Tag Archives: relationships

Change Through Laughter

  By laurelfelt | February 28, 2013 - 11:53 pm | , , , , , ,
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Viola Spolin and kidsIn the early 1940s, social worker Viola Spolin developed a suite of theater games to stimulate creative expression and build community among Chicago’s diverse immigrant populations. Spolin’s son Paul Sills, founder of legendary theater The Second City, offered up his mother’s games to his comedic ensemble; and ever since, improvisers the world over have played them in order to hone their craft.

But here in Los Angeles, since the founding of non-profit Laughter for a Change (L4C) in 2007, these games have returned to their original context and purpose: helping to build confidence and meaningful connections among residents of underserved communities.

During 2011-2012, L4C founder/director Ed Greenberg ran an after-school workshop with a dozen predominantly low-income, Latino high school freshmen; a trained improviser/doctoral candidate acted as a participant-observer during this year. Through analysis of ethnographic fieldnotes, surveys, and interviews, they found that improvisational theater games provided a no-tech context to practice skills vital to media literacy, such as negotiating trust and exploring identity. As articulated by Felt and Rideau (2012), developing these skills, even in no-tech contexts, prepares learners to apply them in mediated contexts.

In terms of products, participants reported less shyness, more self-confidence, increased comfort with public speaking, greater participation in academic classes, a broader view of teamwork, and fun. L4C’s use of games may help to explain its educational effectiveness. According to USC’s Project New Media Literacies, play “supports constant learning and innovative responses to our surroundings” (Reilly, Jenkins, Felt & Vartabedian, 2012, p. 6). Positive affective climates such as L4C’s also predict such educational boons as greater academic risk-taking and increased motivation (Meyer & Turner, 2006).

L4C’s website claims, “Laughter is powerful. Laughter heals. Laughter builds community.” This study’s findings suggest that L4C’s pedagogy is powerful too, and might help to leverage formal and informal educational settings for healing challenged communities.

Love, Josephine-style

  By laurelfelt | February 13, 2013 - 11:00 pm | , , , ,
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To honor Valentine’s Day and again trot out one of my most beloved essays from ye olde blogge of yore, I share this inspirational and TRUE story…

What Would Josephine Do?

(originally published online 10/01/07)

Josephine was one big dating “don’t.”

She pushed too hard. She clung too tight. She regularly chewed her anus.

Josephine was a bitch – literally. 100% female dog.

If you don’t count the carnival fish or science class hermit crabs, Josephine was my only pet, the lone animal to capture my heart. Worms captured her heart, but that’s another story.

When it comes to matters of the heart, Josephine actually had a lot to teach. I didn’t appreciate this at the time, but now that I’m older and infinitely wiser, I can see Josephine for what she really was:

A love goddess.

It’s true. Don’t be fooled by the fact that she used to snarf her own turds – nothing more than a crafty ruse to throw us off-track.

Clever girl.

Josephine educated by example, both negative and positive.

NEGATIVE: Josephine used to bully us into giving up physical affection. She’d whine. She’d squeal. She’d bash me with her head, applying snout-as-lever force in order to send my hand arcing through the air and landing limply atop her head. Oh, how I’d dread her approach. Oh, how I’d bruise like a peach.

What’s the lesson in all of this? First, keep your elbows above muzzle level and always protect your extremities. Second, violence is no way to win love.

Today, when I find myself yearning for creature comfort (and know a non-blood relation who might consider giving it), Josephine’s teachings form the cornerstone of my strategy. I sideline my “grabby snout.” I put myself in my (hypothetical) boyfriend’s shoes by reflecting on what I would have appreciated: A reasonably worded rubdown request; a few upfront tit-for-tat pats. If Josephine had treated me with respect, I would’ve happily scratched behind her ears, and felt like a sweetheart instead of a servant.

POSITIVE: Josephine’s loyalty was limitless. True, her protective instincts could err on the side of excess. For example, there was the time that Josephine scared the neighbor’s dog so profoundly, it channeled its agitation by popping one of its eyeballs from the socket. The eyeball dangled free for a couple of hours, but that’s not the point.

The point is, if you look past that unfortunate incident, you’ll glimpse a lifetime of steadfast devotion.

Here’s the lesson: Get your crew’s back and show ’em some love. In this era of multi-tasking and compartmentalizing, time and love are increasingly rare. Basic supply and demand, my friends —being rare makes them valuable. So don’t skip out on the socializing or skimp on the sentiment. Josephine never did.

During her later years, arthritis in her hips made stair-climbing difficult. Dad built her a ramp, complete with carpet squares and wooden braces. During her later years, incontinence made bladder control impossible. Dad built her a dog house, complete with supplementary space heater. Josephine never used the ramp, though, and she never ventured into the dog house. Why?

