The Pre-K Play: The Video

Yesterday I shared the script of our Pre-K play with you, along with photos of most of the props and set pieces we made. Today I present the video of the performance in two parts.

Each January, I challenge my Pre-K class to do something for the whole school. My first year's class decided we needed a birthday throne, but ever since then we've put on a play.

Our first writing session takes place on the blue rug during a circle time, then in subsequent weeks moves to our "journals" station, where the kids can add to the play as the inspiration moves them. Typically, the kids start by deciding what characters they're going to play. This is a moving target for the first couple months, as some of the kids change their minds each week. The same goes for the rest of the script. We may call it "finished" in late February or early March when we begin rehearsing, but that's just a starting point as each week we continue "writing" from the stage as we experience the reality of what we will be presenting to the audience. It's not really until right around spring break in early April that we declare "no more changes," although even that isn't a hard and fast rule.

In the meantime, we're making props and sets. I try to integrate them into our "art," "puzzles," or "math" stations until by the last few weeks of school when just about our entire curriculum is given over to getting ready for the play.

This play that we entitled The Goo Goo Gaa Gaas Vs. The Goo Goo Gaa started as a much more violent piece with very little humor. There were, in fact, no Goo Goos of either the Gaa Gaa or simply Gaa variety at all. There were quite a few superheros and various bad guys, who did a lot of fighting and killing, until one blue rug session when we discussed who would be in the audience and decided that all that bloodshed might be a little much for the "babies" (younger siblings) and grandmas. That's when several of the guys decided to mix in some comedy, accomplished quite nicely, I think, by becoming Goo Goo Gaa Gaas, an immediate infusion of humor, along with several episodes of throwing things at the audience (wads of paper, puff balls and styrofoam treasure). They insisted on keeping the big death scene, but still, in deference to the perceived sensitivities of the audience, The Bad Guy Flying Monster as played by Max, gives the audience a sly look as I (the narrator) say: "The Monster is dead . . . or is he?"

If you dropped by to watch any of our rehearsals, right up until the dress rehearsal the day before the real thing, you'd probably think it was a mess. Seriously. Ask any of our three parent-teachers who work with me on the Pre-K day. It's always a mess, every year, with kids diverting into their own conversations and games, tears, arguments, and rough-housing. I swear, with this year's class of 9 boys, there was rarely a moment during rehearsals when at least a couple of them weren't wrestling in the background, apparently completely oblivious to what is going on with the rest of their friends.

But we keep plugging along, week after week, month after month, repeating the story we are telling together over and over until it becomes a part of us. By the time the audience assembles, we know this story, this piece of literature, inside and out. Every nuance and wrinkle having been a matter for discussion and debate, every word and phrase so full of real meaning that they're about to burst. I think that's why when the stage lights come on, our Pre-K classes always peak at just the right moment and give a flawless performance.

I'm so proud of these guys who you will see here playing their roles as characters they've invented, telling a story that belongs to them.

The Cast

Goo Goo Gaa Gaa Puncher Lachlan -- Lachlan

Bad Guy Mummy -- Charlie B.

Invisible Bad Guy Flying Monster -- Isak

Puncher -- Charlie L.

Viking -- Orlando

Goo Goo Gaa Gaa -- Ariya

Dump Truck Star Wars Ship Clone Trooper -- Peter

Sticky Goo Goo Gaa -- Dennis

Bad Guy Flying Monster -- Max

I'll also point out the three parent-teachers -- Isak's mom Leslie, Orlando's mom Valerie, and Lachlan's mom Kimberly -- who work so seamlessly in their supporting roles. If you knew nothing about how a cooperative works, I think seeing this would give you a good idea. This is just an on-tape example of how these three women worked together all year long.

And now our school year is over. These 9 boys who have told stories together, played together, fought together, laughed together, and grown up together are ready for their next adventures. "Let's have swords!" they say.

Indeed.

