1.3 A Conversation with Barbara Mager
This week Jimmy talks to his mentor, cooperating teacher, and friend Barbara Mager about her long career teaching theatre, favorite stories and experiences, and advice to new and experienced teachers for a long and fulfilling career in theatre education.
Barbara’s Resource Recommendations:
First Days of School by Harry K. Wong and Rosemary T. Wong
Drama Teacher Academy: https://www.theatrefolk.com/
Go observe other good teachers in your school during your planning periods
JIMMY CHRISMON:
You're listening to THED Talks, episode three with Jimmy Chrismon, THED Talks is a podcast for theatre teachers and theatre education students. I'm Jimmy Chrismon and I'm a theatre education professor at Illinois State University. Each week, my hope is to bring you stories and interviews from experienced K12 theatre teachers, current theatre education majors and professors of theatre education that will warm your heart, renew your faith in teaching, and provide resources to better your practice and your theatre classroom. Thank you so, so much for listening this week. I'm very excited to bring this interview to you this week and I hope you will enjoy it. Um, Barbara Mager was a theatre teacher in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools area. Uh, she taught at McClintock Junior High School before it became McClintock Middle School. And then, uh, the last 20 years of her career she spent at Butler High School, uh, with a fantastic program. Barbara is a well known name and face and voice in the theatre education world in North Carolina. She's won many awards through the North Carolina Theatre Conference, or NCTC which she'll reference. Um, she's participated in the Blumey Awards, which is a kind of a high school Tony Awards in the Charlotte area in that region, uh, where the winners of the best actor and best actress award go on to perform at the Jimmy's in New York and compete in that competition. So it's a, um, it's a pretty big deal, pretty prestigious competition. So Barbara has done it all. Barbara was my cooperating teacher from my student teaching experience and, um, it's no news to her I was absolutely terrified of her my very first day. But I, uh, I grew to love her. Um, I grew to respect her and I learned so, so very much from her. Because we are real people because we do have real lives, sometimes in these interviews you may hear background sounds such as dogs barking or dog collars rattling or even telephones ringing. But, um, hope you do forgive that, I do try to get as much out of, uh, much of that out of the interviews whenever there, whenever I do the editing. But sometimes, sometimes you just can't. But I think there's some really good information given, uh, during some of those times. So I do keep a lot of that information. So thank you for understanding that. Uh, so I hope you enjoy the interview a little bit later on, but I want to first make sure you know that you can always contact me by email at thedtalkspodcast@gmail.com. You can follow us on Twitter @theatreedtalks, tumbler can always visit our website at www.thedtalks.com. So without any further ado, let's meet Barbara. Well, we are excited to welcome one of my very favorite people in the world as my guests today on THED Talks. I don't even know if Barbara realizes it, but Barbara Mager was the inspiration for this podcast. She was my cooperating teacher during my student teaching. A few years ago she retired and she's going to tell you a little bit about that. But I think Barbara, I think I had a little bit of an existential crisis when you did that. And I think like, uh, giving me this weird realization of, of my own mortality and about all these people that I looked up to and look to as mentors, including you and Matt Webster and Lorraine Shackleford. And I wanted to find a way to capture your stories and to have a way to have those people who inspired me, uh, be able to inspire other people and through, through their stories and their experiences teaching theatre. So welcome to the show. Glad to have you.
BARBARA MAGER:
Thank you very much for those kind words too.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
Well, they're very well deserved. So tell me a little bit about your career. I know your last school you were at was Butler High School in Charlotte. So tell me a little bit about, um, your experiences teaching, how you got where you are now.
BARBARA MAGER:
Oh Lord, it's a long story.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
Good. Talk to me.
BARBARA MAGER:
I was a mere babe in the woods. I grew up in Huntington, West Virginia, and when people think of West Virginia they think of the mountains and hillbillies. But, I was in a little university town where Marshall University is in Huntington, and uh, I went to Marshall University there in Huntington and it was great college, I'd put my education up against any of the North Carolina colleges that are down here.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
Those are fighting words.
BARBARA MAGER:
Yeah, It was great experience. I graduated Undergrad in three years and uh, started substituting, but I substituted for two years, almost every day. One was a longterm sub job that I taught journalism. I had a, I have a bunch of certifications in different areas. I started working on my master's in English because at that time, Marshall didn't have a master's in theatre and they, in fact, I didn't even have a theatre degree. It was called speech. And I think it was just called speech actually, that covered, encompassed everything from debate to theatre, oral interpretation, everything. And I had a journalism background too, so I took journalism classes.
Speaker 4:
So anyway, I started doing that and then started the third year I had a full time job teaching English. And then one class, usually beginning teachers, the principal says, would you mind doing the yearbook or newspaper or cheerleaders or something like that? And I was green, so I said, oh, I would love a yearbook class. Um, and we put out a little newspaper once in a while too, but it was over with, like in January I said, what do I do the second semester? Could I have a theatre class? Could I have, make those kids do speech activities and giving speeches and doing little monologues and dialogues and he said, sure, whatever you want to make it, it's yours. His name was Lonnie Scragg. Can you believe that? Like Little Abner and he, um, the school was Cox Lane Junior High and Lonnie gave, uh, an excused absence for boys.