“Because she was dumb” would’ve been my answer several years ago. But now that I’ve uncovered Josephine’s love goddess identity, I’ve changed my tune. Maybe she rejected the ramp because she was eager to accompany us and the ramp would’ve slowed her down. Maybe she bypassed the dog house because she wanted to watch us and the dog house would’ve limited her vision.

Or maybe she was dumb.

Regardless, the lesson we can derive is still a valuable one: Love your loved ones, and then love ‘em some more.

It’s been five years since Josephine died. Gone are the fur clumps that used to choke the staircase cracks. Gone are the neon yellow stains she leaked onto my carpet and my carpet alone.

But the heart’s a funny thing. Every time I walk through my parents’ door, I still brace myself for Josephine, inwardly cringing as I anticipate her full-on knee-rush, paint-peeling breath blast, room-clearing fart gas…

For nothing. Because Josephine is gone.

So I hang up my jacket in the vacuum of eerie silence, breathe in the scent of antiseptic cleanliness, and am always, unaccountably, disappointed.

Now I’m on my own, looking for love in this brave new world. As I negotiate the perils of online and face-to-freak dating— trashing misspelled come-ons from middle-aged foreigners, meeting up with bleary-eyed belchers for a cup of 7-11 Big Brew—I find I’m at a loss. How should I act?, I wonder. What should I do?

That’s when I intone my trusty mantra: WWJD, What Would Josephine Do? And I act according to her enlightened example.

So maybe I am still “single” and without a “prospect” between “here” and “Kingdom Come.” But I swear, it’s not because of interpersonal incompetence. Thanks to the love goddess, my dating deeds are not one big “don’t.”

And someday, they’ll end in “I do.”

Expertise

  By laurelfelt | December 20, 2012 - 3:29 pm | , , , , ,
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Child development:
I earned my Master’s degree in Child Development from the prestigious Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development at Tufts University, specializing in children’s media.

Over the course of my career, I’ve worked with children of all ages in multiple contexts. I taught pre-school for 3.5 years, conducted research with 1st grade English Language Learners, taught summer enrichment programs to 5- to 9-year-olds in India, studied 6th and 7th grade girls’ instant messaging and social aggression, facilitated after-school programs in new literacies and improvisation for high school freshmen in Los Angeles (Felt, Vartabedian, Literat & Mehta, 2012), and designed a social and emotional learning + new media literacies curriculum for 15- to 21-year-olds in Senegal (Felt & Rideau, 2012).

I understand how children’s cognitive, physical, social, and emotional development occurs over time, and appreciate how this development informs youths’ capacities and preferences in terms of play, study, and communication.

Games and learning:
I work with Henry Jenkins, one of the nation’s foremost experts in participatory culture and learning. Our research group, PLAY! (Participatory Learning And You!), has implemented several professional development initiatives oriented towards supporting students’ rich learning (Vartabedian & Felt, 2012; Reilly, Jenkins, Felt, & Vartabedian, 2012; Reilly, Vartabedian, Felt & Jenkins, 2012).

I am a co-founder of USC Impact Games, a cross-campus working group that unifies theorists, designers, engineers, and investigators from sundry disciplines. I also consult with Laughter for a Change, a non-profit organization that uses theater games in order to teach members of its workshops about “Playing agreement. Risk taking. Spontaneity. Changing perspectives. Opening up to moments of discovery and surprise. Making active, not passive, choices,” among other things (cited in McFarren, 2011).

I understand how games teach, and how good games can make a profound impact.

Social and emotional learning:
I’ve studied social and emotional learning theoretically and practically in multiple ways, such as by writing a 25-page analysis of empathy (Felt, 2011) and creating curricula that seek to scaffold interpersonal and intrapersonal competence.

I understand the components of social and emotional learning and am passionate about incorporating them as both means and ends of educational experiences.

Overall:
I am uniquely qualified to function as a bridge-builder and translator, helping members of multiple specializations to leverage other fields’ findings and best practices, with the goal of constructing the highest-quality, most impactful product possible.

Ruth

  By laurelfelt | December 18, 2012 - 4:54 pm | , , , ,
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Ruth Feldman, circa 1922


On May 27, 2012, my family celebrated the 90th birthday of the one and only Ruth Feldman Marcus, aka Gramma. My mom and uncle — Ruth’s two children — set this simcha at Max and Benny’s Deli in Northbrook, IL.

The invitation to this party nodded to Ruth’s past, proclaiming, “you can take the girl out of the deli but you can’t take the deli out of the girl.” Ruth’s mother and brother, Sarah Rich Feldman and Maury Feldman, had co-owned and operated a Jewish deli on Chicago’s West Side during Ruth’s teen years. Ruth’s college dreams were denied when Sarah broke her wrist and needed Ruth to fill in for her, slicing cold cuts and carrying trays, among other things. Here at this family deli, Ruth’s future husband (and my grandfather) Ray Marcus took a shine to the cute blonde waitress and endearingly chose to eat far more meals there than strictly necessary.