"Let's Have Swords!": The Pre-K Play

Each year since my second year at Woodland Park, the Pre-K class has undertaken the production of a play for the entertainment of their friends, families and other loved ones. I shared the first draft of this year's script with you awhile back and given you a few glimpses of our progress as we created our costumes, sets and props over the intervening months. Since the beginning of April, we've been rehearsing once a week.

This was a class of all boys, nine of them, guys who've been playing with one another for a long time and this production reflected them perfectly, both as individuals and as a group. As Sylvia's mom Toby, our class blogger, put it:

The performers truly understood what they were doing up there . . . Seriously. They weren't just saying this line or wearing that costume because the script of the teacher told them to. This was their play. They wrote it. They invented the characters. Really, they've been "playing" it all year long in the loft and the block area -- and how amazing it was to see those "bad guys" come to life so vividly.

And there were a lot of bad guys in the play. At certain points during rehearsals and throughout the school year they all, with the notable exception of Dennis, declared themselves to be "bad guys." In fact, this type of classroom play caused some friction among the parents earlier in the year, and as we debated among ourselves the rights and wrongs and ins and outs of violent imagery and "weapon play" at school, some of it obviously got through to the boys. As what we thought was a discussion among the parents reached its peak during January and February the boys were working on their script. They were often contentious about the details, sometimes debating line after line, but when someone suggested, "Let's have swords!" they were unanimous. For me, the key moment of this play, the part that moves me beyond all others, is when I, in my role as narrator, read that line, "Let's have swords!" and they all stand there on the stage, shoulder-to-shoulder, holding those cardboard and yoghurt container swords boldly over their heads. That, to me, is a pure and powerful statement of both art and politics.

I know there are a few videos around of last Wednesday's performance. Hopefully, I can share one of them with you in the coming days, but in the meantime I offer you the final script of The Goo Goo Gaa Gaas Versus The Goo Goo Gaa, including the stage directions which I read aloud to assist the performers.

Narrator:

Goo Goo Gaa Gaa Puncher Lachlan, Invisible Bad Guy Flying Monster Isak, Bad Guy Mummy, and Puncher. They fly in a space ship. They all stand in the space ship.

Our space ship is rainbow on one side and black on the other.

There’s a Viking too. There’s a Dump Truck Star Wars Ship Clone Trooper too. There’s a Goo Goo Gaa Gaa too. There’s a Sticky Goo Goo Gaa Dennis too. There’s a Bad Guy Flying Monster too. They all stand in the space ship too.

And more Bad Guy Mummys and Bad Aliens too. They are very, very Bad Aliens and very, very castles. Everyone points at the Bad Guy Mummys and castles.

Eight of these fierce bad guy backdrops made it through our chaotic, messy

painting process to decorate our stage and represent the bad guy mummies

and aliens.

Actually everybody really flies. They all fly around the audience. Then they come back to the stage.

The Bad Guy Mummy and Puncher and the Viking are bad ones. They go to the balcony. And let’s have swords! Everyone holds up his sword. Then everyone sits on the top step.

We invented a construction process using toilet paper tubes and yoghurt 

drink containers, then used it to make swords. We even painted them ourselves

using real silver spray paint. We covered our mouths with filter masks to

avoid breathing the fumes, just as we had earlier in the year when we 

mixed and poured our own concrete.

The Dump Truck Star Wars Ship Clone Trooper is the best because it is a storm trooper too and dumps dirt in the water so the Viking’s ship can’t get through. The Viking comes down from the stage and tries to sail in the water. The dirt sinks to the bottom and the Vikings gets through. Then he goes back on the stage. They all sit down on the step.

The Bad Guy Mummy stands up. He has a sword with an arm. The Bad Guy Mummy shows the audience is sword with an arm. He sits back down on the step. (We never did really figure out what a "sword with an arm" referred to, so Charlie B. just held up his sword again.)