BARBARA MAGER:
Any boys that wanted to go hunting for a week with the fathers and grandfathers. No girls mind you. But it was excused absence because he always took his kids and he went. Anyway, enough about Lonnie, but in his defense he did give me that great opportunity to start teaching a little bit of theatre and I had a blast doing it. So I kept on thinking, how can I do this all the time? This is much more fun. I enjoyed teaching English to and writing and grammar. I always like that, but I really want to teach theatre. So then I was transferred to a high school for three years. Where again, I did speech activities and I taught English and I did a little theatre and I kept on coming down to Charlotte to visit a good friend who I had known since high school and every spring break or Christmas break or summer break, I'd come down to Charlotte and I just fell in love with Charlotte and I found out that you could get a job teaching theatre all day long every day and that every evening if you wanted to, you could go see a play somewhere in Charlotte. There was a plague on on. So every time I would come back home a good friend said it would take me longer to get back into the reality of Huntington. He said, when are you going to realize you need to fly? You need to go. And I was a hometown girl, never lived anywhere else but my hometown, scared to death. I only knew three people in Charlotte. And when I was 32 years old, I felt like I should try it. And I came down to interview and I interviewed. By that time, I'd had my master's for quite a few years and was part of the West Virginia writing project too, and I was interested in improving writing skills of students. And so with that I came down and not only did I interview with the school system, I interviewed with three or four different colleges around and in actuality the, the public school teaching job paid more than the colleges did.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
Mhm
BARBARA MAGER:
So I said, well, that's a no brainer then. So I took a job that I ended up having for 10 years at McClintock Junior High which later became middle school and had a great principal for seven of those 10 years who got the nod to start Butler High School and he could take five teachers with him from the school. He took a math, science, social studies, English and theatre teacher. He took me and people said, why are you taking a theatre teacher? Not, why not a coach. Why not Another, um, basic teacher. And he said, schools get a lot of attention, not just with sports but with fine arts as well. Well, he had my heart and for the next almost 10 years, he, he took care of me very very well. And, um, he, he trusted me and I started a program, which not very many teachers have the opportunity to do that, you know, you know that it's a rare opportunity to usually coming in and taking somebody else's place that's been there a while and it's hard. The transition is always hard to take over somebody else's program. But I got to start my own program and he let me have free reign. He gave me money for tools that I could build a build sets with and everything, and he just wanted me to be self sufficient so he didn't have to give me any other money. So I said, well, okay, I'll keep on doing plays. So we got into the habit of doing 10 to 25 plays a year and one big Broadway style musical. And then my second year there we did, um, we started doing NC, North Carolina theatre conference, NCTC for short. And the first year I didn't go. I watched, I didn't take a group that I, I didn't know how they did a competition down here, festival down here. Like they, if they did it like West Virginia and after going I said, well heck, I can do that. My kids could do that. And so we started going and we had a pretty good run there. For 20 years I was about Butler. And so in that 20 years time we've racked up a number of awards and other, a lot of opportunities. And I'm proudest of my kids getting recognized and getting scholarships to colleges. That's, that's something I'm probably the proudest of because if I had a senior that I knew couldn't go to college unless they had some financial help and I, by that time I knew a lot of people in different universities around North Carolina. And so I would pull them aside and say, I want you to take a look at my kid. We go on the play he's in, it goes on at one o'clock or whatever, you know, keep a look out for my kid. He'll, he'll do you right. So we got a lot of scholarships for kids that way. I was sort of proud of that. The reason I stopped when I did it was two fold. My husband was ill and uh, also I was old in April that year, my last year, I was going to turn 62 and so I had 30 years in the North Carolina system, had nine and a half, almost 10 years in the West Virginia system. So I had rolled that over into an IRA. So financially I knew I would be okay if I retired and at that time and we could draw my pension and social security. And also I wanted to be with, with Rich as much as I could that last month or two of his life. And so I took a medical leave of absence for the last month and a half of school and just started my retirement at that time. Unfortunately, he passed away May 31st, May 30th of that year. And so then it's like, what does an old theatre teacher do in retirement? I would love to direct somewhere. However, Charlotte's very political in the theatre companies choosing directors. I found out that it's kind of hard to get into unless you've been working with the groups for a while. And as a full time theatre teacher, I never had time to actually be in plays as well, trying to keep up my job and my health and my husband's house and in the community. So in the past 30 years I've lived here, I haven't done any community theatre. In West Virginia. I did community theatre all the time, even even was on the board of one one group. But anyway, that's in the future. I still think I might be able to do something with one of the groups around here, but I've also been judging, I'm like the professional judge now it seems. Theatre festivals in the fall and music theatre in the spring. And I even did an ROTC judging assignment for, Kind of fun because they were doing presentations and kind of like senior exit things. And um, so I've been doing that and taking care of my doggies and redoing my home a little bit. It's time to do something else. But I'm not quite sure yet what I want to do.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
I am sure you will find something to get into because you're always busy. You're always doing something. So when you retired, that was my biggest worry for you is what is she going to do with herself because she never stops. So,
BARBARA MAGER:
Well, and that's a big thing for anybody in any field. I think. I remember when Rich had to retire because of his health reasons. He worried about what am I going to do all day by myself. It's if you can continue to work health wise, I say work until you can't do it anymore. But in education they don't want teachers to last longer than 20 years. I don't think in North Carolina anyway because they have to pay you more. They can hire somebody right out of college and pay them a lot less. And so they, the last, the last year that I taught, I actually made $150 less than I did the year before. They gave raises to the younger teachers. But the older guard, they completely ignored and it just showed me where education was headed in North Carolina unfortunately. And my whole thing is we have to start running our own people for public office in North Carolina. I think I even thought about that, Jimmy, believe it or not. In West Virginia, I was, if I had stayed in West Virginia, the theatre organization at that time started running the, the teacher, the teacher's organization, started running their own teachers for offices all over the state. They would find places that were vulnerable to kick out the old guard and can get a new person in. So they said, well, why not run a teacher in that position? And so they were being successful in that for years and years West Virginia had been like 49th in salaries. They always said thank God for Mississippi. That was always the lowest state in pay. And then there was West Virginia and then by the time I left they had gone up to about 30 because they started running teachers in offices. If I had stayed, I was 32 at the time, they were talking about me doing that in the next year or two. My father had been a businessman there all of his life and everybody, he had name recognition, which would have helped me. Um, but I was always interested in politics. I was always interested in the law. I thought about going back to school and going and getting a law degree, getting into politics at that time, but who knows, I may do it down here.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
You certainly are very well spoken. You're extremely intelligent and you have quite the reputation among teachers, um not just teaching theatre, but just in general. You're kind of the icon so they know who you are and they listen to you. You're a leader.
