Children's Studies at Brooklyn College Offers Unique Course on the Professional Performing Child

Kate Bateman (1843-1917) (seen here with younger sister Ellen) began acting professionally at age four.

 One of the innovative courses that will be offered in the Children's Studies Program at Brooklyn College this fall looks at the lives of the young people who work in the entertainment industry. Two years ago, Professor Gertrud Lenzer, the director of the interdisciplinary Children's Studies Program, invited theater historian Dr. Shauna Vey to develop a course on the topic, "The Professional Performing Child: Past and Present Issues." The course will be offered as part of the regular curriculum of the Children's Studies Program. Like many of the cutting-edge courses in this program, Dr. Vey's course has broad appeal—it attracts not only students of theater history, but also those who are interested in labor history, urban studies, education, philosophy, sociology, and psychology. "Moreover," Professor Lenzer observes, "all these performing children—from child actors in television, the theater and the movies to child models in advertising, from prodigies in the performing arts and sports to promoters of a huge market for children and youth—play an important part as role models in the processes of socialization of our young generations. In fact, the course deals with one of the most important emerging social and economic phenomena."

Popular child actress Daisy Murdock (1868-1886) died of consumption.

"The tradition of performing children goes all the way back to the ancient Greeks," says Dr. Vey. "Most people agree that child labor is wrong. But what if a child is offered fame and thousands of dollars? Does that make child labor acceptable?"

"The rationale used to justify the employment of child actors in New York City in the 1870s is echoed in 2003—for example, 'The children don't know that they're working; they think that they're playing.' Of course," reflects Vey, "if you are playing, you can stop any time you want. If you are working, that's another matter."

Vey's one-of-a-kind course highlights the special dilemma faced by child performers, who are surrounded by people—often the child's own parents—who depend on the child's earnings for their own support.

Paul Peterson, a child actor who today heads A Minor Consideration, an advocacy group for child performers.

Child performers in New York—talented youngsters whose lives on Broadway or in commercials and television shows appear glamorous but who are often ruthlessly exploited—may finally get the same protection that children in California have nominally enjoyed since 1939. >The Child Performers Education and Trust Act of 2003, a bill sponsored by local Assemblywoman Helene Weinstein and passed by the State Legislature on June 19, is a version of California's Coogan Law, which ensures that 15 percent of a child's gross income is held in trust until he or she turns eighteen years old. The bill would also require producers to provide a New York State certified teacher (or a teacher with out-of-state credentials that are recognized by New York State) for children who must miss school to perform.

The parents of Jackie Coogan, a silent picture star of the 1920s, squandered all of his earnings, inspiring California's Coogan Law.

Participants in Vey's class look beyond the bright lights of Broadway to consider other spheres in which children perform. "We look at ice skating, gymnastics, children's choirs, piano, chess, ballet, the circus, tennis, beauty pageants, and even activities involving newborns and infants," says Vey, who became interested in the issue of child performers during her career as a stage manager. "Each student in my class conducts research on a group of child performers—student projects have really expanded my data. When I taught this course at Brooklyn College in 2002," says Vey, "a student researcher decided to apply for a position as an on-set teacher to find out how they are screened and selected. Even though she had few qualifications, she was told that her chances of being hired were very good."

Vey's students also learn about the historical tradition of child performance and the medieval customs that continue in institutions today, especially with circus families. Vey notes that such "animal free" circuses as Cirque du Soleil rely on Chinese and Russian acrobats who, as child performers, often grew up under harsh circumstances.

Dr. Vey, an adjunct assistant professor who received her Ph.D. from the City University of New York, wrote her dissertation on the nineteenth-century campaign to bar children from performing professionally in New York. For information on contemporary advocacy, she directs her students to the work of people like Paul Petersen, a former child star who heads the industry watchdog organization, A Minor Consideration.

Ron Howard, a child star who benefited from a comparatively "normal" childhood.

Because Vey is a historian, she refrains from giving advice to parents who want to see their children enter show business, but points instead to such examples as Ron Howard, a child star who benefited from caring parents who ensured that their children enjoyed a "normal" childhood. As for the more tragic child stars, such as Michael Jackson, who have fallen on hard times or have warped into bizarre caricatures of themselves, Vey observes: "They spent their childhood being adults and now spend their adult years being children."

Vey's class is just one of many path-breaking courses offered by the Brooklyn College Children's Studies Program , which brings together knowledge about children from infancy through the age of legal majority as seen from the perspectives of the arts, humanities, social and natural sciences, medicine, and the law. Other courses this fall include "The Human Rights of Children: A Transnational Development" and "Children in Crisis," which looks at young people in extreme situations of social, cultural, political, and familial disruption. Brooklyn College was the first academic institution to develop an interdisciplinary Children's Studies Program that promotes a holistic and comprehensive understanding of children and youth. The Children's Studies Program, conceived by Professor Lenzer in 1991, has since become a national model.