CIRCUS STUDENTS
On a recent weekday at the Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim, Calif., where the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey troupe was playing, school was set up in an empty suite on an upper floor of the arena.
"School" is a loose term. There was no blackboard, no overhead projector, no individual desks for the eight students. They sat in folding chairs arranged randomly around folding tables.
Two large, wooden rolling carts, painted battleship gray and stuffed with school supplies, rested nearby on the rust-colored carpet. A concert photo of Madonna hung on one wall. Plastic sheets covered the outside of the windows - the building was being painted - and blocked the view.
"We never know what we'll get, so this is a pretty good space for us," George said.
Sometimes they wind up in a storage closet or under the bleachers.
The students ranged in age from 7 to 16. George walked among them, shifting gears in her head as she talked to a second-grader about the difference between families, neighborhoods and communities; to a fourth-grader about long division; to a sixth-grader about subjects and predicates; and to a ninth-grader about the geography of Scandinavia.
The ninth-grader was Yvinson Acero, the class clown. That's not an insult; it's a job title. He's a clown in the circus, the only one of the students who is also a performer. After school, he puts on makeup and big shoes and goes to work.
Asked what he likes about the circus, he answered, "Everything." George stiffened a little when he said that. She's been working on him, trying to get him to think about going to college.
But his family, which is from Colombia, only knows circus life, he said. His mom is a dancer with Ringling Bros. and his dad is an electrician. He likes school OK, but a certain path beckons. He rolled his eyes when George talked about college.
"There is so much out there," she said. "I tell them, 'Go out, explore. The circus will always be here.' If you don't know what's out there, if you don't see for yourself, you could be wasting your life."
George, 50, has lived that advice. She was born in India, the only girl among five siblings. She earned college degrees in math, physics, chemistry and English, and taught in various towns with her pastor-husband and their two sons. She also had training in family counseling and special education.
After her marriage collapsed, she taught at an American school in Kuwait and then came to the United States on a work permit about four years ago. She taught at a charter school in Washington, D.C., and then at a Catholic school in Chicago.
The Chicago job was a good one, she said, and she had no plans to leave, but when she saw a want ad for a "traveling teacher," she thought it might be the perfect job. "I love traveling and I love teaching."
It wasn't until she went in for an interview that she realized the position would mean running off to join the circus. She took the job anyway.
"It was far too interesting and challenging for me to say no to," she said. She's been a circus teacher for about 19 months now.
Her students are required to be in school a minimum of 15 hours each week. The time is usually broken up into five three-hour days - much shorter than those at a traditional school. But George said they can get a lot accomplished in three hours.
"We don't do PE or art or music or lunch," she said. "It's just the core subjects. When they come here, they work."
The textbooks and the curriculum are from a school in New York. Every November, the students take standardized tests to measure what they've learned.
George said she tries to simulate a regular school as much as possible, "so if they ever go to one, they won't feel so lost." She has them say the pledge of allegiance in the morning. They have homework. They go on field trips, even though it could be argued that their whole existence is a field trip.
About 250 people travel with the circus. (It's actually two circuses, a blue unit and a red unit, which are on the road for roughly 11 months every year. George is the teacher for the blue unit.)
Many of them live on the train, which gets parked close to the arena where the circus is performing. George feels fortunate because her berth has its own bathroom. Others drive trailers and stay at nearby parks.
George uses the constant travel as a teaching tool. Nothing makes the Boston Tea Party come alive like being in Boston. It's easier to understand a desert when you're passing through one.
But a nomadic life isn't always conducive to a good education.
"Sometimes the first thing I have to work on is getting them to sit still," George said.
The performers generally sign two-year contracts, so they come and go - and so do their kids. That creates still more complications. And language can be a barrier. Many of the children in George's class prefer Spanish; she doesn't speak it. (She knows four Indian languages and some French.) In class, they use English.
Maybe all the hurdles she faces are why George sometimes feels that the best she can do is teach the kids to teach themselves.
"Getting them to use the dictionary is a big step," she said. "Sometimes, if they get a word wrong, they'll tell me, 'You didn't teach me that.' I don't accept that as an excuse. They get angry at me sometimes, but one day they'll realize why I do that."
She isn't sure how much longer she'll do the job. "It's a pretty hard life," she said. She misses being in one place, volunteering in the community. And she isn't sure she wants to settle the United States.
But she also knows the circus has a curious pull on people. She never expected to fall in love there, but she has, and now she's engaged to be married. Her fiance works on the circus train.
"Neither one of us has a circus background, but here we are," she said, and the shake of her head said she still didn't quite believe it. Life happens.
Sticking around would mean being able to work more with Virginia Torres, 14, another ninth-grader. Even though Virginia is a fifth-generation member of a circus family - her parents, retired performers, now run the cotton-candy concession - she has her eyes on college.
"I want to study medicine," she said.
She loves horses, so becoming a veterinarian is a possibility. Her teacher said she'd love nothing more than to host a graduation party.
Comments (0)
Greater Paramus News and Lifestyle Magazine
http://www.paramuspost.com/article.php/200608272311098