The Week end Review

Sorry it's been such a long while since I've last updated. I know my loyal blog readers are ready to find out what the next "shaw story" may be! :)
This week was a VERY busy week at work. On Wendsday, I took 220, 4th grade students and their teachers to the Maymandi Concert Hall in Raleigh, NC to see the NC Symphony. The students were AMAZED at the concert hall and many of them had NEVER been to a cultural event in their life. Of course, we had to talk about how to act at a concert and "No, they will NOT Be serving popcorn". The students did an amazing job and even enjoyed MOST of the performance. We have been preparing for this field trip for months now so the children were familiar with many of the pieces (including a Tchaikovsky, Lamar Stringfield (founder of the NC Symphony), and Jenifer Higdon selection). The performance was only 30min long but of course I had about a dozen kids have to get up and go the bathroom. Not bad out of 220, but let me tell you those kids WILL never use the restroom in music again, they used their bathroom pass for the year! (I'm such a mean teacher).

The conductor for the NC Symphony was GREAT! He was wonderful with the kids and taught them so much. He kept them involved in the performance, was humerous, and informative all at the same time! Amazing!

When we left the symphony our buses got stuck. Now let me explain how our bus drivers work. We do not have assigned "bus drivers" from the county. Our bus drivers are our TEACHER ASSISTANTS! I know this may seem absolutly absurd to most of you out there, but remember I AM in NC and the school systems are not exactly "top notch". So we had these poor ladies trying to get these HUGE Buses out of a little parking lot while three other women were running around in heels trying to direct all of them. It took us a good 30min and I thought our media specialists was going to have a nervous break down, but we finally got out of there.

Then on Thurs. morning I took my Harnett off Broadway kids to practice on the High School stage. This year I had 40 students, instead of 20 like last year. My principal would not let another chaperone go with me on this field trip so it was just me and the bus driver (the TA) who took the kids. I was occupied with "stage" stuff the whole time so the poor TA had to deal with 45 extremely excited children! That night (Thurs.) we had the MOST AMAZING PERFORMANCE! It was by far the best performance I have ever directed in my short 4 yrs of experience. The audience was ON THEIR feet cheering and clapping the whole time.
Harnett Off Broadway is a spring showcase of all the schools in the county. There are four nights of performances with five schools at each performance. Our area night was on Thurs. night. There is an unspoken competition between our school South Harnett and Highland and every year they "blow us out of the water". This was the first that DID NOT HAPPEN. Highland was not expecting the new music teacher at SHES to pull something this great together! My kids were amazing. We dance to "At The Hop" with 40 hula hoops, "Do Wa Diddy" was performed with all the girls waving streamers and the boys being "cool dudes", and our final number, "We Go Together" was a grand finale with backflips, a soul train, and 18 silver "poppers" at the end. We were the ONLY group to get a standing ovation from the entire crowd! I can not tell you how EXTREMELY PROUD I felt! I don't care how many times my principal yells at me or is mean or how under appreciated I feel.... THIS is what it is ALL about! The kids were SO PROUD, and had so much fun, and gained so much confidence, and even pulled their grades up for THIS show. WOW!

Some of the kids before the show. They were REALLY Excited.

You can always tell how "cool" your program is by how many boys sign up; I had FIFTEEN boys this year! And not just ANY boys... I mean look how "cool" these guys look!!!! :)

Here are some pics from the show.



Too COOL!

I LOVE this pic! You can see the little smirks on the boys faces b/c this is when the aud. went crazy for our way too "cool dudes" in the song "Do Wha Diddy"




The way my principal let me know that she appreciates me for this week of extreme hard work: some "comp hrs"; NOPE, more rehearsal time: NOPE, $$ so I could throw the kids a pizza party: NOPE, TELLING me I did a good job: NOPE.... she let me wear jeans on Friday. Mrs. McNeill, I DON'T WORK FOR YOU! I WORK FOR THESE KIDS, AND THEY'VE ALREADY GIVEN MORE APPRECIATION AND REASON TO CONTINUING DOING A GOOD JOB THAN I'LL EVER NEED OR EVER GET FROM YOU! (but thanks for showing up for the show) :) ha ha

And now: the WEEKEND!

PS: we went to school yesterday with NO ELECTRICITY, not hot water, and no lunches. They bused tuna salad in for the kids to eat. Love those NC schools.