unconditionally. Kids have enough adults in their lives who judge them, it's your job to be accepting of their silliness and course-correct when they get out of hand. Please treat your young people with respect and care and love, because that's what builds great, confident, and kind big people.

The class started making up stories inside the fort without me suggesting it.

So take some time and think of what the silliest most ridiculous thing you could do in class is and then do it! Find a way to make exploring your building like mice work. Turn the hallways into caverns in a mystical cave. Maybe your classroom gets built into a large forest and you have to camp out in there and scavenge for food. Do something fun and get to know your students. Some people go their whole academic careers without knowing that their teachers truly care about them, don't let your students be those people. Build that trust, develop those relationships, and teaching your students will become so much easier and more rewarding.