Controlled Chaos

If it is possible to be exhilarated and exhausted at the same time, then that about covers it! I certainly have had no lack of hands-on experience so far. Yesterday Dedra handed out the part assignments. A few have already been shuffled slightly, but for the most part they are settled and the kids are pretty psyched... I have heard a few comparisons (I have this many lines, I have that many lines), but they are all, for the most part, pretty happy with the arrangements. Since we have lots of kids, and not a lot of parts, there are multiple main characters for the multiple scenes which I think is a great way to do it. And she will introduce all the "Rosalinds" and all the "Orlandos" together before the whole play starts so the audience should be able to follow along as well. Yesterday we spent the main chunk of the morning just reading through the different scenes. She gave a little feedback to the kids here and there, but mostly it was just to give them a big-picture concept.

Today on the other hand (from my perspective at least) was jumping off the high dive for the second day of swimming lessons. You might keep in mind that she is use to having two MAT (that's what I am - Masters of Arts in Teaching) students instead of just one. We do have two "helpers" which are middle-schoolers who have outgrown this elementary program, but still wanted to come back and help... but while they are certainly willing, they don't exactly have classroom management skills, or the authority, to handle kids on their own. So anyway... this morning the kids were suppose to come prepared with ideas for drawing the backdrop for the play, which they would then sketch out (individually to start with) during their non-acting time. They also had a second assignment of drawing a self-portrait of themselves as their character (yes, I know "self-portrait of themselves" is redundant -- I'm tired). This sounds great as a few projects to keep them busy right? Sure...

So Dedra takes a scene at a time (3-6 kids per scene) outside -- yes, that's completely outside the building -- and leaves me to read lines of individual scenes with other groups (of 3-6 kids) while at the same time making sure that the other 12-18 kids are staying "on task" with their art stuff. Sure.... Her thought process was that the "helper" kids could kind of control the main group, but that didn't happen. I have to say that I think I managed it pretty well, and these are really great kids (translation - it could have been a lot worse), but good lord was I pooped by the end of the morning. In between completely stopping my scene on occasion to re-focus the entire group, I had the interruptions of "do you like my backdrop?" "I can't draw" "I'm done" "So-and-so did such-and-such" etc. etc. I am sure this is great practice for the multi-tasking in a real classroom setting, but I still would have set it up differently if I was the primary teacher. I can definitely see how it would have worked smoothly if there was another MAT in the class, but with just me... yah... controlled chaos. Super fun though. Seriously... I still had a blast. I think I did a great job translating the Shakespearean "wordage" into something the kids actually understand. And for me, that would also really help me memorize my lines (if i actually understood what it was that I was suppose to be saying). There is still a lot of "ewww...cooties" reactions to the shmoopy love stuff, and since its a romantic comedy, there is a lot of it, but Dedra says they get over that in the end. So I think I might talk to her about how we can re-juggle this set up a little bit... although she is already stressing out (I have been warned that she does this EVERY year)... so I might just have to take it as a learning experience and go with it. Thankfully, tomorrow all the kids from all the classes go to an orchestra performance of "Peter and the Wolf" so that should be fun (and a break from the chaos)

And of course the day that I am fall-down-and-nap-where-I-stand-tired, is the day that I am up for my micro-teaching lesson. It was teaching transition words (first, next, last, fourth, finally, etc) to third graders through Halloween-themed writing/drawing project. I definitely felt prepared as I spent most of Mon night and all of Tues night prepping... (yes, 9ish hours to do 15 minutes), but I was still nervous. It was much more nerve-racking to be up in front of my peers and my teacher, than it was to be in front of the kids... but I think I did well. There was certainly room for improvement (yes, shocking that I am not perfect, I know!) but I got a lot of compliments as well. So... if I get a good grade I'll report it, and if I don't, then you'll know not to ask :)

Ok... I'm all blogged out and there is a very patient puppy dog who is very patiently waiting for me to not be ratt-a-tat-tatting on this computer and take him outside to play. You probably won't hear from me until the weekend as I have multiple due-Friday stuff to work on. But I also like writing this (I hope you like reading it!) so you never know!
In the meantime, as my actors would say... "And now, adieu." [end scene]