Goo Goo Gaa Gaa Puncher Lachlan has a goo goo gaa with a hand. He stands up. The Goo Goo Gaa Gaa Puncher Lachlan shows the audience his goo goo gaa with a hand. Then he sits down on the step. (We had a lot of discussion about what this meant, but finally Lachlan explained that it just meant his own hand, so that's what he showed the audience.)

We all go to outer space, except the Viking and Puncher. They shake their heads “no” and stay on the stage. They don’t want to go. Everyone else gets into the space ship.

We see planets and live in them. They all point at the planets. Then they get out of their space ship and get in the planet.

Paper mache planets.

The Sticky Goo Goo Gaa Dennis has a by bo bo. The Sticky Goo Goo Gaa Dennis shows the audience his by bo bo. (Dennis made his "by bo bo" by using a glue gun to fuse together an old shoe tree and part of a bubble wand, but it kept breaking during rehearsals, so for the play he just used the bubble wand part.)

The bad pirate’s boat flies with wings in outer space like Captain Hook’s boat, because him splashes in water and flies back up.

We put a lot of time and effort into building this PVC scaffold to support a

pulley that would hoist the ship into "outer space" then drop it, then fly back up.

In the end it was very flimsy, but it did the job.

When they’re in space we crash into a bubble planet and fall down. Then we all sit on the step.

We made our bubble planet by using a glue gun to stick bubble wrap to a palates type ball.

The robot comes out. His name is R2D2.

Another glue gun project.

Then ballet dancing. (We danced to The Nutcracker overture.)

Then the robot falls right down. Then the Bad Guy Mummy, Dump Truck Star Wars Ship Clone Trooper, Goo Goo Gaa Gaa, and Sticky Goo Goo Gaa fall right down. Then they all sit on the step.

The helicopter transports the Bad Guy Flying Monster. 

The Bad Guy Flying Monster lands on another planet in a helicopter. The helicopter comes out to fight the Bad Guy Flying Monster and it comes to the stage and rescues the Dump Truck Star Wars Ship Clone Trooper. The Bad Guy Flying Monster and the Dump Truck Star Wars Ship Clone Trooper go back to the planet together.

Then the Bad Guy Flying Monster has a light saber too. The Bad Guy Flying Monster holds up his light saber.

Then everybody gets the Bad Guy Flying Monster and puts him in jail. Then they sit on the step.

You can see our jail bars there behind the boys. The process of making them

was really all about building personal space ships which were used to fly

around the classroom.

The Bad Guy Flying Monster gets his light saber and cuts the bars. And then he escaped from jail and goes back to his planet.

And then they build a stronger jail made out of diamonds and they get the Bad Guy Flying Monster and put him back in jail. Then they sit on the step.

Then the Bad Guy Flying Monster gets his light saber again and cuts the diamond bars. He put away his light saber and goes back to his planet.

And then they build an even stronger jail with diamonds, fire, concrete, and metal padlocks, iron chains and duct tape, straw, brick, mortar, light sabers, melted metal, and more iron. Then they get the Bad Guy Flying Monster again and put him in jail. Then they sit on the step.

And then the Bad Guy Flying Monster gets the light saber again and cuts through that stuff. Through the roof of the jail because the roof only has wood. Then the Bad Guy Flying Monster goes back to his planet.

And then the Goo Goo Gaa Gaa Puncher Lachlan takes his light saber and goes to the planet and kills the Bad Guy Flying Monster. Then he comes back and sits on the step. The Monster is dead . . . Or is he?  (Max, the Monster, did a great job of opening his eyes at this point and beaming at the audience "so they won't be worried.")

And then the Viking comes out on his horse with his swords and there’s a big fight!

And then the helicopter spins through over the heads of the Goo Goo Gaas upside down and makes a fire.

The helicopter shoots water on the fire and then everybody except the Sticky Goo Goo Gaa Dennis gets burned. They all fall fall down and say “owie, owie.”

Then everybody get protected under the space ship. Then everybody comes back on the stage and stands close together.

And then a paper comes and wraps us all up and then we get throwed into the water.

Our water, which was a large piece of painted paper was, by design, purple.

