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Students of the circus
By BRADY DENNIS, Times Staff Writer TAMPA -- Outside the blue curtain, a clown walks by -- red nose, white face, huge shoes. He's wearing a plaid flannel robe while heading for a smoke break, a cigarette dangling from his cherry lips. Inside the curtain, on a patch of concrete, four children sit in metal chairs around folding tables. Flash cards and cardboard alphabets are spilled in front of them. This is their classroom. This is where they learn, these children of the circus, deep in the bowels of the building. "It's like an old one-room schoolhouse," said Larry Kellogg, spokesman for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, which opened a new two-year tour Thursday at the St. Pete Times Forum. "They get tests and everything. It's a real school." But most schools don't have sequin-clad ringmasters or quarter horses or fake gorillas rolling on orange pinwheels past the classroom door. Eight children are attending the school this year, ranging in age from 6 to 16. Most of them are children of performers or other circus workers. One, the 16-year-old boy, rides a motorcycle in the Globe of Death. They live a life unlike any other schoolchildren in America. They have grand field trips: the Smithsonian in Washington. The Mayflower II in Boston. The lights of Las Vegas. The streets of New York. But they know that next week means another city, another stop, another arena. They know that home means a train car and that school is something that fits into two red portable cases stamped "Ringling Bros." * * * Brenda Shaw, 27, is the ringmaster of the school. She used to teach math in Connecticut, but a year and a half ago she found an ad on the Internet seeking a "traveling teacher." "The two things I love to do most," she said. So now she packs the classroom every week, only to unpack it again at the next stop. She plans lessons for first graders through 11th graders. She assigns books, everything from Ducks and Ducklings to Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. She teaches math, everything from simple addition to advanced algebra. She sometimes deals with cannons booming in the background and dancers rehearsing musical acts. It's all part of the job, she said. She sees the circus life as tough on the kids, but rewarding. "It's not an easy lifestyle, but they seem to adapt," she said. "What we're learning about in books, we can also go and see. Plus, they are meeting a variety of people from around the world." Shaw said she plans to "settle down" eventually, but that day hasn't come. For now, she'll keep rambling across the country. "I ran away with the circus, and everybody (back home) thinks I'm crazy," she said. Her classroom theme this year seems to fit her and the children: "Patterns in a changing world." * * * Lexie Valentin, 7, has traveled with the circus for three years. She lives an Alice-in-Wonderland sort of fantasy: the clowns and carolers, the trapeze artists and twirling dancers, they all love her. One even gave her a telescope for Christmas. Lexie is practicing her cursive now, and even though she spelled circus as "curkus," the letters were shaped perfectly. "I like the school part," Lexie said, "I just don't always like the circus part. Every other week we have to pack up and drive and go to a new hotel." But she does like Boston, where she once saw a chicken hatch in the Museum of Science. Despite the nomadic lifestyle, most of the children said they could see themselves staying with the circus all their lives. Adriano Anastasini has different plans. At 6, he already speaks Italian, Spanish and English. His father, who wears a bushy mustache and works the comedy dog routine, stood only feet away on the the three-ring floor. A ringmaster passed in a sparkling suit that looked stolen from Liberace. The clown, the one with the cigarette, returned to the stage, ready to smile for the cameras. Dancers pranced by in split-tail jackets. Behind the curtains, Adriano didn't see a thing. He was dreaming of bigger wonders than the Greatest Show on Earth. "I want to be a king," he said. "The king of the world."
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