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Nilaja Sun
As Herself
Nilaja Sun portrays a teaching artist named, as it happens, “Nilaja Sun,” who arrives at Malcolm X high school in the Bronx, n.Y., for a six-week residency in a classroom known as “the worst class in school.” the school janitor describes the students as juvenile delinquents; the
school principal describes them as “challenging” – but adds, “I believe in them.” the students describe themselves as convicts, marched past metal detectors, with little control over their lives. As a classroom teaching artist, Ms. Sun’s goal is to have the students read and perform a play by Timberlake Wertenbaker called Our Country’s Good. this play-within-the-play concerns British convicts in 1787 who are imprisoned in a harsh and brutal penal colony in Australia. in the play, the prisoners organize themselves to perform a play and the experience boosts the spirits of jailers and convicts alike. in No Child..., Ms. Sun hopes Our Country’s Good will have the same impact on her students. |