BARBARA MAGER:
Well, I'm old if you've been around long enough people know you.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
I just want everyone to know that she keeps thinking. I have, or want her on my show or to talk to my students because she's old and that's not the case, but don't think I'm going to change her mind on that.
BARBARA MAGER:
I don't have grey hair though, I cover that up. It's like when I started judging, they aid well, we can't put you in certain areas because you know those teachers. And, i said, honey when you've you been around as long as I have, you know, almost every teacher or they know me, and trust me for being open and honest. I can't help it if I know the teacher at that school because I've been around that long. And then for 20 years in Charlotte Area, I taught the new theatre teacher workshop. So every new theatre teacher, that came to Charlotte-Mecklenburg had my workshop so I knew them. Did you have to go through that workshop because you were my student teacher. Did you still have to go through the workshop?
JIMMY CHRISMON:
I, I did, I'm trying to think. I don't, I don't remember having to do that. I just remember, I remember going to the first all all teacher meeting Mark Probst made me do, I'm a little teapot in front of everybody and he talked about Who Moved My Cheese a lot. Um, but I don't remember sitting through your workshop.
BARBARA MAGER:
I love eduspeak all the little books that everybody has to jump on that band wagon.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
Well that was the one that year cause he kept, he just kept saying it, and I remember you look down the row a couple of times and he was like, who moved my cheese? And you made me laugh. So...
BARBARA MAGER:
That's so funny.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
I want to go back to something you, you talked about a little bit ago when you talked about your relationship with your principal. Can you talk to me a little bit more about that and how, how you maintained that good relationship and you were able to build that trust with him?
BARBARA MAGER:
First of all I've been very very lucky with my principals. Very Very lucky.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
A good principal makes a huge difference in a program.
BARBARA MAGER:
Well, the first year I taught in Charlotte, I had the guy who hired me, should have retired probably about five to 10 years before, but he was hanging on. His name was Mr Cochrane. Lovely man, wonderful man. But uh, I was there one quarter and said, oh my God, these are not kids that I'm used to, um, I've never taught in an inner city school. And so my first play that I was going to do, I changed midstream. Decided to do Juvie, um everybody that's been in theatre long enough remembers a play called Juvie that is about juvenile delinquents, an ensemble piece. And he happened to wander in the auditorium one day. When we were having rehearsals and saw what we were doing. And he pulled me aside and he said, you know, last year the teacher did a nice play about Cinderella. I'm sure it was nice. I said, but these kids don't need that. They need this. And he said, okay. And I said, trust me, Mister Cochrane, you hired me. Trust me. He was very skeptical. And then after first quarter grades came out, he took me in his office and he said, I see that a lot of people failed have drama. Nobody should fail drama. And I said, I know, isn't that terrible? He said, well how did they fail? And I said, well, I can't give any grade to somebody who doesn't try. My philosophy is if you try, you're going to at least get a C, whatever you do above and beyond that is up to you. But I won't give anybody below a C if they're trying the best they can. And if they're not turning anything in, And I showed him my grade book, and I said, zero zero zero, zero not even trying. And I called parents and I said, I have, I can't pass them that way. And I said, look, you've got to trust me. You took a chance on me and you hired me based upon our interview and my experience and my philosophy and you've got to trust your instinct. I said, you give me three years, I guarantee you my numbers will double and I will give you a junior high program that you can brag to every principal in this district about, but you've got to trust me. And he looked at me really funny cause I don't think anybody had ever said that to him. And he said, okay. And to his credit he did. And to my credit we did. Um, we had tripled our numbers and all grades improved tremendously. People were dying to get into my class. And then he retired. And that's when Joel Ritchie stepped in. And before school even started, I marched myself in his office, introduced myself, I took my chair that was opposite his desk. Principals love to have two chairs on the opposite side of their desk. And I took my chair and took it around to the side of his desk and said, I had that class on interpersonal relationships too, so I'm going to sit over here with you and we're going to have a conversation. And he looked at me really funny and he said, ok. And I said, we need a new this, this, this and this. And he said, a sound system, a lighting system, curtains. And he said, are you that good? And I said, my kids are. And I said, come in and watch us. And I said, you're the fair haired child right now. You're the new kid on the block. They're going to give you money that you say you need to make your school better and we need this to make you look better. And he said, okay. And within that year, he got a new sound system and curtains for us. The next year we got a new lighting system. He took my performing group to all these different places around town, showed them off, had them perform. Schmoozed with the big shots, he trusted me. He said, always tell me what you're doing. If there might be a problem so I won't be surprised. And so we had a top level class at the junior high school, mind you, that every year would do a teenage problem play, some sort of problem that they wanted to present a play on. Whether it was divorce, alcoholism, teenage alcoholism. We did one year they decided they want to do sexually transmitted diseases other than AIDS cause AIDS had taken the game to another level. And people had forgotten about other sexual transmitted diseases. These were ninth graders at the time. So I went to him and I said, I found this play and the kids want to do it, but it's, it could be controversial. And I said, here's my plan for it. We are upfront about it in every publicity thing we do from the beginning. We do it on a night free to parents and kids and afterwards we have next door in the cafeteria, we have a little health fair where we have specialists, counselors, brochures, literature, everything in a dessert and and refreshment, coffee or or cokes or whatever. So the parents could watch the play, go next door, get to literature, get something to eat and drink, sit down with their kid and talk about what they just saw. And he said, I love it. And he supported me and we didn't get one bad phone call. We didn't get one letter or call downtown complaining about us. Instead, we got parents coming to us crying saying thank you. I didn't know how to talk to my kid. And this was the perfect