Third in a series
Re “Silver Verdict: Right Teacher, but Wrong Personality”
After meeting Sheila Silver, it is fairly evident somewhere between the first and second syllable that here is a teacher, specializing in drama, who was born to splash, to make a dent in the water and spray it.
[img]1108|left|||no_popup[/img]
Students and parents at this morning’s rally to win the rehiring of Sheila Silver
She would have made a terrific partner for Tom Edison a hundred and thirty years ago — before or after the discovery of electricity — for the way she illumines space when she enters.
She isn’t loud. Rather, she is a presence. You notice her. You could imagine she thoroughly enjoys, fully lives life with both hands and both feet — it doesn’t just deflect off her. With verve, she plunges, smilingly, into each day.
Defenders Have Been Busy
When Culver City High School unexpectedly fired her two weeks ago today, partway through her probationary, a broad chorus of supporters, parents and students, rose up and organized. They have maintained a non-stop drumbeat to overturn her canning, as you can see by the accompanying photo from this morning’s protest.
As yesterday’s installment ended, Ms. Silver told the newspaper she was informed, that her dismissal, her uncoupling was unrelated to her teaching. It was her effervescent personality that kept getting in the way, although the speaker didn’t use the term “effervescent.”
“I’m sorry,” she said winsomely, with a trace of irony. “The nature of teaching theatre is not a quiet position.
“For me, everything in my heart is about the AVPA, about bringing everyone together.”
Her chorus of fans regarded the school’s judgment as a face-slap because personality — not toiling in a remote lab over arcane research material — is what defines this teacher who became popular faster and deeper than almost anyone else on the Culver High faculty.
Spotlight Chases Her
The critique was like telling a musician to put away his horn and subsist as best he could.
“From December on,” said Ms. Silver said, “I was told to keep a low profile, to stay under the radar.”
Both peers and supervisors issued the frosty warnings.
Almost immediately, she torpedoed her putative mission.
In mid-January, the weekend of Martin Luther King Day, she coached her students to the ultimate prize for the second year in a row at the California Educational Theatre Assn. festival, the equivalent of winning the CIF championship.
Months afterward, Ms. Silver still is reeling from the negative assessment that she is not a good collaborator, not a team player. Her bright eyes widened at the perceived illogic. “Theatre is only about collaboration,” she said almost pleadingly.
Returning to the warnings she was given, unable to hide her wincing hurt and puzzlement, she elaborated with frankness. “I was given things to do to improve my sensitivities to the culture of the campus, which I still can’t define. I met all that I was asked to do. But in the end, none of that was taken into consideration.
“I was told in December (by Principal Pam Magee) that if a decision had to be made right then, I would have been a non-rehire. Meanwhile, I had to do the things I had been given.
“And so I did them. On Thursday, Jan. 27, I asked for more directives. ‘What would you like to see happen?’ She said, ‘Keep doing what you’re doing. Stay positive, positive, positive,’ which I think that is who I am.
“The next Thursday, Feb. 3, I was given a Non-Rehire.”
(To be continued)
