.DAVID Peterson
: Professor Saunders, welcome and thank you for accepting our
invitation.
MILA Saunders:
It’s my pleasure to be here, thank you for inviting me!
.DAVID
: Well, one of the things that we all have in common about going to school is
that we have very mixed feelings about our own schooling, really. I mean, some of it
was great, but I also spent a lot of time doing things I didn't really care for all that much.
Are your memoires any different? What started your interest in education?
.MILA:
I guess not, I’m afraid. I recall doing some things simply because I had to. I can’t
say I was motivated and this must have remained as part of my school memory. So, I
would say my interest in education must be related back to my own schooling
experience.
.DAVID:
After University, you took up a position as a teacher, didn’t you?
.MILA:
Yes, and as a young teacher I realized that there were pupils whose capacities
were underestimated. And there were some bright people who often didn't think they
were very
smart
. There were smart people who didn't think they were good enough
just because they were never given the chance.
. DAVID:
What did you do, then?
.MILA:
I had become involved in theatre at the school, even directing some of the
school plays. And it was then I became aware of the potentiality of the students’
skills
.
I became very interested in theater in education. That was something I enjoyed more
than anything. And I eventually did a master in creative education, and eventually
became a teacher trainer; that is how it all really started. So that’s how I started being
involved in education.
.DAVID:
In fact, you spent ten years until 2001 as a professor of arts education. Why
did you leave that post? You were after all influencing the next generation of teachers
so that they could perhaps do a better job than some of the teachers did when you
were coming up?
.MILA:
That might be true, er...Yes, but I’d never planned to be a professor. I mean I
never quite had a plan. People think that life is linear, that you can plan it all out. And
one of the problems I think is that our educat
ional systems are based on that principle:
that everything must be planned.
.DAVID:
Didn’t you enjoy it as a professor of arts education?
.MILA:
Oh, Yes, I loved it! But I felt I had come to the end of it. You know, I always feel
it's important to know when the time is right to move on and I just wanted to do things
that interested me directly.
.DAVID:
Can we now move onto motivation? In your book of 2009,
The Element
, you
talk about Gillian Lynn. Gillian is this famous choreographer who did the choreography
for
Cats
and the
Phantom of the Opera
, besides other musicals.
.MILA:
Oh, Yes, Gillian. That was a wonderful case. You know, when she was a little
girl she was constantly
fidgeting
at school, looking out of the window and being
distracted. No one cared to teach her anything. Her parents were quite desperate. And
one day her mother took her for a medical test. Gillian was left alone in the room, while
the doctor and the mother were discussing. The minute they were out of the room she
was on her feet, circling harmonically to the music all around the room. Then the doctor
turned to her mother and said, “Mrs. Lynn, G
illian isn't sick. She's a dancer! Take her to
a dance school”.
.DAVID:
And she became an international dancer and choreographer!
.MILA:
Precisely! Kids are kids. They are rest
less. They have this energy. This inability
to sit still could be channeled into something. Most people don’t seem to know what
their real talents are and many doubt
that they have any talents at all.
.DAVID:
In your book you also talk about educational systems around the globe that
are introducing reforms to meet the
challenges
of the 21st century. And most of them
you say don't need reform, they need transformation.
.MILA:
Something that really worries me is that in public education now there is
something like a 30 percent
dropout rate
from between the ninth grade and the twelfth
grade. At this point, it is obvious you can't blame the kids. You can't say, well this 30
percent of the kids cannot be educated. There's something wrong in the system. And I
am not criticizing teachers or principals;
they have a really challenging job to do. The
problem is the system. It's the way it's
organized. They are being driven by this
obsession with
standardized
testing. We have to get everything to the same
standards.
.DAVID:
And yet teachers are teaching to that test.
.MILA:
They have to!
.DAVID:
So how or who can encourage the students’ creative capacity?
.MILA:
It is probably the teachers themselves. Teachers are the people who
turn you
on or turn you off
. Somebody who realized there was something happening in you
(the pupil) that they should encourage. Ever
ybody should bear in mind, you know, that
if you invest in people’s natural talents, something good will come of it!
.DAVID:
Well Professor, thank you so much for sharing your ideas with us today.
.MILA:
It’s been my pleasure