Teaching Kids Acting... and Life Skills!?

I have been teaching now for ten years in one capacity or another, the last six years have included teaching children how to act and start a career in the "rough-and-tumble" entertainment industry. At first it seemed like a natural fit, me being a seasoned teacher who had his own Hollywood aspirations. However, as I watched my students grow, I realized that my instruction went beyond the latest methods of modern screen acting and networking for auditions. Here at the Orange County Screen Actor's Academy, we were on to something a little more important.

Public Speaking: You can't have an acting class without getting up in front of a class full of peers and not only speaking, but sometimes acting foolish or vulnerable depending on what's called for script. Most people carry a fear of public speaking well into adulthood. If you have an acting background, it's a non-issue.

Social Skills: In the age of facebooking, tweeting, XBox 360, and (ahem) blogging, these skills are more important than ever. Acting requires one to explore his/her emotions and to lower defensive walls that are prevalent in many social situations allowing the student to be more open and connect on a deeper level with their peers. One of my student has Asperger's Syndrome and originally took the classes to help him break out of his shyness. Mission accomplished, and then some. Now he displays confidence and a sense of humor his parents had only until recently hoped for.

Work Ethic: Let's be blunt folks, American society has become lazy and entitled. To pursue acting, one must constantly practice and broaden their scope. Whether it's learning a monologue, practicing sides for an audition, creating a character, working on an accent, etc., it requires a good amount of hard work. Do I really need to go into how important work ethic is as a life skill? I thought not.

Tenacity: To be a professional actor, one needs to be tenacious. You are guaranteed to hear many "no's" before hearing a "yes". What sets the successes apart from the failures, is the willingness to keep working and competing past the "roadblocks" that life inevitably puts in front of you.

In conclusion, the goal of my class is to go beyond reading scripts and pretending. It may just give a child the tools to succeed in anything.