Rehearsals

Today my class practised their 'Safety Dance' ready for our filming on Friday.
My mini-director, L, has choreographed the whole dance routine himself and it's super cute. However, everytime he has practised the dance with the class he has changed it slightly, so by today there were 26 different versions of the dance. L and the other 25 kids were getting super frustrated. Although there were no angry words spoken, I could sense we were heading into dangerous territory. L was becoming a bit snappy, his actors were no longer enthusiastic about their performance, he noticed their every flaw and could not see how this was ever going to work. Eeek!

I took control.

I praised the director and reminded the kids of the amazing work he had done. As a class we drew up a picture of the steps (boy some of those steps were hard to draw), in order, and the number of beats we needed to count in our heads. I prasied their amazing efforts. I reminded them of the goal, of filming day - a mere 3 days away. I told them that L and I would be looking for people who were trying hard to follow the plan with energy and enthusiasm ( a bit of bribery). Suddenly morale lifted, the dance looked brilliant, the class were excited, encouraged and encouraging "L, I am having the best time! You have done such a great job organising this!". Wow! Crisis averted! Such a great reminder of the way clarity, encouragment, praise (and bribery) can give you much greater results than nagging and crankiness.

L's eyes were wet with tears, he turned around to me and said "Miss F, I don't know how you put up with us every day, this is hard work!" Mawww! High praise!

I can't wait to see their film clip come together and be part of L's first film! Seriously, this kid is going places, look out Hollywood/Broadway/Olympics (he has a few options up his sleeve).