Teaching a new crew, and keeping them interested.

[Johnno]

At our school I'm the Senior Science Technician and also have responsibility for audio-visual stuff.

OK - I take this to mean that you're employed by the school, yes?

 

I've just been rewiring our FOH spotlights. Several of them had been rewired before using ordinary white pvc mains flex that was cooked to a crisp.

I trust that you a) used proper heat resist cable and b) had the lanterns fully PAT tested immediately, yes?

 

 

Yes, I am staff. I have a degree in electronic engineeirng and I have worked before manufacturing, installing and maintaining both single and three-phase machinery. I'm currently looking into getting qualified as an electrician.

 

 

a) Yes, I used RS Components high temperature flex.

 

b) No, I haven't PAT tested as it will be done when the whole school gets done.

 

c) This is OT to the original post so if you want to discuss it further please post in lighting or safety.

[Frag_Me]

Well, to summarise my replies to the last few posts:

 

I have had to learn a lot by myself, but mostly through watching and working alongside professionals so I haven't picked up too many bad habits.

 

I'm the only person in our school doing the technical side of a Drama A-Level, and I had to do most of it myself bar one teacher who qualified at Central studying lighting for a BA Theatre Practice.

 

I think with the right teaching method and regular refreshers I could ensure people get the hang of things - at the moment they understand very clearly "if you aren't sure, ask me", so I think they'll learn well.

 

Also, I need to teach them the tricks of dealing with one drama teacher, who hates them all (except myself and one other) because he can't cope with the fact they are students and thus still learning during every show.

[Kiwi]

There are FAR more H & S nuts out there who want to restrict what students can/should be allowed to do, and with the expanse of kit available now, I'd actually support a lot more of those don'ts than I might have done 30 odd years ago.

I really found that when I was at school. When I was about 14 I got really interested in lighting, but no one had done anything with them for a few years because our HOD had refused to put on shows - they had it set up entirely on whites so they could just turn them on and off... But then we got a new teacher in who started doing shows and revues and other things again and gave me pretty much sole responsibility for the whole thing (he wasn't that interested in the technical side and didn't really have much knowledge about it either), so I took the manual home and read it cover to cover then poked around endlessly until I knew what I was doing...

 

However, a couple of years later, he left and was replaced by someone else - an excellent drama teacher, but soooo tight on H&S, which basically boiled down to the fact that he wouldn't let me do anything with out another teacher there to check it out - which, aside from making our lives an awful lot more complicated, also made very little sense whatsoever, because I knew far more about the whole set-up. And while I wouldn't even begin to suggest that I knew everything there was to know and followed perfect practise (not having had anyone around to teach me), and probably did stupid things now and agin I imagine (don't we all?) it was probably more dangerous putting a teacher in charge whole really wasn't bothered about being there and knew nothing about technical theatre...

[mumbles]

- an excellent drama teacher, but soooo tight on H&S, which basically boiled down to the fact that he wouldn't let me do anything with out another teacher there to check it out - which, aside from making our lives an awful lot more complicated, also made very little sense whatsoever, because I knew far more about the whole set-up. And while I wouldn't even begin to suggest that I knew everything there was to know and followed perfect practise (not having had anyone around to teach me), and probably did stupid things now and agin I imagine (don't we all?) it was probably more dangerous putting a teacher in charge whole really wasn't bothered about being there and knew nothing about technical theatre...

But the point isn't so much just to keep you and everyone else safe, but to cover their backs in case anything went wrong. If you were to have an accident without a teacher there, then the school would be severely reprimanded for allowing to to do work without an adult present, as well as not being able to claim on their insurance when you or someone else sued.

[lightsource]

<snip>

There are also (in the minority, I have to say) teenagers who do have MUCH of the right knowledge and SOME of the relevant experience, BUT CANNOT legitimately take on the responsibility that many of them crave. it's just too risky. There's too many dangers involved, and to be frank, having a student of what can only be limited experience teach another student successfully is a recipe for disaster in all but the exceptional cases. <snip>

 

There are a hell of a lot of adults that fall under that description too, the kids at least have the excuse of being young!

 

more food for thought, Tonight I have done a dry hire for a Local Council in the north east of england, in one of their theatres, All the electrical equipment had the sticker "next service due June 05", none of the lights above tha stage had a safety chain, and two fire extinguishers were behind curtains...... The only person available to operate the lights was a member of the bar staff, who didn't know what DMX was and openly admitted that some of the gear didn't work.

 

As far as age goes, ( getting back to the thread), I bought my first electronics mag age 10, my first soldering Iron at 11, and got an oscilloscope for my 13th birthday, which is also the same year I built my first mains based project (A lighting desk with built in dimmers. And while I agree that H&S is a main concern, wrapping kids in cotton wool really teaches them nothing.

