finally, a new post about education

I underestimated how different it would be to come back this week to the same group of kids. The past two Mondays, charged with the excitement of getting to know a new group of young people and a new teaching artist, have felt less like Mondays and more like beginnings, if that makes any sense at all. Although there's no doubt that this week will be a long one, I'm excited about the possibilities of one more week to develop relationships with some really incredible kids (and, unfortunately, some really difficult ones).

That brings me to a new conclusion I've come to about the necessity for one-on-one interaction with kids in a classroom. I've always been lucky enough to attend schools with small class sizes, where I was able to really get to know my teachers, but I'm well aware that unfortunately, this isn't the case for most young people. Though my experience working on Junie B. Jones has had its ups and downs, the other two interns and I have found ourselves taking on advocate roles for the kids while the director or musical director are working, which has been such a gift. When they get in trouble for being disruptive, we know that they're really just stuck in an imaginary box and are doing anything they can to get out of it, or they're hosting their own radio show, or something else equally imaginative and wonderful. It would be so easy for that imagination to go overlooked in a class of 24 without eyes and ears all over the room to really take in the kids' behavior. It kills me to think that just because someone doesn't force him or herself into the spotlight, their creative energy could be silenced, rather than saved for a more appropriate time, in the interest of productivity and a teacher's sanity. Between us three interns and the two teaching artists, we have a really incredible student to teacher ratio, but it's so easy to see what the room could turn into without that.

Speaking of creative energy, one of our boys made an awesome drawing of the three Junie B. interns yesterday. It's always really fun to think about how the kids see us, and I thought I'd share. I'm the one  in the middle who vaguely resembles Justin Bieber.