Meadows Professor Charles Helfert is full of surprises ((SMU Meadows))
Professor Charles Helfert started his Creative Dramatics class with a “warm-up” activity. His 18 non-theatre major students stood in a circle around him as he instructed them to clap. He spun around and sang.
“I love everybody, especially you,” he said and pointed to a student to take his place, where she then had to do something of her choice-all while everyone clapped and cheered around her.
One by one, students pulled each other into the middle. Some did a signature dance move, while others planked, told a joke, recited the alphabet backward or taught a Swedish pick-up line.
Helfert designed this activity for students to interact with each other and to practice spontaneity as they push themselves out of their comfort zones.
Helfert, who says he prefers students call him Charley, has taught general education courses in the theatre department and led undergraduate recruitment for theatre students since 1970. This is his final semester at SMU, which marks the end of his two courses, Creative Dramatics and Mirror of the Age. Like many professors, he hopes to be well remembered by his students as he departs.
Helfert’s courses are unique to him because he created them. When he leaves, they will retire with him.
“It’s about playing, imagination and creativity. And it’s about doing,” he said about his Creative Dramatics class.
In his bigger class, Mirror of the Age, Helfert loves to change things and do new scenes to explore the role of the audience in the theatre experience.
Junior Kathrine Krylova, a student of Mirror of the Age, signed up for the class after her positive experience in Creative Dramatics with Helfert.
“It was the first time I truly always enjoyed going to class,” Krylova said. “The few times I didn’t go, I was upset because I never wanted to miss out on any of the games or activities.”
Helfert said his classes revolve less around lectures, and more on activities that engage the students and allow them to learn from the responses and behaviors of others in the class.
His style of teaching is largely influenced by his experience as a student because he found most of school to be “tedious”.
“If the teacher just read to us out of a textbook and we didn’t really get to respond, react or interact with each other in relation to what was being read to us, I didn’t see any reason to be there,” he said. “It was just-read the books. Take the tests.”
So Helfert made a promise to himself to make his classes “something that students would remember beyond just an exam.”
He believes the element of surprise is a key way to engage and teach students.
“I think it wakes them up. If there are no surprises in life, life is boring,” he said. “So I like to surprise students with their own thoughts, perceptions and judgments about the world.
SMU graduate Greg Doughty, who took Mirror of the Age with Helfert two years ago, said the class was unforgettable.
“There was never a dull moment with Charley. I loved how he used the teaching assistants in particular,” Doughty said. “It was really entertaining since the students weren’t in on the joke.”
In recent years, Helfert begins the semester with a surprise where one of his teaching assistants pretends to be a student. The TA arrives late to the first and second day of class and sits in the back of the room.
“And I kind of pick on him and call him ‘late boy’ and invite the rest of the kids in the room to judge him harshly,” Helfert said.
In subsequent classes, he refers to him to as “late boy.” One day, Helfert brings him down to “shame him” where he must perform in a scene in front of the class. When “late boy” does the scene very well, it surprises the class. At this point, he reveals the student as a TA.
Helfert uses surprises like these so that students can react and reflect on their judgments.
“It’s interesting how negatively they have judged him and created a picture of who he is-not just that he was a guy who came in late twice, but way beyond that, ” he said. “He is a slacker. He doesn’t fit in or belong here. He is not like us.”
Helfert then invites them to consider what behavior they saw that led them to judge so harshly.
“Charley makes you think about why you are the way that you are, and how you became that way,” Krylova said.
Helfert said he uses his TAs because they are closer in age to the students than he is. Senior Miranda Parham has a unique role as a TA to keep the students engaged and on their toes.
Although this is her first time as a TA for Helfert, she has known him for years because he recruited Parham to SMU.
“When I found out that this was Charley’s last year at SMU, I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “I feel lucky to have had Charleyhere for my four years at SMU, and this May he’s graduating with the class of 2013.”
