Who says real life isn't like TV?

I watch Glee. In fact, I love Glee. This is odd, because as a non-singing, non-dancing theatre person and drama teacher, I LOATHE musicals. But Glee is awesome. SO, nyah.

I directed my first school play earlier this month, and it was an amazing experience I want to repeat, but not any time in teh very immediate future. Next fall is better, haha.

Anyway, I had a large cast: 19 kids. 3 non-speaking parts, 3 tiny parts, the rest had several to plenty of lines. Ambitious, I know. Lesson learned. I teach in a school with about 115 kids from 8th to 12th grade. The coolest part of teaching in a small school? Everyone is involved in everything. The worst part of teaching in a small school? Everyone is involved in everything. I worked out time shares with the basketball, cheerleading, volleyball, and dance team coaches, as well as had to deal with the wrestling, volleyball, cross country, dance team, cheerleading, and basketball practice and game schedules, as well as work in the bowling team meets, which outweighed all of that, because that's my other after-school commitment, haha.Oh, and I had a student who attends our school half day and a creative arts school in the afternoon. WHEW. As you can see, I had athletic, popular, theatre, and artsy kids, as well as student council kids and kids who had never done anything like this before to juggle. As we all know from movies and TV shows, the jocks and the artsy kids and the student council kids and all of that never overlap in larger schools, and, well, the same is actually true in small schools, too.

We did a modern-language one-act adaptation of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" by Shakespeare, chosen because I also had to teach the real story in my sophomore English class this quarter. As usual, I offered bonus points to my students who were in the play or worked back stage. Two girls decided that if they could get bonus points, then maybe they could put up with being in the play. Both are sophomores, both are cute, both are popular. Both played on the volleyball team, one is the head cheerleader. They made it pretty clear in the beginning that they just wanted bonus points. Being short on available students, I figured what the heck...holding bonus points over them would make them do it.

My Titania was an anime-loving, cos-playing theatre newbie. She is a senior who loves Spongebob, the Beatles, and wigs and is a really awesome kid. Trying out, then committing to the part is not something she would have done two years ago. In fact, if I hadn't harassed her every day for a month, she may not have joined, either. I think she did it to get me to leave her alone.

Titania, Moth, and Starveling (I didn't have enough boys available, so Starveling was my head cheerleader) normally have nothing to do with each other. One group is too cool for life, the other is happy just to be herself. Titania wanted to wear a wig as part of her costume. She debated between a pink and a blue for a while, then decided on the pink, then chickened out and went with a long, dark brown wig with a funky cut. (Good funky, not bad funky.) She brought a bag full of wigs, including one she was donating to the department to school one day. It was a half day, and I went to nuke my lunch. As I was walking out of the room, I heard one of the sophomores say in a derisive tone, "Why do you have so many wigs?" There was a glance between Moth and Starveling. I knew Titania would hold her own, so I let it be. My lunch finished heating, and I walked back to my room, only to find Titania, Moth, and Starveling all wearing wigs and laughing and giggling together. They ate lunch in their wigs. After lunch, they returned the wigs to Titania. I heard Moth say, "Man...I think I want wigs now. Those are fun!" Starveling echoed her sentiments saying, "I want to do this every day!" And Titania just smiled and said, "Now you get why I have them?" The other two looked sheepish and said, "Yeah."

I related this story to my husband that night, and he said, "You just had Glee in your classroom." I looked at him quizzically. "You had your head cheerleader, another girl who is popular, too, and both of them are jocks. Your Oberon and your Snout are both jocks. You have your creative arts school kid as Puck, your quiet 8th grade sweet girls, your student council officers, and your kids who aren't normally involved in anything, plus your wig-wearing anime girl, and they just learned to do something together, to appreciate something they previously scoffed at. It's just like Glee."

You wanna talk glee? I lived it for the next few days. Thank you, theatre, for giving kids a chance to see into each others' worlds and to learn to appreciate each other and to get along.

It's been almost 2 weeks since the play. Moth and Starveling are more tolerant of kids in their class. They smile at me in the halls and answer when I say hello. They're no longer too cool. I mean, they get frustrated sometimes, but I heard Moth stick up for a kid this morning while they were working on their exam projects, and she normally tormented that kid. Let's hope they keep some of this and use it.

Thiiiiiis is why I do it...

I have a degree in journalism, and while I loved my art, it didn't satisfy me. I had worked with children since I was a young teen, and I thought kids were pretty cool. Why not use my journalistic knowledge to teach writing? Might as well throw in some Shakespeare, or classics, or women's lit in there while I'm at it and be an English teacher, right?

And so I am. There are days when a kid threatens to throw a desk at me, days when parents seem reluctant to help their children succeed, policies I haven't totally agreed with, and those kids who just slip through the cracks and have a dark, uncertain future, no matter how hard you try to save them. I had one of each of those last year, and there were many days when I went, "WHY do I do this for this little money again?"

But this year...this year is different. It is my best year of teaching, believe it or not, since my first year when I had an amazing class. The biggest, most disastrous event of my life happened that first year, and it was still a million times better than my 4th year. I spent much of last year disgruntled, but this year is so different. I'm...blissful, dare I say it.

One of the things that leads to this bliss is teaching journalism for the first time. I've always run media club, but this is the first time I get it as a course. I'm co-teaching with a friend of mine, which makes it even better. I'm the writer, she's the photo artist. We're a perfect blend.

Our class is a dozen seniors, all with learning differences. Some have a difference as small as ADHD, others have Asperger's, most have written language difficulties.

Most of them were 8th graders back in that first year. Some of them were in my very first class. Maybe they just hold very special places in my heart automatically.

Barely any of them can write well, let alone read. And yet, we've made them LOVE journalism. None of them chose this elective; they were thrown into it.

Maybe it's the crazy stories I tell from my days as a journalism student and professional to illustrate how and why procedures and rules of journalism exist. Maybe it's the two teachers who love their art forms and are friends outside of the classroom. Maybe it's a good time of day. They have only study hall after us, and homeroom and lunch before us...no pressure. Maybe it's the loose structure that every journalism class has. Maybe it's the do what you love and love what you do atmosphere we're setting up. Maybe it's the little perks, like knowing what happens first, and the press passes I'm making for them. Maybe it's Groovy Friday, our new tradition wherein we play music (Michael Jackson, Women of the '80s, old school hip hop, classic rock....) while they work on Fridays if they've been good all week. Maybe it's a budding of school pride. Maybe it's the way we praise them for almost everything they come up with. Maybe our enthusiasm is just that infectious. Whatever it is, they are loving it.

Whatever it is, it is an amazing sight.

We announced our editorial board this week, and our editor and managing editor are true leaders. One is quiet with a dry sense of humor and is student body president. The other is, well, the kitten in the kangaroo pocket girl in the entry below this one. Both are goofy and easy-going, and seem to be taking their jobs seriously. I was so proud of them. They handled one moody student very well at first, were encouraging, and the girl didn't want that. But they worked better with her today than they have in the past. Our photo editor spent a lot of time quietly working to sort through ID photos, rename them, and sort them into grade-level folders. They excitedly scheduled interviews, some even snagged their first ones today! Our news editor is probably going to snag an interview with the new Archbishop. WOW! Who would have thought that one of our kids could do that, huh, naysayers? Some of them even gave up study hall to finish some work. Study hall, last period on a Friday, where they probably were just hanging out, and they chose to come to work.

I didn't want class to end today. Of course, it was also Groovy Friday.

But it made me remember, "Oh yeah. THIS is why I do this."