Good things coming

Happy day!  This arrived today:

Thanks to some very generous and amazing people, and Donorschoose.org, the first of several boxes of MUCH needed supplies arrived today.  I have erasers!  It's the little things.  New scissors are backordered, but I'll have them in the next two weeks I think.  SO excited for those.

I'm super excited about how the project in my art class is going.  Inspired by pop art.  Focusing on positive/negative space.  The are making "self portraits."  First I gave them a box of junk mail and ads to go through.  I asked them to cut out words they felt described themselves, phrases that stood out, logos and labels of products they liked, etc.  They then covered a piece of paper with them.  After that they have the choice of using their silhouette or the shape of something important to them to cut out part of it and have a positive and negative version of it.  One would have words on the silhouette with a white background.  The other the words were around a white silhouette.  They've really been having fun with this, and showing off some of what they are able to find.  Then last night an idea popped into my head.  Tomorrow I'm going to try it out so I'll let you know how it goes.  Basically we're going to turn this project into a performance art piece.  Get excited.

My last theatre class of the day has been an interesting journey.  I had a little bit of a power struggle with a student today.  I ended up doing Columbian Hypnosis.  After I asked them how they felt being the leader as well as the follower.  It was very telling when a student said, "I didn't want to do it, but I felt like I had to."  We had a great discussion about where this activity came from and then we played The Great Game of Power.  I just used four chairs.  I asked them to arrange them so one chair had power over the other three.  They took turns, then I pushed them to come up with even more ways.  Then one of the students started analyzing what the chairs represented without me even bringing it up.  It was amazing.  This guy is a genius and has never even taken theatre before.  He just makes those connections on his own.  Then something really fascinating happened.  One of the students put all the chairs on their side, and said, "There, now no one has any power."  He wasn't being defiant.  He was just being matter of fact.  It was such a clear insight into how this kid is feeling about life.  He feels completely powerless, but he doesn't show it because of the world he has to survive in.  So even though we were having fun with improv this week I think I'm going to stay with this a little longer and do some image work to show them ways to express ideas physically and then how to use those images to come up with solutions.