Anger in the Back Row

Kat Kiefer-Newman “Actors understand the infinite vastness hiding inside each human being, the characters not played, the characteristics not revealed. Schoolteachers can see every day that, given the chance, the sullen pupil in the back row can sing, dance, juggle, do mathematics, paint, and think.”—Wallace Shawn of My Dinner With Andre fame in his nonfiction collection Essays. I tell students on the first day of class that rule number one is as of day two anyone sitting in the back row will be called on first. If I see students back there, then they really, really want to talk to […]