I was thrilled to have been invited back to New Hambur’s Forest Glen PS last week to work with their three grade 8 classes. It was an awesome experience for me to get to work with students that I’d met through our week together last year. When they were in grade seven, these students participated in a week-long JumpStart workshop (thanks largely to the OAC’s Artists in Education Program which funded most of the project) which culminated in each student creating a unique character, all of which featured in a big imrpovised story. It was a blast.
Coming back to visit and work with those students was fun since I knew them already, knew who I could challenge, what kinds of phrasings to use with certain kids, knew what the level of the class was going in. We focused on more in-depth improv techniques than we did last time (playing status, narrated storytelling, student-driven scenework) and got the students back into the ‘improv mode’.
What struck me was that even though I had worked with this group when they were carefree, goofy grade sevens, when we revisited the improv games, there was something different in the air. There was a bit of the Grade Eight Weight that settles on a class preparing for high school. A bit more reserve, a bit more wariness, a bit more of a need to be seen as level-headed mature adults. While I’ve observed that in other grade eight classes, this is the first time I’ve been able to see the transition with the same group of students. I think people are fascinating!
Filed under: Teaching Tagged: | Forest Glen, Grade 8, New Hamburg