avenue for that. So he trusted me from the get go there. And then when we went to Butler, when he took me to Butler with him, the first play we did there, we did a night of two one acts. And the first play had, um, it was a futuristic play that showed one character taking a gun and killing three people who wouldn't conform to the government. And then the second play we had was a play, an ensemble piece that, uh, one of the characters identified with his father who was abusive to him and um, used language that was very strong but nothing more than the hell or a damn. And after about the third damn or something, down front, we had a parent and as a father and his wife stood up and marched down angrily down the aisle and stormed out. And so our police officer who was there looked at the principal and me and she said, you want me to go first? And we said, yes, please. So she went and came back and he said he, he wants to talk to the director and the principal. So we both went out there and it was a minister. Now the funny thing about all of this is his daughter was the one who had the gun in the first play that shot three people down. He didn't have a problem with the violence that was shown. He had a problem with using damn in the second play. He was a pastor at the Church of the Living Water, which I always thought was a weird name, as opposed to the dead water. I don't, I don't know...and he said he would have his congregation come picket, the school, if we were going to continue doing theatre like that. I tried to calm him down and said, if you will watch the play, you will see how he does, the character discovers that's not the way to communicate with people. That love and understanding comes through other means. And it's a beautiful message and one that you could even give in the pulpit if you chose to. But he, he didn't see fit for him to go back in. So, and my principal supported me and he looked at me at one time, he said, that's nothing compared to what we did at the junior high. And I said, so we're, what do we do here? He said, we got to know our audience. And then we got to shake them up a little bit. And uh, I said, okay, I'm for that. The next, his daughter, by the way, was just mortified. She was one of my finest little actresses. She was mortified and apologetic and I said, hey, it's not your fault, honey. So the next play we did, she played an alcoholic. And the next play we did, she had to kiss a black student. I was kind of daring this father. He really irritated, me. I wanted everybody to see what this guy was, and he never ever came back and his church didn't picket. Everything was okay. And by that we had, we started getting a reputation in the area for uh, doing fine work with low budget. And I'm not a technical theatre person, so our sets were not that great. I admit that. But I'm proud of the work that we did. We were the first in the area to do plays. Like we did the student edition of Avenue Q. Had a different principal at that time and I went in with him before the play, we had 17 possible issues with the school edition and, I explained it. He okayed everything. We didn't have one phone call. We were the first school in the area to do Addam's Family, first school in the area to do Hairspray. What else did we do?
Speaker 4:
There's another one that we were the first school in the area to do. Oh it was Spelling Bee, in all those shows, there was something that could have been questionable,
BARBARA MAGER:
But nobody ever questioned it. We did okay. So the principals of, during all of my stay, nmy20 years at Butler, I lucked out because usually a new principal comes in and they're wary of rocking the boat because they know a lot of eyes are on them. But I had a couple of great, my the one principal that I had for, had for two or three years had been our assistant principal for years before that. She was the one that I had the most problems with. She didn't, she took me in the first day and said, please let me have the job for at least a year before you do something controversial and um, I wanted to do Godspell and I, and she said, well, you have to talk to the Jewish leaders of the community and find out how they feel about it because you've got New Testament. So I, I did, I did what I was supposed to. We were not granted, whatever the permission, or they said we would rather you not do it. So we didn't do it. I tried three different times in my teaching career in Charlotte to do Godspell and I was turned down every time. Which, you know, to every principal I said, you know, they're allegories right? You know, they're good parables. Good stories that tell good messages. And still some people were too. It was too risky. But then I could do, some of the other stuff I did.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
Then you did Avenue Q.
BARBARA MAGER:
Yeah, i did Avenue Q, now the school edition is different than,
JIMMY CHRISMON:
It is. It is.
BARBARA MAGER:
But still there were some things in there. And even in Spelling Bee. You know, you had, you had the dads. But we didn't get, we didn't have any problems with that. I think the kids and the parents would have been fine with it. It was just the pretense of, and we didn't even have that big of a Jewish community in our school, but they didn't want the appearance of us going against families or whatever. But anyway, my all my principals did very, very well by me. I don't have any complaints. I have known teachers that had no support from their principals and I'm sorry I couldn't work in that environment. If it were, if it were me in that place, I would have had to leave. I'm a little bold, don't chuckle too much at that. And I speak my mind sometimes to my detriment, but I have to be true to who I am and I could not work in that kind of environment. I have to be able to have a working relationship where I feel that I can go in and talk and be listened to and be considered. And I, I think every teacher and every worker period should have that. I had an issue back when I first started teaching and my dad, my dad was one of these strong silent types, who didn't talk much, but when he did, you listened. He sat me down, he worked for himself. He had his own sporting good store at the time and he said, when you work for someone else, you never have the last say. The only way you're going to have that is if you work for yourself and you're your own boss. And that always kinda stuck with me. Because like for instance, the newspaper a few years ago decided in their infinite wisdom, they were going to start publishing the salaries of all the teachers and all the schools for the public's information. Like who cares? But they started doing that and I didn't think that was right. But again, my father's voice saying you work for someone else, so you have to do that.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
I think one of my favorite stories you told me during my student teaching with you was, I think it was one of your early times, the early days at Butler, and because your classroom was the theatre, and they had something booked in the theatre and you had nowhere for your class to go.
Speaker 4:
Oh no, that was at McClintock.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
That was at McClintock?
