Connecting Dots - Part 2

Film school was a lot of fun, and I did well there. Considering I had had no previous experience with screenwriting, I can say I learned a lot. And when I completed the program, I did what anybody who is serious about a career in film needs to do: I volunteered. I helped co-produce a series of student films in the summer of '08. I provided script coverage for a production company in Vancouver. I tutored game design students who were developing storylines for their games. And I wrote a couple of short scripts, with hopes of getting them produced by directors I know.

But as our family financial resources dwindled, it became imperative that I make money. So I got a job teaching at a business college, and my interest in the film business took a backseat. Eventually, with the support of family, I decided to apply for teachers college. This September, I will attend OISE (University of Toronto) to get my teaching certificate.

And my screenwriting career seems to be fully stalled.

The truth be told, I'm not sure I have the requisite passion and discipline to be a professional screenwriter. Thus, I really do wonder if I just wasted the past two years of my life (including blowing our savings).

This brings me back to what Steve Jobs said (as quoted in Tom Friedman's book), that you can't connect the dots looking forward. So, I'm going to trust that down the road, my screenwriting training will serve me in some capacity related to teaching. Instead of fretting about the past, I'm going to focus on teaching now.

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As for teaching liberal arts, let me say that I acknowledge the importance of math and science in the curriculum. They are essential for today's students in an increasingly technological society. But what are the arguments for continuing to fund arts programs? As Friedman discusses in The World is Flat, so many of today's knowledge jobs -- you know, 'left brain' work such as sequencing and analysis -- can be done more cheaply overseas. At the same time, jobs requiring creativity (right brain ability) will become more and more prevalent in our part of the world. Thus, music education will be given its due, as will art and design, for these are the disciplines that evoke creativity in other subjects.

As for my teachable subjects -- history and politics -- I want to see integration of these subjects with others in the curriculum. I recall doing a group project in my M.A. program where I and two other teachers developed a cross-curricular study unit around the study of World War Two. I made a study unit for history around the Great Man theory; another group member did a math unit looking at casualty figures for the different countries involved; and the last teacher created a music unit that studied musical compositions that came out of the period and inspired events. This type of curriculum integration is the future of education, and this is where liberal arts will find their rightful place.