>> Second of two parts
Sitting cross-legged on the floor of City Springs School, in southeast Baltimore, Maria Broom slows the world down long enough for everyone to compose themselves. A dozen 6th and 7th graders sit with her, arriving with energy spilling from their pores. She lights a candle, leans over it, and begins to meditate.
“Breathe deeply,” she says as they bundle around her on the floor. “Think of something good for yourself, for all the children around the world, all the families. Think of something good.”
The classroom becomes a quiet, protective womb. All noise has been stopped at the door. Then, one after another, the kids quietly send love: to everyone in this room, says one student. To all the babies in the world, says another. To Mother Earth, to the new president, to anybody struggling.
The moment is tender and nurturing, and it calms everyone. Gone for the moment are the day’s frustrations, the inevitable hallway pushing and shoving, the classroom grind, the emotional storms that arrive without warning. In here, you can feel the world downshift.
The program, as reported Thursday, is called The Bards of Baltimore. Broom, former TV reporter and actress on Homicide and The Wire, and veteran teacher, has designed a six-week course, twice weekly, in which she coaches elementary and middle school students on voice and presentation, tone and enunciation, and clear expression of thoughts and feelings. She’s now doing this in four city schools.
“When our children speak well,” says Broom, “we hear their intelligence. We can feel the depth of their thoughts. And speaking beautifully will help attract people who can help them to get what they need and want in life. But they have to present themselves in a way that will entice others to listen.”
It’s not an easy sell. Children are captives of their environment, of peer pressure, of not wanting to feel like an outsider in their own neighborhoods. I don’t want to sound different, they tell Broom. She tells them: there are worlds outside your neighborhood, and you’ll want to fit in there, as well. Look at Barack Obama, she says. The kids make that connection, and a door is opened, a mindset altered.
So she’s got these dozen students at City Springs now, most of them 11 and 12 years old, with whom she’s going over a few basics.
“Hold your head up,” she says, “and speak with some light in your eyes.”
The kids sit up straight. Some have a sparkle, others a wariness.
“Has anybody been practicing?” she asks.
“We was,” a girl replies.
“’We wuz?’” Broom echoes, striking simultaneously at the grammar and the pronunciation. “How about, ‘We were’?”
“We were,” they reply.
She starts them with basic repetitions: “this, these, those and them.” Not: dis, dese, dose and dem.
“With Smith,” she says.
“With Smith,” they almost reply.
“Maybe it’s my ears,” Broom says, “but it sounds like ‘wit.’”
She goes through several minutes of similar repetitions. The kids seem to be having fun just making the sounds.
“Stretch your mouth as you speak,” she says. “It feels funny, I know, but stretch it anyway.”
The kids are now sitting in a semi-circle of desks as Broom walks among them, listening carefully.
“Oh, the places I’ll go,” she declares.
“Oh, the places I’ll go.”
It’s the beginning of a set piece they’ve been working on, from the old Dr. Seuss book, “Oh, the Places I’ll Go.” Partly, she uses it to stress pronunciation; partly, because the words carry a message: “I’m off to great places! I’m off and away! I have brains in my head and feet in my shoes. I can steer myself any direction I choose…I’ll look up and down streets. I’ll look closely with care. On some streets I’ll say, ‘I don’t want to go there.’”
“Talk with your whole face,” Broom tells them. “Color the words.”
There are 53 lines to the piece, and some of the kids have already memorized them. As the hour passes, two boys decide this isn’t for them and they drift away. But the majority remain, and you watch this transformation take place: from mumbling to a full-throated chorus; from what Broom calls “lazy mouths” to faces lit up, animated, joyful.
The kids’ regular teacher, Kellie McGuire, says, “Their whole attitudes have changed. They’re smiling. They’re acting as one, instead of picking on each other.”
At the end of the hour, City Springs’ principal, Rhonda Richetta, drifts into the room. She’s watched the progress over the past month.
“Wonderful,” she says. “The first time I came in here, they were talking to the floor, heads down, mumbling. To look at this – I’m speechless.”
But the kids aren’t. They’re full of speech – and you can hear it clearer than ever.
