Young Men's - 3/7/08

This was the day of the infamous Black History Show. I had been stressing about it for weeks and weeks and it finally arrived. And I must say that the kids did very well. I was proud of each and every one of them. There were a total of three shows over the course of a very long day. Two in the morning and then one at 6pm. The first one was pretty good. It was clear that the kids were a little nervous. They were still chatty backstage but thankfully it wasn't to the point that it was incredibly disruptive. Also, the kids in the audience were also pretty loud. It seemed funny to me when the nerves did actually hit the kids. During class, they've always put out a bit of an attitude. They didn't seem to take things seriously and would say just about anything in any kind of way. But once they got in front of the audience, all of that went away. I was in the wings of the stage and I could see and hear how quiet and timid all of the deliveries were. But they did a great job. The Drama Club followed the Young Men's Club and it was pretty much the same type of thing. A lot of attitude before, timid when they got up there. But they did the chanting really well and we had kids from all the clubs join in. The final drumming piece also went extremely well. The second show of the morning went better. It was a lot smoother and there was a little more confidence. Also, one of the other teachers decided to put the microphone in front of the kids to give them more volume. In their defense, it's a lot more difficult to speak loudly and clearly in a filled room rather than an empty room. Again, the second show went very well. There was one small snag. During the second drumming piece, one of the kids dropped his drumsticks. Then he looked over at me with this incredibly helpless look. All I could do was try to signal to him to just go and pick up the stick. The kid next to him helped him out and gave it back to him. He managed to get back into the groove. There were a couple of giggles in the audience but it wasn't that big of a deal. Afterwards, I told if he ever drops his sticks again that he should just pick them up because if the audience sees you drop them, they might as well see you pick them up. I also told him that professional drummers have a supply of sticks next to their drumset in case something like that happens. He seemed pretty unscarred by the situation. I had to run an after school club before the show which made the day even longer. I pretty much just let the kids run around outside. I just didn't have the energy to put together a lesson plan. Here is the really funny part. Before the show, there was about another hour to kill. All the kids from all the clubs were in the cafeteria. After such a long day, it was impossible to keep them in their seats so I allowed them to do what they always love to do: dance. However, I had to insist that the boys stay separated from the girls. It just causes way to many problems when they mingle. So I made an invisible line that they could not cross. Somehow, a "dance-off" occured between the two genders. I felt like I was on the set of a Janet Jackson video. The last show also went very well. Probably the best of all three. The only problem was that a couple of the kids couldn't stay for the evening show so I had to do a little maneuvering. Basically, just cutting the lines of the people who weren't there. It all worked out in the end and there was pizza and snacks after the show. You know something's gone well when there a reward of food at the end.