Finish Line In Sight

The majority of our communication this school year has been related to evolving health guidelines and the impact those guidelines have on how we do everything from transporting students, feeding them and providing them with the best possible experience while at school. Everyone has had to be flexible and make adjustments on the fly. This blog isn’t going to be about any changes or updated guidelines, but rather, just a pure celebration of our students (with lots of pictures).

5th Grade Wax Museum
On Thursday of last week, all of our 5th grade students participated in the annual Wax Museum. Each student literally became a character in history! We had every industry and part of history represented, including some of the great influencers and advocates for social justice and human rights. Research, literacy, creativity and FUN all came together for a really special morning. The pictures speak for themselves:

    

     

  

  

Schoolhouse Rock Live! Jr.

We had over 80 students involved as part of the cast and crew in three amazing performances last week of the musical Schoolhouse Rock Live! Jr. which is based on the animated musical educational series of short videos that aired during the commercials while I ate Cap'n Crunch cereal watching Saturday morning cartoons. The singing, acting, timing and organization feels more like an off-Broadway production than that of a musical put on by 5th and 6th graders. It was AWESOME!

   

What you don’t see as an audience member at Showtime is the amount of work that went into this on the part of our students and director Christy Knowlton. It’s practice, practice, and more practice. It is at times a series of rehearsals that can look like a mess of poor timing, self-doubt, and bits & pieces that surely will never be connected into anything meaningful. Yet, students continue to work. Students continue to grind, to practice, to persevere. And in time, self-doubt fades into great confidence, and what once seemed impossible to pull off becomes this amazing experience that we see as members of the audience. We should all be impressed with their performance, but we should be even more impressed by what took place to get to that point. 

In many ways, the evolution of this musical is a microcosm of what this school year has been. An evolving work of art on the backs of everyone involved who demonstrated incredible perseverance, flexibility, teamwork and dedication. You can just about see the finish line in the distance!

Steve Dunham

sdunham@westgenesee.org

Twitter: @Sdunhamwgms