How The Improv Project Helps Detroit Students Discover What’s Possible
The year is 2015. The scene is Hamtramck High School in metro Detroit. Alicia (not her real name), is reticent, shy and rarely speaks up in class, according to her classroom teacher. Enter two teaching artists with The Improv Project, a ten-week improv course offered as a free elective to middle and high school students both during and after school in Detroit . Created in 2011 by a group of working artists with strong ties to Detroit, it is one of a limited number of arts-based programs available. Alicia participates in the improv program for 2 years. “Over time, she becomes more outgoing in class,” reports Beth Hagenlocker, one of The Improv Project Board members and founders. Forward to 2017. “After graduation, she received a scholarship from the local improv theater, Planet Ant, and started the training program in fall of this year. We’ve been excited to hear that Alicia is performing at their open jam on Monday nights, and recently brought several friends to see her perform.”
A shy, cautious girl on an improv team and loving it? Is that possible? It must be because here is a photo of the student improv group.
It may sound counter-intuitive that the art form most associated with creative and emotional risk can reduce social anxiety and the stress so many people feel when they speak up or stand out. But it is the very foundations of the form that yield these emotional and cognitive benefits, because improvisation blossoms in a positive social environment in which radical acceptance and support of other players is the group norm. Improvisers learn how to express these concepts in action, which makes it enormously effective for the development of supportive, cohesive bonds among people in groups. Students like Alicia learn not only how it feels to belong but also ways to contribute to the creation of a positive, supportive social environment. “We are seeing our students gain self-confidence through improv training,” reports Beth Hogenlocker. “This is particularly noticeable in students who typically don’t participate in their classes, either because they are shy or they are concerned about being judged by their peers.”
The magic of improvisation is in this power to say “yes” to a reality and then shape it in some way, to play with possibilities. Improvisers co-create an imagined world and discover it together, thinking and relationship skills that these teens —most from low-income communities considered economically disadvantaged by federal measures — develop through participation in the classes and take with them as they create their reality on the stage of life. The program starts with improv, but its founders envision expanding into all art forms and supplying students with whatever tools and support students need to realize their dreams. Started in 2012 with 100 middle and high school students, The Improv Project currently expects to serve nearly 1000 students in over 16 schools, representing a diversity of ethnic and cultural groups from neighborhoods across Detroit, River Rouge, and Hamtramck.
Improvisation encourages, and even requires, that people really listen to what someone else is saying, affirm it, and then build on the other person’s idea. Many of our students live in an environment of “no.” The “yes, and” principle that’s so essential to improvisation gives them a chance to have someone acknowledge and affirm their viewpoint. That builds confidence. Improv exercises also encourage students to be part of something larger than themselves, take risks, and even look silly at times. The acceptance they get from a group of their peers who are doing the same thing boosts self-esteem. Many of our students say improv is helping them overcome their fear of being judged or saying the wrong thing. Marc Evan Jackson, Founder of The Detroit Creativity Project, actor, improviser, writer, comedian and Second City alumnus best known for his work on NBC’s Parks and Recreation, Fox’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and as Sparks Nevada in the live stage show The Thrilling Adventure Hour.
To say the program is well-received by students — the word “love” is used liberally — is underplaying it. “One of our improv classes is held during the last period on Friday at the high school in the Southeastern Detroit neighborhood. There is 98% attendance for our class, compared to 60% attendance school-wide,” reports Hagenlocker. “Student improvisers have had two-fold growth in their overall academic achievement at one of the middle schools.” Teachers report greater attendance and engagement on improv class days, and increased class participation — including students sharing their ideas, and working more collaboratively — so staff and administrators are saying “yes” to its value. There are significant challenges, but improvisers find a way to make the impossible a reality. And improv is changing the reality of every student who participates.
The combination of rich, creative experience with positive social support — the heart of Social-Emotional Learning — is a powerful one that provides a foundation for essential thinking and social skills that translate into managing uncertainty and stress as well as enhanced academic achievement. Research published in The Journal Of Positive Psychology shows a direct correlation between creativity and enhanced well-being. And the spontaneity and immediacy of improvisation is the kind of emotionally and physically charged event that heightens the brain’s capacity to retain new information and learn new skills that are then available in real-life situations. “This is because of the emotional intensity of the events to which they are linked,” explains neurologist Judy Willis in Research-Based Strategies To Ignite Student Learning. “Because the dramatic event powers its way through the neural pathways of the emotionally pre-activated limbic (emotional brain) system into memory storage, the associated hitch-hiking academic information gets pulled along with it.” Whether it is academic knowledge or communicating well in a high-pressure situation, information and skills learned in an emotionally rich, positive experience are more likely to be remembered and available to deployed in other situations, even when under stress.
