First Lead & Greenwood Invitational

This week was my first time as Lead for seminar. Initially I was nervous, but once I came up with the main activity I was so excited. I originally had planned to have everyone go outside to the complete the worksheet in solitude for 15-20 minutes and then go back inside to explain a few elements and principles of design before having them split into groups to work on representing their connections to nature visually for 40 minutes. I had not accounted for connections properly though. I really believe connections is the most important part of our seminar because we only see each other once a week and it's really helpful to hear the experiences of your peers, so I didn't want to cut anyone off. I think time got away from us when Shelby started talking, I understand she wanted to talk to us about it, but I don't think she was being very respectful of the time allotted for connections since she took up 15 minutes of the 20 minutes for connections. But I couldn't just cut her off, so I felt really stuck. I wanted to cut out Summer's discussion part but I knew that she still had to have some part in Lead so she was nice about condensing her activity. I think that I wasn't really able to enjoy connections, current event, or forum recap because I was so stressed out about time which didn't allow me to really be present for the conversations at hand. Then when I only had 30 minutes to cram in a project I had planned to take up an hour to an hour and a half, I felt jumbled and like I wasn't explaining myself well. I had a part that would've connected the readings to the activity but I had to cut it out. I didn't explain the painting activity well and I just didn't have time for what I wanted. But I will say I was extremely happy with the end products each group came up with. They all totally nailed it! But then I read the reviews and they all said connections should've been shorter and I should've managed my time better (the were written nicely so I in no way felt attacked) and after reading them I just wanted to cry because this activity was so amazing and I did not execute it well and now it's over and can't be done again. So I don't know exactly how I feel about my first time being Lead.

What I did enjoy though was my Saturday at Greenwood's competition with my students from color guard. I was so happy to see them because the last time I worked with them was in August. I still had typical frustrations that I used to have with them, but I think something about being away from them for so long makes me appreciate what a great group of kids I get to work with. They all did great in their performance and it made me so proud to see what they had accomplished while I was gone. The only problem I had was with Cameron, one of the boys in color guard. He was really throwing attitude and being rude to the girls and when he performed he looked awful when he's usually so energetic. I took him aside to ask him what was wrong since he seems to have a closer relationship with me than the other instructor. He said he just wanted it to be over already and I asked why and he shrugged. I asked him why he joined color guard in the first place and he told me it was because he loves to dance so I told him to just dance then! I figured the one thing that was difference about this competition than the previous ones was that they had just got the new costumes in. So I asked if he didn't like wearing the costume and he said he hated it because his friends in band made fun of him. Now the costume is for a boy, it's not like we put him in one the girls were wearing, but they're still very theatrical, so I could understand why he didn't feel comfortable. I just told him to put them out of his mind and focus on dancing otherwise he was going to regret focusing on something stupid rather than focusing on performing to the best of his ability in a show they only compete with 8 times. He said okay and we hugged and I felt resolved until I got a text from the other director saying a girl told him that Cameron cussed at her. So I called my mom to see how we should handle the situation and she said that we should just let it be until she saw them in class on Monday. She said that the girl Cameron cussed at had openly asked in front of everyone in practice if he was gay and that it made him severely uncomfortable. I guess this whole experience taught me that there are so many layers to the reasons students act and that you should always hold them to a high standard, but understand they're still humans as well. I prefer to ask my students if they're okay when they act out instead of yelling "What's wrong with you!" or "Why'd you do that?" because 9 times out of 10 they have more pressing reasons behind their behavior.

I did not have a school to visit this week. Still sending out emails. I was thinking about maybe emailing Greenwood even though they're not on the list of participating schools. Is that okay? And I still am waiting for Bloomington North to respond to your package of resumes, so if you have any other schools you think would be interesting to visit, let me know!