My uncle Dick welcomed the group of approximately 50 family members and friends, explaining the significance of delis to our family.

Rick Felt, Ruth Marcus, Dick Marcus

Ruth Marcus, Dick Marcus, Barbara Marcus Felt

Later, Uncle Dick revealed his wonderfully creative, hilarious, participatory party game. What if contemporary folks, ignorant of Jewish customs, wandered into an old school Jewish deli? And what if they all spoke Yiddish? (By the way, Uncle Dick’s premise isn’t as random as it may sound; see Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union.)

The following three videos feature Uncle Dick’s funny and articulate explanation of the concept. Because my brother recorded the speech on his cell phone, the image resolution is poor but the audio quality is good. He broke the footage up into three segments in order to make each file small enough to send. The beginning of each film includes the end of the last, just to provide context and ensure that no part of the talk was accidentally lopped off.

Dick and Delis: Part 1

Dick and Delis: Part 2

Dick and Delis: Part 3

While the crowd laughed at the prospect of performing (and Uncle Dick’s improbable math), 11 brave, corned beef-sated family members later accepted Uncle Dick’s scripts and embodied the roles of meshuggeneh customers and exasperated servers, first in Yiddish and then in English.

Ashley and me

CUSTOMER 1 – YIDDISH

Customer: Vilt du zine azay goot oz tsu helfin mir?

Waitress (Waiter): Yeh. Vous vilst due?

Customer: Ich vill habn ah sendvich fun pastrami.

Waitress: Mit rye broit?

Customer: No. Mit veisse broit.

Waitress: Veisse? Feh!

CUSTOMER 1 – ENGLISH

Customer: Will you be so good as to help me?

Waitress (Waiter): Yes. What do you want?

Customer: I will have a pastrami sandwich.

Waitress: With rye bread?

Customer: No. With white bread.

Waitress: White?! Feh!

Dick Marcus, Kenneth Marcus, Ina Goldberg

CUSTOMER 2 – YIDDISH

Waitress:            Ken ich helfin der?

Customer:             Ich vill habn ah sendvich fun pecklfleisch mit rye broit.

Waitress:            Rye broit.  Zeier goot.

Customer:            Und mit a shmeer mayonnaise.

Waitress:            Feh!

CUSTOMER 2 – ENGLISH

Waitress:            Can I help you?

Customer:             I will have a corned beef sandwich on rye bread.

Waitress:            Rye bread.  Very good.

Customer:            And a shmear of mayonnaise.

Waitress:            Feh!

Bev Copeland and Bryan Savitsky

CUSTOMER 3 – YIDDISH

Waitress:            Ken ich helfin der?

Customer:             Yeh, danken.  Ich vill habn ah hot dog, mit pomidor und pickle.

Waitress:            Mmm! Geshmak.

Customer:            Und mit ketchup.

 Waitress:            Feh!

CUSTOMER 3 – ENGLISH

Waitress:            Can I help you?

Customer:             Yes, thanks.  I will have a hot dog with tomato and pickle.

Waitress:            Mmm! Delicious.

Customer:            And with ketchup.

 Waitress:            Feh!

Doug Hoffman and Benjy Felt

CUSTOMER 4 – YIDDISH

Waitress:            Arain!  Zetz zach ah nitter.  Ken ich helfin der?

Customer:            Yeh.  Nemn a salami sendvich.

Waitress:            Hart oder zachtig?

Customer:            Hart.

Waitress:            Broit?

Customer:            Tsibbleh bulke.

Waitress:            Zeier goot.

Customer:            Und a slice Swiss cheese.

 Waitress:            Vous?!  Salami mit cheese?!  Feh!  Bist meshugah?  Milchik  un fleishik?!   Nit gedacht!  Feh!

CUSTOMER 4 – ENGLISH

Waitress:            Come in!  Sit down here.  Can I help you?

Customer:            Yes.  I’ll take a salami sandwich.

Waitress:            Hard or soft?

Customer:            Hard.

Waitress:            Bread?

Customer:            Onion roll.

Waitress:            Very good.

Customer:            And a slice of Swiss cheese.

Waitress:            What?!  Salami with cheese?!  Feh!  Are you crazy?  Dairy and meat?!   God forbid!  Feh!

Leanne Marcus, Sarah Felt, and Someone

CUSTOMER 5 – YIDDISH

Waitress1:             Ken ich helfin der?

Customer:            Ich vill haben a BLT.

Waitress1 (aside to Waitress2):            Vos a BLT?