Improvisation gets at the core needs of the adolescent brain because it is intense, immediate, and emotionally-driven. An adolescent’s primary language is feelings — which can come in a flood-like sense of immediacy, so middle and high school are critical periods for this kind of distinctive heightened emotional experience. The teen prefrontal cortex — the reasoning part of the brain that can think long-term and make rational choices — is still under construction at the same time emotional reactions and sensitivity to rejection or social isolation are heightened. This is a bit like driving with urgency on a road at the same time it is being built, making every bump and hurdle upsetting in the extreme. “When teenagers perform certain tasks, their prefrontal cortex, which handles decision-making, is working much harder than the same region in adults facing the same circumstances,” writes Scientific American writer Leslie Sabbagh in The Teen Brain, Hard At Work. “The teen brain also makes less use of other regions that could help out. Under challenging conditions, adolescents may assess and react less efficiently than adults.” It redirects the tension of uncertainty by engaging with it directly. At this critical developmental period, emotional reactions and sensitivity to rejection or social isolation are heightened and improv teaches students to help and support each other. They learn to shine by making others look good and in this way learn how to build bridges between where they are now and where they want to go. The bridge is emotional connection.
And when the emotion is love, students have a power source that can help them through any adversity. After a student discussion at the final meeting of an “underperforming” class — i.e., not doing well academically — at The Detroit Enterprise Academy (DEA), a teaching artist for The Improv Project was stopped by the classroom teacher who wanted to share how much the class benefits from learning to improvise, but most importantly, how much they love it. They love how creative they can be. They love their teaching artists. DEA is a public charter located in Southeast Detroit, among the most underserved neighborhoods in the Detroit area. “The kids know their class is underperforming, and are bonded together tightly because of it,” Hagenlocker reports. “Because of improv, students who rarely spoke are now getting up to perform in improv class. One girl who had been very shy and introverted volunteered for a game for the first time last week. Even though some students don’t volunteer to play the games, they all pay attention and participate in the discussions during improv class.” Here is a photo of the class with their teaching artist.
The possibilities of this program are open-ended, and it grows through the core improv tenets of listening, accepting what others offer, building on that offer and supplying unconditional support to other players. The applied improv program was created based on the results of a two-year University of Michigan study of our programs — the results of which will be published in 2018 — and the input of students, teaching artists, and classroom teachers. The Improv Project offers two courses to participating schools, and workshops to nonprofit service organizations, and work in classes during the school day as well as after-school. The first course uses improv as the foundation to help students develop specific literacy skills related to storytelling and story sequencing. The second course applies improv skills to promote students’ social and emotional learning. The aims of the program line up with the available science. An overview of the research looking at the benefits of SEL programs that was published in the journal Child Development showed that promotion of social-emotional competencies enables students “to respond appropriately to environmental demands and fully take advantage of opportunities. They foster personal satisfaction and growth, help individuals become better citizens, and reduce risky behaviors like violence and drug use.”
The core concept of “Yes, and” is key to helping students develop a collaborative approach to their learning, which translates in many ways to developing positive relationships with others. This is something University of Michigan has been tracking in their two-year study of our programs. Listening is vital ingredient of improvisation. This is a skill our students develop and practice in class, and we believe it is a tool they will take and use in other aspects of their education and life outside school. We also believe improv helps our students develop what psychologists are calling “grit” and a “growth mindset.” These buzz words are really about learning that not only is it okay to make mistakes, but also that this is often a great opportunity to learn something. Marc Evan Jackson
There is something we can all do to help these students continue in the direction of their dreams and grow in the confidence, creativity and ability to connect that everyone needs to keep going through obstacles and setbacks: make a donation to The Detroit Creativity Project, the 501c3 that runs The Improv Project. Because the operating costs are covered by private donors, 100% of your donation goes toward bringing improv to students. Another tenet of improv — you can look like a genius when you make your partners look good — applies on the landscape of life as well, especially now in our networked world in which everyone is a potential partner/collaborator. Give to this organization. You will change someone’s life. Tell others about the work of this organization and you might look like a genius. Its improv, so anything is possible.
Jude Treder-Wolff, LCSW, CGP, MT is a consultant/trainer and writer/performer. She is a NYS-Approved Provider of Continuing Ed for social workers and host/creator of (mostly) TRUE THINGS, a game wrapped in a storytelling show. She will perform her solo show This Isn’t Helping in The Whitefire Theater Solo Theatre Festival in Sherman Oaks, CA on Jan 25, 2018.
