Caught at their most...

Among other wonderful things coming up, by the end of this month, I'll go back to being a teaching artist in public schools. And I cannot wait! These kids are like none others--finally, an opportunity presents itself that allows them to be crazy and creative and to write and express and on and on...I love these kids.
Last semester I worked with two fourth grade classes on my own, with two wonderful teachers, and it was sad to see it end. One of the really juicy things that sometimes happens at the end of these residencies is that the teachers encourage each and every kid to write down all their thoughts about the past few months of drama class and compose it in a little letter, which they then hand to me. When this last class ended, I had students sing a christmas carol for me, act out things they'd dreaded just weeks before and both classes handed me two big stacks of thank you letters. They were wonderful, brought me to tears, as you can imagine. Besides the 'thanks', the impressive thing is that for many of these kids, writing, let alone the english language, does not come easy. Knowing this, one little note in particular stuck out... Her teacher, Mr. Fox, is one of my best friends, so he was able to explain it to me in detail. Turns out, she really had no idea where to start, or how to start, a note to me, so she "borrowed" a xmas card from her mother's collection and copied down what was written inside. It's really so moving...though the thought is left unfinished, I can imagine how it might end.