BARBARA MAGER:
Yeah, we had the multi-purpose room. The, it was like the auditorium, classroom whatever. And my thing was, I always said, let me be the auditorium director, coordinator, anything that has to go on in the auditorium, I'd get, I'd know about it first I get the okay or whatever. And so go, do you want to go ahead and finish?
JIMMY CHRISMON:
You can finish it, Because it makes me laugh hysterically when you tell it.
BARBARA MAGER:
Well I came in one day and the custodian was setting up the chairs and I said, what's going on? And he said, oh, there's an assembly in here, Sec, second period, or first period. And I said, Oh really? What is it? And he told me, I said, who's in charge of that? He said, Mr Ritchie. And I said, oh, okay. So when the bell rang for that class to come in, I said, get all your stuff. We're going to Mister Ritchie's office, and he was somewhere else. He had gone, he was out at the gym or something before he went upstairs. So we went on to his office and we all sat around and we were having class in his office. He goes and has his assembly, comes back to his, or I guess the assembly started comes back to his office and I just looked up and I said, can we help you? And he kind of looked around and all the kids and they had deadpan expression, thought it was like the most natural place in the world and he just looked around. He says, no, I'm good. I'll talk to you in a minute. And he walked out backed out of his own office, we finish class, the bell rang, the kids, all that. I said, OK I'll see you tomorrow. And I stood at the doorway and then he came and joined me. He said, point made. And I didn't have to say another thing, he didn't have to say another thing. We had an agreement. That might be a little ballsey of me, am I allowed to say that on a podcast?
JIMMY CHRISMON:
We can do whatever we want.
BARBARA MAGER:
Ok
JIMMY CHRISMON:
You've talked about how you did 10 to 25 shows in a school year.
BARBARA MAGER:
You did the same thing
JIMMY CHRISMON:
I did not do that many, but I blame you for how many I did.
BARBARA MAGER:
Well, you know one night might be three one-acts.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
Right. Right.
:
Or something, not be student directed or student written or something that you'd have them performing. My thing was you're not ever going to make any money unless you do a show to have people come and pay money to see the show. That's how you build your program. So I'm sorry, go ahead. No you're fine. you're fine. I wanted to know how, how you found a way to take care of yourself.
Speaker 4:
Well, that was an issue for awhile. For a long time I was single. I was 39 years old before I got married, so I could do whatever I wanted. I didn't have the answer to anybody. And it was fine. And then I met Rich, and right after we got together and got married, I saw my friend who, uh, was a fellow theatre teacher but had taken leave of absence because she got cancer and she was not doing well and she knew what was happening. Her Name was Martha Guzman and we happened to run into each other at a Theatre Charlotte production. And she said, Oh, is this the man? And I said, yes, this is Rich,, and this is Martha. And she just held both of our hands and she said, I have to tell you something. She said, for years and years, I did the same thing you did Barbara. I lived at the school. And uh, her husband, Leonard, traveled a lot for business and she said, now we have very little time together and look at all that time we wasted.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
Hmm.
BARBARA MAGER:
And she said, don't do what I've done. And she said, Barbara, change your ways. And I did. I changed my ways. I was gone from the school and home every day after that by six, I was home by six, unless it was a show night, of course. Um, if I had papers to grade or something, they didn't get graded at school, they would wait for another day or two. I didn't take homework with, home with me anymore unless it was like at the end of the semester asnd I had like simple test to grade or something or simple grades to input or whatever. I would do that. Very rarely though. I learned how to budget my time at school better because that made an impact on me. When I went to her funeral, it was not a funeral like I had ever seen before. It was a celebration of who she was and people, I left after two hours, it was still going on. I had somewhere else to go. I had no idea it was going to take that long, but she had written her own funeral with the help of hospice people and she did not, she said, there can be plenty of tears if they're, if you're crying and laughing at the same time, she wanted people to get up and tell stories about her. Funny stories And principals were there and teachers were there and students were there and I said, man, that's, she made an impact and then I saw her poor husband who missed her so much and had missed her way before that I decided I didn't want to be that way anymore. I finally found the love of my life and I was going to come home to him every day, and try not to think of work when I was home. I wanted quality time with him and that's what we did for the rest of our marriage. And when I was having an especially hard time, like if it was musical rehearsal time or whatever, I would come home and Rich would have wine and cheese and crackers and things laid out for me and he'd say, tell me about your day.
Speaker 4:
He was the perfect helpmate, husband. And we had, we had a better life because of Martha Guzman. It's hard though. It's how I've got, um, I have issues of, control issues. I started letting students do a little bit more than I had ever done before. Better for them, hard on me, but better for me. So, I started doing that too. I think you have to find what works for you, but your home life, your partner in your life is much more important than your job. I'm sorry. It is took me a long time to realize that.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
And it took you putting you own boundaries and limitations of what you would accept.
BARBARA MAGER:
Yeah, it did. And I had a, I kept on remembering something that a, um, college professor had said over and over and over again. We did not make mediocrity an art form. So I had shows that weren't going well because students refused to invest everything in them. And so I started, I started canceling show. We're not going to do it and I would never have done that before because to me, part of the educational experience is let them see what happens when you don't work hard, how bad the show, you know, and, and then I started thinking, no, I'm not going to do that unless they come to me and say we're going to change what we're doing. Then I'm canceling it. It's not worth my time. And then they soon realize that and started doing better.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
What are some of, a couple of the most impactful moments over your career that have, have shaped who you are as a teacher and person.
