MAKING MAKE-BELIEVE WORK FOR REAL ACTORS HELP TEACH PEACEFUL SOLUTIONS

For the moment, the multipurpose room at Rogers Heights Elementary School
in Bladensburg is a theater and classroom.

Actor Alan Rubinstein becomes Joe, a rebellious character who can't accept
responsibility when his mother chastises him for keeping his room messy or
when a teacher scolds him for making bad grades or when a friend complains
that he borrowed a toy and broke it.

Joe, dressed in a red baseball cap, gray slacks and a white T-shirt with
the words "Just Say No to Drugs" on it, weaves through the audience of
children sitting cross-legged on the floor to get advice on how to solve
his problem.

"What's the problem I'm having with my parent?" Joe asks.

A boy in the back of the room stands and says, "You're not cleaning your
room."

Joe turns to another student. "What do I have to do to work things out?" he
asks.

"You have to talk it out," a girl says.

Through his Involvement Theater, Rubinstein travels the region presenting
one-man skits designed to help schoolchildren find peaceful ways to resolve
conflicts. Grants from the school system's Safe and Drug Free Schools
Program and the Maryland State Arts Council will allow Rubinstein to take
his show to 40 Prince George's County schools this school year. He calls
the program The Problem-Solving Project.

Rubinstein's technique, using interactive drama to deliver a serious
message to students, seems to be growing in popularity with local schools.
The Safe and Drug Free Schools Program also is financing puppet and magic
shows that visit schools with a message encouraging children to avoid drugs
and solve their problems peacefully.

"We've found they learn best that way," said Betsy Gallan, supervisor of
the Safe and Drug Free Program for the county school system. "We don't just
talk at them anymore."

Some county schools dip into their own funds to bring in theater groups to
deliver a positive message to their students. Matthew Henson Elementary
School in Landover recently hosted the Bridgework Theater, an Indiana-based
company that has three troupes that travel to schools throughout the
country to perform plays with a problem-solving theme.

Rubinstein, 44, of Columbia, founded his Involvement Theater in 1987.
Rubinstein, a graduate of Oberlin College/Conservatory of Music and Towson
State University, worked as a teacher before leaving the profession to
devote most of his time to performing. In his skits, he sings and strums
the guitar to tunes such as "Kids Are People Too." He also uses puppets,
such as Billy, a big, green frog and former bully who followed Rubinstein's
prescribed steps and now gets along with everybody.

As the goofy Professor Rubio, Rubinstein changes into a white lab coat,
fuzzy white wig and black rim glasses to teach the students problem-solving
steps posted on a banner hanging from a basketball goal: Identify Problem,
Accept Responsibility, Brainstorm Solutions, Create Plan, Take Action,
Evaluate. He also teaches them three easy steps to use in a difficult
situation: Stop, Listen, Think.

Rubinstein and his wife, Karen, put together a handbook of more than 130
pages to help teachers create fun lessons designed to steer children
through the problem-solving process.

"Hopefully, I'm here just to give an idea for teachers to use in the
classroom," he said. "The most I can expect is that [the students] will
know that they are not alone in facing these kinds of struggles."

The Bridgework Theater uses more serious drama. A half-hour play performed
recently for the fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade students at Matthew Henson
showed how gossip and rumors escalate and cause conflict. The students
watched with rapt attention as the actors, playing middle school students
embroiled in a feud, moved from scene to scene, eventually resolving their
conflict.

"It showed me we shouldn't be fighting in school because it's not a good
example for the little kids," said sixth-grader Ana McGruder, 11.

Another sixth-grader, Hannah Tipton, 11, added: "I think it had a good
example of a problem that can be solved by peer mediation. It seemed real."

Fourth-grader Dominic Walton, 9, summed it up this way: "It was realistic.
That really can happen in school."

Four students narrated the play: Willie Stokes, 12, a sixth-grader;
Elizabeth Wubishet, 11, a sixth-grader; Hannah Slaughter, 9, a
fourth-grader; and James Berkley, 11, a sixth-grader. The theater company
performed a different play for the school's first-, second- and third-graders.

Don Yost, the founder of the Bridgework Theater, wrote the plays based on
actual incidents he witnessed at schools, said Claudia Torres, 26, one of
the actors and the spokeswoman for the group. The other actors are Nikki
Kaplan, 22; Jonathan Bailey, 25; and Justin Via, 26. They perform
throughout the Washington region.

Mildred Alexander-Moses, the guidance counselor and coordinator of peer
mediation at Matthew Henson, said the play reinforced the problem-solving
techniques the school tries to teach.

"I think it was a prime example of the reason kids have conflict at
school--gossip and instigation," she said. "I think they took a lot of
things we're already doing and told the kids this is the way."