Friday...Shakespeare's Got Nothing on Us

Fridays are my days at the Learning Center. I get to help Liz & Patty (who run the school) and spend some time with some great students. Currently I am doing a one-hour drama class with them and then also assisting with teaching tennis. Last week I got the idea to have the kids learn to write and act/direct their own skits. We had enough students to have two groups and I ran back and forth checking on them while they tried to iron out their ideas. By the end of the class we decided we could continue this project the following week - at this time I was still a little aprehensive about the success of this idea.

Friday morning I was still pondering if the students would really get into this and enjoy the process, I decided I would give it this week and see how they were doing - if it did not seem to be going over well we would have to plan B it. I arrived at school and almost immediately a student came up to me and told me their team had a PRINTED script ready to go! I stood there shocked. Had this group actually done work outside of class that was NOT required of them? When drama class time came the group with a script wanted most of the class time to practice. Again I was shocked and had to subdue my excitement as I thought to myself - THEY GET IT! THEY'RE EXCITED ABOUT THIS! Thank you LORD!

I spent much of the class working with the other group helping them to stay focused and dropping in a idea here and there as they wrote their script. It was neat to see them get excited as they saw their ideas come together. Periodically I would visit the other groups practice and quickly be told (nicely) to leave because I couldn't see their skit yet.

What an amazing turnaround! I had thought for sure I would need to plan B it, but each of the students got involved in the project and I think that we will have a some great fun and learn lots from this expierence. Please pray for me, I feel completely inadequate to be teaching a drama class. I know that there will need to be both structure and freedom for this idea to reach completion. So please pray for wisdom as I try to guide these students into a new territory where I have never been.