BARBARA MAGER:
Impactful moment. It has to be with the kids. The coolest thing about Facebook, to me, I know you know I should be on the Gram a lot more than I am, insta and I are trying to become friends, but I'm still Facebook because back when I started all this and the kids taught me how to do Facebook to, before that we never knew what happened to our kids. Um, I never had children of my own, but my students were my kids, and I still call, you still call your kids. Those are my kids. But now Facebook enabled me to find out what happened to all of them. And I had kids ask him to be friends with me that I haven't seen in 50 years it seems like, it was 40, at least 40 on some of them when you're old, like I am. But I think that's cool. I have a lot, I always told my students that I taught at a public school. We only had one magnet school of the arts in Charlotte area and I would tell kids, if you want to be a professional actor in the business,, and it is a business, that's not what I want to teach you. If you really want to do that, I can advise you, I can head you in a different direction or you can go to Northwest School of the Arts. But I'm going to use literature to make you feel better about yourself, to make you be able to cooperate and work well with other,s to make you get over your nervousness in a group or in a one on one situation, to have a love and appreciation of the literature and theatre as an art form and to be working with others. And those are important life skills that you were going to use theatre in order to teach you that. But if you still want to go professionally, then I can lead you in the right direction. We can get you scholarships and colleges and and all that. But that's not my main purpose as a public school theatre teacher. So I have comments from kids who were in the ministry, in law, in business, and all of a sudden they'll show up, or they'll call or they'll get me on Facebook and tell me that they thought of me or theatre class that particular day in that board meeting or that presentation or a sermon or something. And that means a lot to me, that that makes me feel really good, that, that, that kid got whatever he or she needed from me in that moment to help him or her in life, in a career. My last year at Butler was very emotional because there were a lot of lasts. The last NCTC play, the last musical, the last, you know, and one night of the musical, kids from the past 18, 19 years came back and had a group picture taken on the stage. They hadn't been, a lot of them hadn't been back since they graduated and they wanted the chorus teacher and me in the picture with all of them on that old stage. And that was kinda cool. You know, they've got babies now. They're, you know, they're successful and they're, they're happy. And those are the, those are the things that mean the most to me, that they got something from my class or from me. Um, I was hard on my kids, you know, that I was, I believed in firm discipline. I think kids from all walks of life do better knowing their boundaries and knowing what happens when they step out of those boundaries. And you've got to be consistent and you've got to be clear and you've got to discipline with love. And I think if I had asked my kids, this is what always amazed Rich, that I could turn around and give a look or a gesture or whatever. And he said, if you asked that kid to go stand in the corner on his head, he'd do it and not even ask why. And I said, or how long? I said, you want me to demonstrate it? That's because they respected me and they loved what we were doing together. And they knew what would happen if they didn't do it.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
that, I think, Wasn't your last year at Butler my last year at South Pointe?
BARBARA MAGER:
17?
JIMMY CHRISMON:
I think it, Yeah. Yes, it was because you, I forgot what show you were directing that year, but the Blumey's were doing a video, or a piece about you.
BARBARA MAGER:
Yeah.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
Um, and they were about several different schools, but you were one of the focus, focuses of their pieces and they,
BARBARA MAGER:
You were too. They did one on you too.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
They did. But when they were there to talk about, and to film my kids in our rehearsals for Seussical, they interviewed me about you. And I don't know if my, I don't know if my, my, my interview ever made it into the final video for, for yours, but I had that interview on the same day as my first dress rehearsal for Seussical, cause we were opening that a Thursday, and that was the same day that I got the call from ISU that I had gotten the job.
BARBARA MAGER:
Oh
JIMMY CHRISMON:
It was, that was a hard day.
BARBARA MAGER:
Full circle though.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
That was a hard day. So yeah, I get a lot of the how a lot of those last, um, yeah. And how they all were kind of crammed in that last little bit of time.
BARBARA MAGER:
How long were you at South Pointe?
JIMMY CHRISMON:
I was there for 12 years.
BARBARA MAGER:
1,2 was it that many?
JIMMY CHRISMON:
Mhm. I was at Vance for five and then I went to South Pointe for 12.
BARBARA MAGER:
Oh see. I don't even remember you being at Vance for five. I thought it was more like three. Dang, time flies.
Speaker 3:
Yeah. Well, you were, like I said before, you were my cooperating teacher for my student teaching and I know you have had lots of student teachers come through and you've helped a lot of first year teachers
BARBARA MAGER:
Some made it and some didn't.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
What did you say?
BARBARA MAGER:
Some made it and some didn't.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
That's right and some shouldn't have. So you know you were, you were very good to help weed those out. That's a good thing. I think that's a good thing.
BARBARA MAGER:
I don't think the profession needs, anybody else in it that doesn't really, really want to be a teacher for the right reasons. And so whenever I would get someone that shouldn't be in the teaching profession, I would talk to the supervisor first. Look, I'm getting nowhere with this person. This person's not taking my direction or criticism to heart. And if it gets to the point where I think he or she is hurting my kids, then you got to take them out. I'm not going to put up with that cause I had to take the program back after the student teacher leaves. And so I got to be known as the one who would get rid of student teachers. Sometimes early in the game and sometimes in the little over the game, but that's okay. I'm all right with that. I had some good ones too. Really good ones.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
I've become all right with that, especially over this last year. I think my first year at ISU I was, I was very hesitant to say anything because I just, I wanted to keep a job and I needed, my classes full, but I, I've become very okay this year with letting students know when they're questioning if this is their, if this should be their major and especially freshmen on the first day that I have them, I'm like, I'm not going to beg you to stay in this program. I'm, if, if this is not for you, this is way too much work and there's way too much on the line with those students in your classes in the future for me to be okay with you going into a profession that you don't want to do and I've been, they've, I think they appreciate that.
BARBARA MAGER:
Well, it's like if you want to continue with theatre studies, yeah let's go another avenue, let's go another route here, but teaching's not for you, you're not happy. To me, a teacher has to be called to teach.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
Agreed.
