Winding Down

Photo by Richard Pasquarella on Unsplash

Seven days more until summer. June 21. Coincidentally, that is our last day of classes. I am especially looking forward to this one and to having time over summer for the preparation of new programming and to revise curriculum for 2022-2023.

These last days of school are always interesting. With middle school, it's about keeping things "normal" while battling the students' ever-growing feeling of summer freedom.

In the high school, there's more a sense of winding down. As tests and projects come due, we all breathe a bit easier and reflection takes the stage. I love sitting with classes and asking general questions: How are you? How did things go? What worked? What didn't? What would you like to see/do next time? What can we do better?

These conversations over the last five school days brought excellent ideas and suggestions from students that I can't wait to put into action. It's great how this work always comes back to the core finding that has become my mantra: "take them seriously". They've begun taking themselves seriously, too, and the awakening that has begun is going to be fun to watch develop in the next school year!

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Finding Purpose in the Pause

Pauses and stops are disruptive by nature. What if we saw them as opportunities instead?

This morning I woke up to the second snow day of the week. While it is nice to have a more relaxed day at home, it also means rescheduling and restructuring lesson plans and rehearsal schedules and more, I'm sure. But in that re-, there's possibility. I will look at all of those plans with a new perspective and restructure goals under new limitations and dynamics. Being home also allows other opportunities, too (doing laundry while I work is huge).

From a more poetic viewpoint, there's possibility in a day like today - to any pause in our routine. I wrote more about it on the Young Playwrights Guide blog today. You can read that here.

Okay. Back to work!

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