These guys also painted a large black sheet to represent the Monsters planet

and a pink sheet to represent the fire station that comes up later in the script.

I don't think they enjoyed anything more than painting large canvases together. 

And then the hearts come down and cover us all up. 

Then everyone goes back and sits on the step.

A bat comes and gets the Bad Guy Flying Monster who comes alive again. (For this we used a large Halloween decoration bat on a stick.)

Then the Bad Guy Flying Monster has a plan and rubs his chin. He opens the bat’s claws and falls out Kaboom!

Everybody draws pictures . . . and crumples them up . . . and throws them on the audience!

And the Goo Goo Gaas, the Dump Truck Star Wars Ship Clone Trooper, the Puncher, the Bad Guy Mummy, and everybody runs around the audience. Then they come back to the stage and sit on the step.

The recycling robot garbage truck takes everything away.

And then the puff balls fly out! (We threw puff balls at the audience.)

Then the Dump Truck Star Wars Ship Clone Trooper gets into a fire station on the balcony. Then the Dump Truck Star Wars Ship Clone Trooper gets the Goo Goo Gaa Gaa Puncher Lachlan, Puncher, Invisible Bad Guy Flying Monster Isak, and Goo Goo Gaa Gaa and takes them to the fire station. They are all friends and they hug.

The Goo Goo Gaa Gaa Puncher Lachlan does not want the bad guys to kill him and says, “No!”

Everybody goes on the Dump Truck Star Wars Ship Clone Trooper for a ride around the audience. Then they come back to the stage and sit on the step.

Then the Viking stands up and gets invincible and shows the audience his muscles.

The Viking takes his sword.

Then the Goo Goo Gaas cut through the Viking’s sword. Then the Viking makes a ranger sword. (Orlando, the Viking, explained that "ranger" is a substance stronger than diamonds.)

A chair falls down on the stage.

Then a table fell down on the stage.

Then Goo Goo Gaas find treasure in a trashcan, open the box, and throw them at the audience! 

We used a nifty little styrofoam cutter to make our treasure, which we painted

with gold and silver acrylic paint.

And then the Viking stands up and takes his sword and cuts through the chair and then the table.

And then the people fall off the stage into the water.

THE END

(If you want to see the video of our performance, click here.)

Hands

I take all of the pictures I use on this site with my iPhone, many without even looking into the viewfinder. I've added an application that allows me to take pictures by just tapping anywhere on the screen so I don't even need to pay attention to that.

They're snapshots in the truest sense of the word. I don't take any particular pride in my photographic ability. I have no philosophy or training or expertise or even experience. Many of them are blurry messes, but I use them anyway. In fact, I use almost every picture I take unless it's absolutely indecipherable.

I began taking photos in class at the urging of Kristin over at Preschool Daze. Now she's a real photographer, her pages full of preschool teacher eye candy that sucks you in and won't let you go. I'd commented that I was worried that having a camera between me and the kids too much of the time would diminish my teaching ability and she responded that she'd found the opposite, saying it just took a little practice, so I gave it a whirl.

She's right. I still try to keep my snapshot taking moments to a minimum, but I don't think I'd ever want to teach again without a camera in my pocket. I now spend a lot of time reviewing my photos. One of the highlights of each day, in fact, is watching the screen as the phone dumps its fresh stash into the computer. 

But I also often go back over the months and years, looking for ideas, inspiring myself, remembering success and failures. I notice new things every time, setting off on new paths of inquiry about children, parents, and teaching. It's become a centerpiece of my reflective practice as a teacher, the habit of spending some time each day simply thinking about what I'm up to, where I need to improve, and where I can take pride.

What I've noticed recently is that I'm always taking pictures of hands.

Even when I think I'm photographing something else, there are hands right at the center.

I suppose that's because hands are the "doing" part of our bodies. That's where the action is. Hands tell stories in a way that words and faces simply can't.

I don't do it on purpose, but there they are, slide after slide of hands engaged in something.