BARBARA MAGER:
You have to to feel like you couldn't be happier doing anything else but teaching. And if you say, I could do this or I could do that, that'd be cool. That'd be, I'd be paid a lot more than a teacher, then go do that. It's the ones that said, no, I've always wanted to teach and let's face it, your educational classes other than when you take the class that we used to call methods, which um, you got a little bit of hands on, you know, standing up in front of a group of kids somewhere. Not every day, but you did, you planned a lesson and you presented it and, and you discussed how it could be better and what you did wrong and all that. Until that happens, you don't know how you're going to be. You don't know if that's really what you want to do. And then your student teaching, man, you know, the first week of your student teaching, whether it's for you or not. And I always said when I started, when I did my student teaching, my teacher threw me to the wolves early. It was a good thing for me because to me, if the classroom teacher is still there, it undermines the student teacher's authority in a lot of ways that like if something comes up, the kids will turn and look at the real teacher instead of the student teacher and you're, so you're never going to get your respect due to you. Now what I liked to do was go in my office, which was adjacent to the classroom. Or I would like to go kinda sneak somewhere where the kids didn't actually know I was there. So they would start believing that the teachers in front of the room was indeed their teacher. And that gave the student teacher more of a feel of what it was really like in the class. Now I'm not going to send them out there totally by themselves, you know, without knowing that they can handle it. Um, I had one student teacher that what I did with her is for the first couple of weeks she did warm ups and she, you know, she, she was very good at it. And then it came time about three weeks in and I said, okay, you're going to take the beginners and tomorrow's your day. Are you ready? And she'd say, yeah, I'm so excited. I've got it all ready. And that day came and she didn't show up. She didn't call. She didn't call her university supervisor. I was on the phone, going, where is she? What happened? And she had spent the night before, all night long with her parents crying, telling them this was not for her.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
Aww.
BARBARA MAGER:
I said, I had no inkling about that. That one totally blew me because I thought she was going to be great. Cause she did great on the warm ups and her discipline with the kids was good. But when it came time to actually teach, she realized no, that's not for me. She wanted to be a performer, I think. And her parents wanted her to teach, have something to fall back on. I hate that expression.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
Yeah, me too. I, I always tell my students that I'm teaching them, even when I had student teachers when I was still in the classroom, but you're getting all this theory, you're getting all these ideas, and things that you're going to be able to use when you teach, but I didn't feel like the real learning happened until I stepped into your classroom during student teaching and where it all made sense. It started clicking, this is how I do this. And as you've seen all these different student teachers come through and different people you've worked with, what are some of the big lessons you've seen that they've learned during that time?
BARBARA MAGER:
To take care of themselves and get enough sleep. Number one. Because college students are not used to that. They're used to staying up a lot later. I mean we get up at the butt crack of dawn, let's face it, teachers, the teachers had to get up way too early so you have to go to bed earlier, you have to take care of yourself, eat right. That's the first thing. The other thing is always prepare more than what you need, you know? Just in case a lesson goes faster than you thought it would. The kids caught on faster. And then the other thing is what we call the big F word, flexibility. Make sure you have something else you can do if the thing's not working. And let's face it, you can do the same lesson in first period and again in fourth period and they're totally different. And so you have to, you have to figure out how to manipulate the lesson to make it work for that group at that time. I have to plan for the unexpected, you have to have something else that you can do. I, I think you cannot plan too much, you know, and I've seen a lot of people come in with not enough planning. Here's a, here's another thing. This is a little, going back to what you said earlier, you are in a different position than most people doing your job at the university level. The reason being, when I was in school, the people who were teaching kids how to be teachers had not been in a public classroom, sometimes ever. And sometimes it had been 30 years. At the university level, those people who teach students how to be teachers need to go back into the classroom and see what's going on. This is why I admired Matt for what he did, a colleague of ours, that he taught at the university level for years, taught what you're doing, teaching people how to be teachers and then circumstances being what they were, he took a job in a high school in a brand new high school with a really hard clientele, and to try to put the things into motion that he'd been telling kids to do, what we found was not as easy as they thought it was. And I thought it was the biggest thing for him to do and very brave. Uh, not a lot of people would do that. That was okay, this is what I thought it was. I'm out of here, but he stuck to it for quite a while. But that's my complaint about the colleges that they had not been, they had not been in the classroom. They have not tried to go through what regular teachers have to go through day after day after day. Let them sit through a high school staff meeting on a Wednesday afternoon one time, see how they put up with that. Okay. I'm sorry I ventured off somewhere.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
Well I just have two final questions for you. Um, and they're the same as what you, what I asked you with my students when you spoke with us a couple of weeks ago. What is a resource that you used that you would recommend for new teachers or even current teachers who've been practicing for awhile that are looking for new things to, I don't know, to spice up their classes or utilize in their practice.
Speaker 4:
What's, what's the Harry Wong Book?
JIMMY CHRISMON:
First Days of School,
BARBARA MAGER:
First Days of School. iI must have been 10, 15 years ago when I was doing my workshop, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools gave all new teachers that book free. And then since I was teaching the workshop, they gave me one. Now I've been a veteran teacher for years, but I looked at it and I couldn't put it down. There were things that I thought, well that, why didn't I think of that? How easy is that? I think that book is great. I changed the morning ritual of all my classes after I read that book. Of doing journals, of the discipline saying hello and calling kids names as they walk in the door, because I was always really, really bad with names. It took me forever to learn kids names, and realizing how important that is to the kid to feel a connection with you. Just simple little things like that. I think older teachers need to be awakened sometimes to, to simple basic stuff like that. So I recommend that book. Another thing I always liked to do was on planning periods, go in and watch other teachers that you respect, or that you admire, or that you hear the kids talk about. The kids will tell you the best teachers in the school, they're usually the hardest teachers, most disciplined. Also some of the best senses of humor. Go see how this one teaches this novel. Go see how this one keeps their attention in math because I always think that's kind of cool. I would do that even though like my last year of school I did that, I dropped in on and ask a teacher first, of course. Can I pop in and just sit in the back somewhere and just watch? And all good teachers will say, sure. No good teacher would say no to that. Only the paranoid bad teachers. Just like I always said that teachers, any teacher worth his or her salt would go to any workshop that you actually thought you would pick up something to help you. It's the workshops that have nothing to do with what you do day in and day out that you start resenting those workshops. So called workshops. I've wasted a lot of time and a lot of workshops but the ones that good that I could grab something to help me, man I would've stayed in it front of other two or three days if I could have. Oh theatre. Um, what's the um, Theatrefolk, Theatrefolk has that new teacher institute, that's pretty cool. Because they gave me a free one year subscription to it when I was, when I let them do the presentation in my new teachers workshop one year and I used a lot of stuff from there. That's really good too for a substitute ideas too.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
Yeah.