 

Moderation: Quoting fixed (I think that's right anyway)

[Kiwi]

But the point isn't so much just to keep you and everyone else safe, but to cover their backs in case anything went wrong. If you were to have an accident without a teacher there, then the school would be severely reprimanded for allowing to to do work without an adult present, as well as not being able to claim on their insurance when you or someone else sued.

oh, I know that, but the difference between the two teachers was incredible and the amount of enjoyment you got out of it was considerably different. I find it wholley frustrating trying to do anything vaguely potentially dangerous (read as: interesting) today because of over the top safety reguaations and the fear of being sued. I wish you could just sign a disclaimer of some kind and be allowed to get on with it.

 

Not specifically relating to theatre, but I can't help that the "it's too risky" attitude that sooo many people have (pretty much by neccessity) taken on these days, takes a lot of the fun out of an awful lot of things. Yes, you definitely need to have proper H&S training, and take all precautions you reasonably can, but I think sometimes it all goes to far, which is a great shame.

[mac.calder]

The age debate is largely academic and has been rehashed so many times both here and in other places that almost every view point has been expressed at least 10 times. However it IS an academic debate. I highly doubt that laws will change from how they are now - and the key to the current laws in almost every 1st world country at the moment is that lovely word "Competence" - taken from a legal perspective, NOT the common definition of competence.

 

Probably the best definition of legal competence I have found is this:

 

The ability to use knowledge, understanding, practical and thinking skills to perform a task effectively to the national standards required. This is a broad concept which embodies all aspects of competence relevant to an occupational area and not just those aspects of the various technical and task components, which are readily observable. Competence infers responsibility for the task undertaken.

 

Basically, it rules out most school age children (especially under the inferance of responsibility) especially at a school - the responsible people (legaly) are the teachers. They are responsible for the goings on with the school, not the students.

 

Outside of school, say in Amdram - 16 years is probably where you become "Competent" to undertake a task. It is a legal line in the sand.

 

However - the law is certainly not black and white, and most schools do not have a lawyer working for them full time advising them on what they can and cannot let their students do - and like every profession, within the teachers there are those that take a draconian approach to H&S, and there are those who would rather sit back and let you make small mistakes and learn from them (whilst hopefully keeping you away from serious harm).

 

However - the buck stops with the teacher in charge of the group - and as such that teacher should be the first point of contact before teaching anyone to use the equiptment, and that teacher should also be providing adequate supervision, as well as training, and should also undertake the job of saying "No." when you are doing something with a large potential for injury.

 

As a generalisation, school aged children (even those just prior to leaving school, and I was one of them just a few years ago) have no real idea of the dangers out there, and are (for lack of a better word) nieve. They may have had a broken arm from football, or something like that - and they went to the doctors and were minorly inconvenienced for the next month or two, but they have never seen what a fall from a ladder can do to a person, they have never seen the dangers of electricity outside of the disney special which made the charactors hair stand up and covered them in soot and they really cannot comprehend that the young can die too (beyond the abstract idea of the fact anyway). And yes, quite a few over 40's still don't comprehend these basic ideas - but these people would not be considered competent, and if they performed the task and were not competent, they would still end up with their rear end on the line.

 

For every 1 student under 17 I would feel comfortable working with in a theatre (and I am only a couple of years older than that myself), there are probably a hundred I would not feel comfortable with.

 

I would like to think that whilst I was the only one at my school who understood how the lighting equiptment worked, that I was safe the entire time - but that would be lying. I know that I did quite a few things that make me cringe now (like pulling lanterns out by their cord so that I did not have to move the ladder to unplug it and working on the lader without someone down the bottom footing it). I may have come out of my time with no injuries, but that was by pure luck. I could have just as easily killed myself through electrocution, or fallen off of the ladder and cracked my skull open. And if I did do that, do you think my parents would say "Oh, well it was his own fault for not getting someone to foot the ladder!"? Of course not. They would say "Why was my son up the top of that ladder in the first place? And if he absolutely had to be up there, why was he without a teacher supervising and someone footing it?".

 

It is not a matter of wrapping students in cotton wool - it is teachers being responsible.

 

I suppose what I would like to see is schools being engineered so that their lighting bars were on motorised flys (so students could bounce focus) or had catwalks and I would like to see teachers interested in the technical aspects of the theatre, as opposed to pushing it to one side as too complex and letting students teach themselves. However I doubt that will happen any time in the near future. It is quite a specialised field, and whilst 30 or more students can act at once, there are only so many crew you can have before things become dangerous.

 

Anyway, I don't know if I have made my point now, because this post has turned into more of a stream of conciousness as opposed to a well structured argument against student run crews - but I hope my passion over the issue has at least been imparted.

[paulears]

good levels of skill in young people are not uncommon, but what often happens is that they don't have that 'reasoned' level of care and attention that comes with age. As maybe in this example. A 17yr old performing arts technical theatre student. A voice from the flys - "can I drop the bar?" "Lower away" comes the reply. A button is pressed and lx2 with fairly heavy load of Robe 575W fixtures starts it's journey down, at the hoists rather slow running speed. Big crash and a different voice calls "STOP" - it did, in about another foot! The person who said "Lower away" was texting. "when queried about how stupid, dangerous, crazy etc etc what she did was.... the answer was "the text was important". Up till then, I'd have said she was responsible - now, I know she isn't. It isn't fair to tar everybody with the same brush, but attitude seems to be getting in the way of common sense, and responsibility to others.