Waitress2:            A sendvich.

Waitress1:            Und vos iz in dos sendvich?

Waitress2:            Pomidor, salat, und, ummm, bacon.

Waitress1:            Vos iz dus bacon?

Waitress2:             Bacon iz…. well bacon iz….

Waitress1:            Bacon iz vos?

Waitress2:             Well, uh, well bacon seh kumpt foon ah chahzer

Waitress1:            FOON AH CHAHZER!  Feh!

Waitress1 to Customer:            Gai avek! Gai! Gai!  Gai tsu Howard Johnson far chahzerfleisch!  Meshiggoner!

CUSTOMER 5 – ENGLISH

Waitress1:             Can I help you?

Customer:            I will have a BLT.

Waitress1 (aside to Waitress2):            What is a BLT?

Waitress2:            A sandwich.

Waitress1:            And what is in this sandwich?

Waitress2:            Tomato, lettuce, and, ummm, bacon.

Waitress1:            What is bacon?

Waitress2:             Bacon is…. well bacon is….

Waitress1:            Bacon is what?

Waitress2:             Well, uh, well bacon comes from a pig.

Waitress1:            FROM A PIG!  Feh!

Waitress1 to Customer:            Go away! Go! Go!  You go to Howard Johnson for pig meat!  Crazy person!

 

Needless to say, a great time was had by all!

.
.
.

My gramma and I have always been close. I had the good fortune of staying nearby for college, so during those years Gramma and I got even closer. I wrote my first column for The Daily Northwestern about a particularly memorable experience together.

Since graduating from college 10.5 years ago, I’ve only lived near Gramma (and the rest of my immediate family) for 2.5 of them. Boston was a lean time, family-wise, but luckily Gramma’s niece Helena Feldman Erlich and her daughter and her daughters live in the Los Angeles area. This means that, even though I’m far away from the heartland, I’m not without my family. We all gathered together last Saturday to celebrate the last night of Hanukkah, and Helena insisted that I share this video with Gramma. You were with us in spirit, Gramma!

Erlich Hanukkah 2012

Mike and I also threw a Hanukkah party, complete with high-stakes dreidel.

And I wrangled two rounds of latke-making, clad in a fabulously garish dreidel apron. As I jokingly explained to Gramma the next day, a 12-year-old girl does not truly come of age at her Bat Mitzvah — she joins the ranks of Jewish womanhood when she cooks up her first batch of latkes. :)

See you in March, Gramma! I love you!

The Day Has Come

  By laurelfelt | September 25, 2012 - 2:55 pm | , , , , ,
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Yom Kippur begins tonight at sundown. This means that, for Jews, it’s time for us to reflect on our lives over the past year and, hopefully, wipe the slate clean and start fresh.

Three years ago, I found this poem/self-reflection tool that so eloquently invites us to think/act towards enriching ourselves and our lives. I share it because I care.

——————-

The day has come
To take an accounting of my life.

Have I dreamed of late
Of the person I want to be,
Of the changes I would make
In my daily habits,
In the way I am with others,
In the friendship I show companions,
Woman friends, man friends, my partner,
In the regard I show my father and mother,
Who brought me out of childhood?

I have remained enchained too often to less than what I am.
But the day has come to take an accounting of my life.

Have I renewed of late
My vision of the world I want to live in,
Of the changes I would make
In the way my friends are with each other
In the way we find out whom we love
The way we grow to educated people
The way in which the many kinds of needy people
Grope their way to justice?

I, who am my own kind of needy person, have been afraid of visions.
But the day has come to take accounting of my life.

Have I faced up of late
To the needs I really have –
Not for the comforts which shelter my unsureness
Not for honors which paper over my (really tawdry) self,
Not for handsome beauty in which my weakness masquerades,
Not for unattractiveness in which my strengths hide out –

I need to be loved.
Do I deserve to be?
I need to love another.
Can I commit my love?
Perhaps its object will be less than my visions
(And then I would be less)
Perhaps I am not brave enough
To find new vision
Through a real and breathing person.

I need to come in touch with my own power,
Not with titles,
Not possessions, money, high praise,
But with the power that it is mine
As a child of the Power that is the universe
To be a comfort, a source of honor,
Handsome and beautiful from the moment I awoke this morning
So strong
That I can risk the love of someone else
So sure
That I can risk to change the world
And know that even if it all comes crashing down
I shall survive it all—
Saddened a bit, shaken perhaps,
Not unvisited by tears
But my dreams shall not crash down
My visions not go glimmering.
So long as I have breath
I know I have the strength
To transform what I can be
To what I am.

The day has come
To take an accounting of my life.

Levy, R.D. (Ed.) (1985). On Wings of Awe: A Machzor for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Hillel Foundations. pp. 104-106.