BARBARA MAGER:
I like that. And I think everybody should go to festival whether you take a play or not. I think you ought to go and see. I think you can learn by watching other stuff. There's a teacher in North Carolina, her name is Judy Osborne. She's a Union Pines, and I stole stuff from her all the time. She's one of the most creative, innovative directors in blocking and use of props and staging. And I, I stole stuff from her yearly. I think we learn from watching others who we perceive to be better than we are. We're different. I think we get stuck in a rut if we just do our own stuff that's safe. I think you have to try something different. I would, for years I was known in North Carolina to do comedies for festival and one year I said, I'm going to do a heavy drama, or I'm going to do a Moliere piece, or I'm going to do, you know, and I would just try something. I would always take two shows. One was usually safe and one was not. For me. And those were the ones that I enjoyed the most. I think that I was trying something new, trying something different.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
I always found challenging myself, and um, I have a few students in particular that I can think of who challenged me to challenge myself and push myself out of my comfort zone or to try something new. And that's when some of the work that I'm most proud of came out of.
BARBARA MAGER:
Such as?
JIMMY CHRISMON:
Tarzan, Tarzan.
BARBARA MAGER:
Tough piece.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
It, it was, and I, I think, I'm thinking of Justin Norwood specifically, who, who said, how about we not cast every single person that auditions this year? And I was like, well, tell me what you thought when you think about that. And he said, well, how about you pick exactly what you need for the show and it be the best of the best in our show, Which is against my philosophy because I want as many people to be a part of it as possible. I want to keep helping the program grow. And, and I said, I'll think about that. And we did that. I went that route. Um, and Justin, along with a couple of other students in that group, particularly that during that time, wouldn't ever let me just settle for something. They'd be like, okay, that's a good idea, but how can you take it a step further?
BARBARA MAGER:
Isn't that something?
JIMMY CHRISMON:
It was, and...
BARBARA MAGER:
You taught him to be able to come up to you and say that, though. You taught him that. That's pretty cool.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
Yeah, it was cool. Like I said, just some of the things that I've been most proud of have been where I've been pushed out of my comfort zone. So I get that. What are your parting words of wisdom for teachers?
BARBARA MAGER:
Love it or don't do it. It's very simple. Love it, and when you don't love it anymore, get out. The reason I taught for so long because I promised myself when I started, cause I could count on one hand how many teachers that I had in public school that I thought genuinely cared about me as a person. I wanted to be that kind of a teacher that kids knew I cared about him and I said when it's not fun anymore or when I'm not effective anymore, that's what I want to get out. And luckily for me, I think I was effective up to the last year that then, you know, circumstances being what they were. I, I couldn't go at it the way I wanted to, but boy they gave it back to me when I needed it too. Yeah, I think that's the most important thing. Love it or don't do it.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
I agree. Those are good words. Well thank you so much for talking with me today. It's always good to chat with you and catch up
BARBARA MAGER:
Anytime, anytime. I love you and you're, this podcast thing is kinda cool.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
It is cool! I'll have to have you back on later.
BARBARA MAGER:
Well you have to let me know. Send me the thing on how we can see it because a couple of people wanted to see it. So
JIMMY CHRISMON:
I will, I will definitely send them that information.
BARBARA MAGER:
Thank you, honey.
JIMMY CHRISMON:
All right. Wasn't she just delightful? I love Barbara Mager so much and I am so grateful to her for all the guidance over the years, not just during my student teaching, but for the years after that. I could always go back to Barbara and ask questions, ask for advice, ask for a play, ask her to come in and watch a rehearsal or a dress rehearsal and give me some feedback on things. So Barbara is really special to me and it was really lovely sitting, having that chat with her and like she and I said to each other afterwards, we were texting each other and I thanked her for being on the show. She, uh, she said it was just like sitting, having a conversation with an old friend and, and that's exactly what I wanted it to be. So I hope you enjoyed that interview. I hope you got a lot out of it. And, uh, I hope you do check us out next time. Uh, with, uh, with my future guests next week on the podcast, I want to make sure, again, you know how to reach out to me. Um, you can always email me at thedtalkspodcast@gmail.com. You can find me on Twitter @theatreedtalks, on Tumblr thedtalks.tumblr.com. You can find me on Facebook at THED Talks, Instagram thedtalkspodcast, and of course our website www.thedtalks.com. On the website you can find our show notes and transcripts as well as past episodes. So please go on any of your podcast providers. Subscribe to the show, rate it, review us, and then of course share it with people who you think might benefit from the show and enjoy it. You can subscribe to THED Talks on Apple Podcasts, on iTunes, Google Podcasts on Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, Soundcloud, Anypod and Tunein. You can also find us on YouTube, just look for THED Talks. Again, thank you so much for joining us. I want to make sure I give a special shout out and thank you to Joel Hamlin and Joshua Shusterman for the use of the show music, "Magnetize." Hope you join us next week. Thanks for listening.
