My Beautiful Students...

It is snowing big, fat, fluffy flakes right now.  -So stunning.  I have that quivery happy quiet glee like when I woke up as a little girl (these are the kind of flakes one sees in the Willamette Valley) and I just had a feeling school would be cancelled!!  Snow was so magical because it only happened a few times a year, if at all.  Now I have so much of it... but today it warmed up and now we have good old fashioned wet "let's make a snowman" kind of snow.

I'd like to boast about my Greek class students by sharing some pictures of their final presentation in mask.  Aren't they stunning?  It's amazing what we learned about physical expression when in mask.  In the chorus pieces they weren't in character mask as everyone was a "citizen" and their physical life could be multi-dimensional.  In mask, they usually had to opt for larger tableaus, usually facing front.

Another student did officially withdraw today.  Sigh.   This work isn't for everyone.  We do ask so much.  But it's worth it if they can just hang on.  Being a teacher is a lot like being a parent sometimes.  How much can I push, because it's right, and I see promise in them, and how much can they trust?  I'd love to springboard them into their own freedom.

I was directing my new drama ministry class today for the first time on their feet.  They kept asking, "Where do I go?" before they would speak.  They all have this need to get it right the first time but they don't realize that question realize stymies a director in the midst of trying to just hear the piece.  They have to learn to just move on impulse, and I will shape as soon as I see clearly, or maybe it won't need any shaping.  I'm asking them to be in limbo, but still initiate and risk.  Same old issue.  But they'll get used to it.  They'll have to.  We perform on Sunday ready or not.  But you see... I have confidence from experience, that even the most fragile performance can be full of profundity and grace.  I'm counting on it.  They'll come along.. we're just still getting to know each other.  Soon they'll be like the mentorship students, flailing their bodies to Pete Gabriel's Passion and sticking it to the world with their iconic language and gestures.

Oh yes... and now back to Weston who's making a rocket and Donovan who's making his own Pokemon cards out of cereal boxes.  Looks like life is like a classroom too.