21 days of Christmas (or 9)

Tonight, my family and I were privileged to see a local Christmas pageant performed at a very high level of excellence.  Some of the scenes took my breath away, and the music was spectacular.  I left all the grading and lesson plan writing behind as this show transported me to a time when Jesus was born. You can check it out here

These tickets, highly sought, were a gift from one of my students.  This student participated in the show, and I was honored to have been invited, and feel blessed to have attended.  This show has many, many talented and voluntary performers.  I cannot envision how many practice hours were involved to bring the show to fruition.  The show has many moving parts--dancers, musicians, actors, animals, including 3 camels, children, a drum core, pyrotechnics and props.  The effect together was uplifting, cheerful and breathtaking, simultaneously.

The show is the reason this post is a day late.  (I fell asleep writing it and woke to a page full of k's.  I stopped writing at the word check, so the k was repeated thousands of times.)  So with apologies for a day late post, here we go.

The main takeaway from the show is something that is very applicable to school.  Partway through a very professional production (think Broadway/Disney musical type of show), a little child (this year a boy, another year a girl) comes to the center of the stage and sings a song, "Happy Birthday, Jesus" in a more off key than on key manner.  It's a big "aw" moment in this year's show, and you can hear a bit of that in another evening's edition shown below.

Every school year, hundreds of hours, sacrifice and effort are combined with many moving parts to produce an education, given at the highest level, for students and their benefit.  Not everyone will realize the full benefit of the effort, but we press on for the one who gets it.  (Really, not just one, but a series of "ones")  We give all we have so our students can shine in their own life spotlight.  This shine is this child at his best.  Not perfect, but real, and happy in it.  Success always looks this way, whether on stage or in class.

So to all of you who are slugging it out in class every day, thank you.  You are giving something really special to students.  You are shaping what they can become, not just in the politically correctness of "the holidays", but in every circumstance they will face.  You will likely never know the entire impact you have on a student, but they will get to shine because of you.  As the days wind on, as the craziness ensues, as deadlines approach, as everything goes to crunch time, keep giving, keep teaching, keep going, and help your students shine to their brightest potential.

No parody song today, just the sincerity of this little child in his off key, authentic spotlight.

First published December 2, 2017