[Ynot]

good levels of skill in young people are not uncommon, but what often happens is that they don't have that 'reasoned' level of care and attention that comes with age.

Yup - what is most often missing in the younger crew (as well as some older, I have to say) is that sense of responsibility, as well as commitment to see a job through with quality results.

This is something that comes with maturity and experience.

[Ben Langfeld]

Pretty much most of the things you are saying "only come with age", are blatantly evident in the crew I work with at school, and, while not meaning to sound egotistical, myself too. Everything I do (and allow others to do) I feel responsible for and think through all the possible consequences of my or others actions before taking them any further. I'm an absolute perfectionist and hate seeing things done anything but the best they can be. And I certainly wouldn't even dream of telling someone it was safe to lower a bar without paying full attention to the situation; I've no idea how any individual, sound of mind, could even contemplate doing something so utterly stupid as that girl did. The mind boggles.

 

What I'm trying to say, I guess, is that, certainly, "It isn't fair to tar everybody with the same brush", yet most people say so and do anyway. I believe myself and most of the people I work with both at school and am-dram to have the qualities and level of responsibility (and I'm not talking in the legal sense) that you all claim to be impossible to have at our ages, and challenge anyone to watch us work and claim otherwise. There may be an awful lot of stupid people around who do things beyond comprehension, but remember, there are people of late high-school age who have the maturity you would probably expect from someone in their 30s. Youth doesn't always equal stupidity or naivety, and to claim so is naive.

[Ynot]

What I'm trying to say, I guess, is that, certainly, "It isn't fair to tar everybody with the same brush",

<snipped>

Youth doesn't always equal stupidity or naivety, and to claim so is naive.

I don't think I or anyone else is tarring ALL youth as such, BUT (and it is a BIG but) at 15 or 16 you can only have had so much EXPERIENCE. And at the same time, whilst your attitude towards perfection is laudable, it isn't really anywhere near enough in the legal sense of the word.

You cannot expect, nor should you, to be in a position of responsibility with regard to teaching others when you are that age. Sorry if that sounds a little blunt, but in the eyes of the law (and the ambulance chasers) you can't.

 

And whilst you're right that youth doesn't always equal stupidity, (I've had a number of teenagers come through our am-dram venue, and still have others on the team now) that lack of experience often tells. And by saying that I don't intend to insult their intelligence (esp as 2 or 3 of them are here as BR members!!) - it's just a fact of life that someone with 2 or 3 years doing the odd thing at school can't be expected to have the abilities that an adult who's been working regular shows.

[bruce]

We've had this discussion over and over again on this forum. It is becoming tedious.

 

I believe myself and most of the people I work with both at school and am-dram to have the qualities and level of responsibility (and I'm not talking in the legal sense) that you all claim to be impossible to have at our ages, and challenge anyone to watch us work and claim otherwise.

And that's the problem. You're "not talking in the legal sense". I can believe that from a technical perspective you may exhibit a great deal of professionalism. However, in the real world, you can't just pretend that laws don't exist. Unfortunately "competence" and "responsibility" are not defined solely in terms of your ability and skills; they are also determined based on age, experience and insurance. In a school, a student is not legally "competent" or "responsible". That's the staff's job.

 

I went into a sandwich shop for some lunch today. There was a sign on the meat slicer saying that nobody under the age of 18 was allowed to use it. That's not because the people under 18 are necessarily more dangerous when making sandwiches. It's because the HSE has decreed that, due to the increased hazard risk, this activity must NOT be carried out by children (under 16) and may only be carried out by young people under 18 when under the close supervision of a competent adult.

[Bean]

Is there any problem with having a test, or exam on the H&S stuff? Including some scenerios not out of the text book. So that Experienced students can obtain a licence to hang lights, etc.

Like a bunsen burner licence in science? (Do you guys have that where you are, Basically demonstate how to use one safely, then you get a "Licence")

[mumbles]

Is there any problem with having a test, or exam on the H&S stuff? Including some scenerios not out of the text book. So that Experienced students can obtain a licence to hang lights, etc.

Like a bunsen burner licence in science? (Do you guys have that where you are, Basically demonstate how to use one safely, then you get a "Licence")

I like the idea, but the problem with it would be how to administrate it, and the recuring problem that legally, many of the people are minors, so couldn't be given that responsibility, even if they had demonstrated that they knew what they were doing.

[Ynot]

Is there any problem with having a test, or exam on the H&S stuff? Including some scenerios not out of the text book. So that Experienced students can obtain a licence to hang lights, etc.

Like a bunsen burner licence in science? (Do you guys have that where you are, Basically demonstate how to use one safely, then you get a "Licence")

Nice idea but rather impractical.

And to be honest, especially these days, I can't see any student being allowed to light a bunsen without a teacher or TA in attendance, thus fulfilling the H & S regs for supervision.