Maybe we're all doing that. I haven't taken a survey of the blogs I read. Maybe we're all documenting the hands of the children we teach. I know that parents tend to focus on the faces, asking for poses, or capturing candid expressions, but as a teacher I find those moments of cuteness far less compelling than what the hands are up to.

Hands tell the story of learning. That's where our focus is. 

Almost always, that's where our eyes are focused as well, either on our hands or on the action our hands have caused, but it's the hands that tell us where the learning is.

Hands together.

Hands alone.

Hands.

If eyes are the window of the soul, then hands are the gateway of the intellect.

Waiting For The Future

Our community spent Friday preparing for our move to the center of the universe and Saturday making the first phase of it happen. I'm sure there's a post about all that coming up here soon, but I don't want to spend any more time than I have to on that right now because we still have a week of class at the "old school" and I want to concentrate as much as possible on that.

So when I say we moved on Saturday, I mean that we stripped the classroom down to its bare essentials, clearing away much of the heavy stuff, as well as laying bare most of the shelves.

We left behind some essentials like paint, paper and easels, a few puzzles, and a handful of books.

We worked as hard as we've ever worked, loading, then unloading the two moving trucks we'd rented, yo-yoing them between the two sites, and when we shut the doors on the "old school" on Saturday evening, it was clear to all of us that there was still quite a bit of work to do to be ready for children to return for their final week.

No one was game for working on Sunday, and besides, we're in a church building and I think it would be quite rude to be banging around downstairs while they're trying to have services and enjoy fellowship, so we decided that we would take a field trip up to the Woodland Park playground on Monday, leaving Teacher Tom behind to shove things around, put away box cutters, sweep up stray nails, and generally make things suitable for four more days of temporary habitation.

I was particularly worried about the state of the outdoor classroom where the remains of the beach hut lay in a heap along with a bunch of other garbage waiting for a trip to the dump, so I got there at 7 a.m. and got to work. By the time the kids started arriving to set out together on their excursion, I had the place in pretty good shape -- good enough that I felt it was safe for the kids to come on inside to check things out.

There has been a lot of talk among us adults, as there should be, about how the move was impacting the children emotionally. A few have apparently expressed reluctance to move, not at all happy with the prospects of change. Several have visited the new site at the Fremont Baptist Church with their parents during one of the many tours we've taken over the course of the last month and seem thrilled. A few even dropped by during the move itself and stood back as we wrangled furniture out onto the sidewalk for loading.

And although we've been discussing the impending move with the kids for the last couple weeks, I think Monday brought the reality home for all of them. Unlike the younger Pre-3 class who would see the space the following day and react almost not at all, the 3-5 kids, almost to a child, stopped short in the doorway. I'll never forget Violet standing there with her mouth hanging open, wordlessly surveying what she saw, almost like a caricature of a person stunned into silence. We played the game of trying to figure out what was different, what was missing. We'd planned for the kids to gather outdoors, then set out together almost right away, but instead we milled around inside where the changes were most profound. I even showed them my main storage room, which had only a few days before been stocked from floor to ceiling with cool looking stuff, and where they had previously been forbidden entry.

I chattered all the while about how we were all going to a new school next year, some of us to brand new schools with brand new friends, and some of us just to a new building with the same friends. The end of the school year is always a bit hard to talk about, a bit uncertain, full of the unknown, forcing adults into vague generalities when talking to the whole group. I didn't make any special effort to pump them up about the next few months, but rather tried to discuss it as matter-of-factly as possible, although I suspect my enthusiasm came through more than I know.

Then it was off to the playground, leaving Teacher Tom behind, promising to catch up with them in about an hour. I didn't really need to stay for that hour, frankly, but that's what we'd planned, that's for what we'd prepared the children, and I didn't want to throw them any more curve balls just then. It's not that there weren't things to do, however, so I spent 40 minutes productively, then headed over.

