COEUR d’ALENE — “Life is a journey, not a destination.”

“Life is not a dress rehearsal.”

For many, those phrases are simply sayings, cool statements to make on T-shirts or social media posts. But for Jared Helm, the idea that a process is as important as its product is a way of life.

It’s a personal philosophy Helm, 31, embodies every day as he leads the drama program at Coeur d’Alene High School, encouraging students to appreciate and get the full benefit from every moment of the learning process, even the failures.

“Education has become so product-based, and today, students can find any bit of information they need, but they need to know the process to find and evaluate that information,” Helm said, during an interview Wednesday at the high school. “Art has always been process-based, and there is something so beautiful about that.”

The artistic process was in high gear last week as Helm and his students put the finishing touches on their production of “The Wizard of Oz.” The show opened Thursday and continues this week on Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. at the high school, 5530 N. Fourth Street.

Tickets for the show had already become a hot commodity by Wednesday. More than 1,000 tickets had already been sold.

“It has the opportunity to be one of the most attended musicals in Coeur d’Alene this year. It’s that big,” Helm said. “I only had this kind of sales for ‘Les Mis’ and we turned away 100 people closing night for that play.”

Sitting in his office, a personal space tucked away off-stage in the Coeur d’Alene High School auditorium, Helm spoke about his own experiences as a performer and the path that led him to a career as an educator.

The idea of giving, of service, is also a central theme in Helm’s life. He speaks often of “service-learning,” lessons garnered through real-life experiences while serving the community.

Helm’s contributions to the Lewiston community earned him the “Spirit of Idaho” award from Sen. Mike Crapo in 2004. Helm was a senior at Lewiston High School at the time, on track to graduate as class valedictorian.

Still, when he started teaching, he didn’t know if he would always teach.

“But I’ve learned in nine years of doing this that it’s what I want to do. It’s where I belong,” Helm said. “Sometimes you want to change the world, and sometimes you just need to know that you’re changing it right now. You’re making a difference right now, even if it’s just one person or it’s 200 people, you’re changing people’s lives, and you never know what they’re going to remember.”

PRESS: Can you describe your earliest memory of performing in front of another person?

HELM: It was kindergarten, and I was in a little play called “Stone Soup,” and it was during a choir concert. I just remember that sense of feeling so loved in that moment … I remember I got done and my grandma looked at me and she said, “Jared, you’re such a ham.” That really never went away. Then that summer, we went to see my friend in “Wizard of Oz” at the Lewiston Civic Theater. I remember, I looked at my grandma and I said, “Grandma, I’m really upset that he’s in the play and I’m not.” And she said, “But Jared, you didn’t audition.” And I said, “Well then, I need to start auditioning.” She got me into the summer camp that summer at the Lewiston Civic Theater and I never turned back.

PRESS: What was it that made you decide to go into teaching?

HELM: For my ninth birthday present my dad built me a fort in the back. He called it a fort, and I called it my schoolhouse. I loved that sense of sharing knowledge but also what you get in return from sharing that knowledge, the knowledge that students and people could provide me an education. I just got this addiction for education and being taught and teaching others, and this idea that it reciprocates, and it goes around and around and around, that there is learning on all sides.

PRESS: What’s your favorite personal acting experience?

HELM: About six or seven years ago, I started working a little bit with a local talent agency. At that time, there was a good amount of film happening up here from Hollywood, small budget films. Cuba Gooding, Jr. was doing a lot of work up here, and a few other actors and actresses. Auditioning for film was so exciting because it was so different than theater. Theater you often can take personally because you know they could choose five different people for that role. In film, they need the specific person. They need somebody this tall, that looks this way, and I have such a distinct voice that I know that always was a factor, one way or the other, but I’d get called back all the time.

And finally, it was at my fourth or fifth film I auditioned for, I got cast. It’s called “The River Murders.” Ving Rhames is in it. Christian Slater is in it, and Ray Liotta is in it. I got cast as the blind date the woman detective meets at the coffee shop. And so me, being this Idaho kid that had not done a lot of acting on film at all, I’d show up on set, and I have my trailer, and these actors and actresses think that I’m from Hollywood. They’d ask, “Where do you work? Where do you live?” And I’d say, “I’m a school teacher over in Coeur d’Alene.”

I had my one line, and I gave my line while practicing the scene in the coffee shop. One of the producers who was acting opposite me said, “He needs another line. And he needs a name.” I thought, “Oh my gosh! I’m going to get a name.”

Then she said, “Well, what do you think your name is?” And I thought about it, and I said, “It can be Jimmy. I think it’s Jimmy.” She said, “No, it’s not Jimmy. How about Leonard?”

My jaw dropped because my grandfather’s name is Leonard, and my uncle’s name, his son, is Leonard. It was just like whoa, and I looked at her, and I said, “Leonard it is.”

PRESS: Do you teach drama classes? What are they like and what are the goals for students?

HELM: I am very lucky. I teach 10 classes over the course of a year, so five a semester, and nine of those classes are drama-related. I get to teach beginning classes like Theater 1 and Theater 2. I get to teach an improvisation class and I get to teach a play production class that is kind of an upper level class. And then, the class that’s just the thing that kids want to take, miles away, is stagecraft. They love building, painting and doing things. I think this generation doesn’t really get the opportunity to paint their walls the color they want … There’s just this sense of the creativity to just craft and make something that isn’t there. And these kids eat it up, and they love it. I don’t push necessarily acting on a lot of kids. There are some. The beauty of acting is that it’s about becoming a better person. The best actor is somebody who is open to the world around them, lacking judgment, lacking confrontation. They really are free to be themselves. So I guess the main thing we teach is, how can you better be yourself? A lot of people have this idea that acting is pretending, and I really don’t like that. Because to me, acting is simply being yourself, combined with elements of a character in a certain situation with a certain mood, and specifically driven by a certain desire or motivation.

PRESS: As a performing arts instructor, what gives you the greatest joy?

HELM: When my students realize that it truly is about the process and not the product, and that no matter what happens along the way, that’s the learning moment. That’s the moment they need to grab a hold of and run with. As a society we’re so product-based. It’s the play that I’m putting on … People always ask me, “Are you excited about the play?” “Are you nervous about the play?” Well, the play is just part of the process. You think of it as a product, and yes, I have to show that moment to the audience, but it’s just one small moment in that process, and the next night will be another moment in that process. When we take the set down, that’s another moment. Then, the next character they create, they’re going to be that much more advanced because they learned from that process.

PRESS: What are the challenges?

HELM: For any teacher, I think it’s playing counselor. You want to be there for all your students and you are there for all your students. Between my classes and my kids in the play, I have over 200 students I’m in contact with throughout the day. Sometimes it’s really difficult to give them the time you want to give them. You want to help them, you want to guide them, you want to teach them, but sometimes you’re being pulled in a million directions. For example, right now, it’s the box office. I’m constantly having to sell tickets. I’m having to work on the set. I’m having to go to Lowe’s. I’m having to buy another gallon of paint.

PRESS: If you could teach just one thing to your students, what would that be?

HELM: That they’re worth it. That their individualism and their uniqueness is worth them taking risks, failing and growing, and making the best them they can possibly make. And that that best them isn’t a paycheck. It isn’t a certain look or a certain personality. It’s them at their truest and most honest self. To me, when they show that, what I tell my students all the time, is they begin to glow. And when you glow as a person, people want to be around you.”