Leaving No Child Behind
by Sarah Wallace

No Child ... is one teacher’s story from the trenches. Direct from the battlefield of New York City schools, Nilaja Sun wrote this play to expose the deterioration of public education. No Goodbye, Mr. Chips, this production dispels the sugarcoated notion of the teacher as a knight in shining armor.

Now I know what you’re thinking: “I know what’s happening in the public schools. I watch the eyewitness news.” What I got to say to that? HUSH! You don’t know unless you’ve been in the schools on a day-to-day basis. HUSH! You don’t know unless you been a teacher, administrator, student, or custodial staff. HUSH! Cuz you could learn a little somethin’.–excerpt from No Child ...

Sun’s story strips away clichés to present a raw snapshot of our educational system and why it’s failing.

The play dramatizes Sun’s work with students over six weeks at the fictional Malcolm X High School in the Bronx. The students rehearse a play about prisoners performing a play. Just as the inmates transcend their prison through theatre, the young students find hope through the performing arts. Like the convicts in the play, theatre allows the students to imagine a life without “two metal-detecting machines, seven metal-detecting wands, five school guards, two NYC police officers. All armed.”

Yet for Sun, the road to her students’ opening night performance proves far more difficult than she thought. Thwarted at every turn – by her students, by other teachers, by the administration, and by the inflexible structure of the system – she struggles to survive the six weeks. Within this play-within-a-play-within-a-play, Sun tackles more than a dozen roles, from herself to her troubled students, from the school’s janitor (the No Child ... narrator) to its principal.

What sets No Child ... apart from numerous other works about teachers trying to make a difference is how Sun deftly exposes every broken cog in the school system. The play paints a brutal portrait of the complexities of public education. We meet troubled students, bright but betrayed by instability and adults who do not listen. In just six weeks, these teenagers gain and lose three teachers, one too terrified to teach, another barely able to speak English, a third whose future remains uncertain. Sun introduces educators, optimistic but naïve, whose training leaves them unequipped to deal with the war zone of an inner city classroom. Well-intentioned administrators, caught between an ill-conceived Washington policy and the welfare of their students, fall victim to a structure that allows for little teaching. Tangled into a convoluted knot, these elements create a world where the students are first to suffer.

No Child ... caused a sensation when it premiered in 2005. When teenage students saw No Child ..., they shouted back at Sun, deeply moved by the immediacy of her performance. Teachers clamored to see a show that spoke to their experiences with harsh compassion. Through Sun, voices long silenced echoed throughout the theatre.

Sun’s skill as a performer allows her to embody each character with honesty. It is difficult enough to form one coherent personality, and Sun creates sixteen. Through a kaleidoscope of facial language, physicality, pitch, and tone, these three-dimensional characters interact directly with each other. Sun shifts back and forth between students, teachers, administrators, and parents in the blink of an eye. Through these lightning-fast transformations and collision of voices, Sun creates the chaos of the classroom.

During the nearly year-long run of No Child ... in New York, Sun never stopped teaching. By day she performed the show in public schools, after which she involved students in theatre-based games, converting the students from spectators to active participants. The scope of No Child ... at the American Repertory Theatre will also extend beyond the stage. Sun plans to immerse herself in classrooms throughout the Boston area. She hopes not only to bring students and teachers to No Child ..., but to bring the message of No Child ... to students and teachers. Nilaja Sun may have a hit on her hands, but the work of a teacher never ends.

Sarah Wallace is a second-year dramaturgy student at the A.R.T./MXAT Institute for Advanced Theatre Training.

Photo of Nilaja Sun by Carol Rosegg.