Play was in full swing and I joined in, enjoying the feel of all that space for running and hiding. Our old courtyard had never felt so small to me as it did on Monday, never so limiting. We'd made the best of it, but playing here with the kids gave me a sense of how things are going to change this summer when we suddenly have so much more outdoor space in which to spread out.

At some point, one of the children told me, "Connor found a dead bird." Our discussions of dead butterflies still relatively fresh, I followed the children to where a bird carcass lay in the grass.

"Maybe it's a baby bird that didn't make it."

"I think it got run over by a car."

"Another bird tried to eat it . . . I know, an eagle!"

As we should, adults stood nearby warning them not to touch it. Birds can carry disease. There was even some concern about getting too close, but how can you not move in for a closer look?

This was our school right here, with no walls, in a place owned by everyone, talking matter-of-factly about the reality before us. Old school or new school, the important thing is that we're together. That's what makes it school. 

"Its feathers are off."

"Why can't we touch it?"

"I see it's bones."

There are so many things in life to worry about because we really can't know anything until it is present. That's the nature of "the future." We predict, we anticipate, we worry. There are no concerns or questions that are off limits. And it comes whether we're ready or not. Children are the masters of being present and at least as we stood there ringing the dead bird there were no particular emotions evident as we curiously engaged with the thing before us, looking death calmly in the eye. Certainly we can learn to do the same about the mere act of moving.

We returned to the school at the end of our day for story time on the familiar blue rug. Although the shelves were empty, their yellow fabric covers remained, the artwork remained. The goal was to retain the "integrity" of the our circle time area for the final week, even if everything else existed in a state of flux. We sat together as we always do, together with our friends in what is left of our old familiar place, living in the present, while matter-of-factly waiting for the future.

Beautiful Solutions

Puzzles are one of those rare things in life for which there is always a beautiful solution. Most things involving humans are messy and imprecise. Solutions are most often some sort of compromise or approximation that leaves us feeling, at least a little, the sting of unfairness or incompleteness, but also the knowledge that we got at least as good as we gave.

But with a puzzle there is a right way and we can expect that if we work on it hard enough, long enough, if we try all the angles, we'll solve it. There's a comfort, I find, in knowing that there is a beautiful solution, one in which everything fits satisfyingly together, unlike the rest of life when we have no way to knowing if our problems even have solutions, let alone ones with the kind of built-in satisfaction of clicking that final piece into place.

We're not always capable of finding that beautiful solution, of course, and that's why puzzles are so frustrating for some of us. Sometimes no matter how much we apply ourselves the pieces just don't fit the way we know they should. These are times when frustration mounts. Most of us have our "walk away" point; that moment when the intensity of our emotions are too high a price to pay for perfection.

There are times for all of us when we cannot let it go. Even as the frustration mounts, even as the tears come, we continue to try to fit those pieces into place. There is a right answer, damn it! But as the emotions mount, they tend to crowd out our ability to reason and more often than not turn us into blubbery mice in a maze, repeatedly heading down the passageway with no cheese, edging ever closer to Einstein's definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Of course, I expect that by the time we reach that point we're not longer expecting anything, hope is dead and we're just banging our heads against the proverbial wall. When people are trapped inside these inescapable eddies of perfectionism, be they children or adults, they need the rest of us to help them break out of it: to either help them find the right answer or convince them that the right answer isn't worth all the aggravation. It's okay to walk away from a puzzle, to leave it unsolved. The world will not stop spinning, it will not even be a poorer place if we do.

Sure, some of us have larger stores of the kind of temperamental unflappability that permits us to maintain the calm focus necessary to methodically work our way to beautiful solutions, but every one of us has our breaking point and that's when we need the other people to come to our side and teach us about the messy, imprecise beauty that is only found in people helping one another. 

It's the kind of beauty that teaches us to choose our battles, to accept that life is less than perfect and that we ourselves are too. It teaches us to take heart in our fellow man, knowing that the puzzle will always get solved, it's not always up to me to solve it, and the solution may not always leave us with the satisfying click of the last piece falling into place.