Restarting

I spent my time in tech today teaching people how to flush up the various pieces of a platform.  One person stand here, one person stand there, hold the wood in place like this, push down so that the under side aligns.  I haven't done that in more than a year.  We built lots of platforms last year, but I was not the one to do it.  My seniors constructed most of it, with the assistance of the new people.  Those new people can now build platforms themselves.  It was nice when I was not the only source of knowledge in the shop. 

I'm attempting a huge build this year, the largest I've ever done.  We have two shows going up at once: our one act for District Competition and the fall show.  The fall show has ten platforms, the one act has four.  Everything rolls.  I am confident that I have the ability to do it, but it will take a long time without the student leadership I had last year.  My seniors knew how to do almost everything.  One of them designed, focused and programed the lights by herself.  Another built the complicated bookcases for our one act.  I gave them drawings and said go.  I helped solve the problems that arose.  They bounced ideas off of me.  And I hardly ever picked up a drill or saw.

I have great kids this year.  Some of them are born leaders and will be amazing techs in six months, but I wish they were amazing now.

Conquering Mount Tetris

I changed schools this year, and in so doing, left the shop that I spent the last 5 years cleaning, organizing,  and updating.  Year one, basic tools.  Year two, a fresh coat of paint.  Year three, order.  Year four, new storage spaces.  Year five, more organization.  This year, I stepped into a shop and theatre that is much younger, much smaller, and also in a sad, sad state.  Four years of a technical theatre program run by students and a few parent volunteers left the shop with vice grips that won't grip, a table saw covered in paint, and a teetering mountain of platforms and flats.  It loomed over the stage left wing, daring anyone to climb its craggy sides, taunting me with it's poorly constructed stairs and over-built platforms.  Its creators dubbed it Mount Tetris.

In the months since I took this job, I had successfully pushed the mound of lumber and screws out of my mind.  Until last week, I could work around it, but with the fall show looming on the horizon, I knew that Mount Tetris had to come down.

It took 25 students 3 days to go from top to bottom.  We saved what we could reuse and threw away the rest.  The pile has now dwindled to a few flats and a seemingly endless pile of 2x8s.

With the demise of Mount Tetris comes a new era: The Flat Storage Space.

Fleeing from Hypocrisy

Mashing the "on" button on the projector, I glance up and see a raised hand.  A look and a nod gives the student permission to speak.

"Miss, how come we have to write every day?"

"Well, it's Creative Writing.  It kind of says it in the name of the course.  And it's good for you.  It helps get the juices flowing, gets your mind in the right place."

That is why I make them write every day, to get their minds in the right place.  But I feel like quite the hypocrite requiring them to write regularly even though I haven't set pen to paper--or finger to keyboard as the case may be--in months.  So, after more than a year of ignoring this blog, I've come back, if only to feel like less of a fraud when I tell my kids to write because it's good for them. Time will tell if I have the discipline to stay with it.