The Moon Garden Lounge

The classes each do a play beginning in seventh grade and ending in twelfth grade. In seventh grade they read and perform Much Ado about Nothing, eighth grade is usually A
Midsummer Night's Dream, ninth is Romeo and Juliet, tenth is Twelfth Night, eleventh is Julius Caesar and twelfth grade is Hamlet. (Anyone know how to underline or italicize on an iPad?) Then each of the grades compete against each other and perform the plays in front of the school for the community and our judges. We have a four year rotation- the first year is straight Shakespeare, the second year they change the setting, the third year they present scenes reflecting a theme, and the fourth year they modernize language. Last year we did A Midsummer Night's Dream as a western and they used Shakespearian language with broad Western accents. The duke became Sheriff Theseus and the fairies were Native American spirits.

I have four sections of English, so each class basically reduces one act (one section takes
on two acts) and performs it so that all the section classes are represented in the grade level play. That means each act has an entirely different cast. They also have an intro act and a narrator that sort of tie the pieces together. Narrators can be characters from pop culture to fiction to politics...All the grade levels compete against each other on the big day. A big Renaissance Fair, open to the public, follows. I am sure this is far more than you wanted to know, lol.

How it relates to Adam? He played Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream and made the magical flower prop for the play. ;D

In Defense of the Critic

I am a born critic, that's just all there is to it. I think it is one of the characteristics that made me a good engineer. As an engineer you are given a problem and asked to design a solution to it. The first step is to devise the initial solution but that is really only the beginning. You continue to modify, tweek, optimize endlessly trying to get just a little more out of it because the satisfaction is often in the incremental solution and there is no such thing as perfect. I am convinced that it was not an engineer that coined the phrase, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." or at least not a good engineer.

That does not mean you cannot appreciate invention and innovation. The first time an engineer heard a voice over a telephone line, the first thought was probably, "Holy crap, I am actually talking to Irwin in Paducah!" After an appropriate awestruck moment, the next thought was probably, "How can I redesign that telephone cable so that we can talk from Tallahasee?"

So this is sort of in defense of the critic in all of us. The intent is not to tear down or minimize an accomplishment; an engineer would never try to optimize something that doesn't work. First you make it work and then you make it better.

That also does not mean the characteristic does not occasionally get out of hand, but sometimes it is just misclassified. Even though the initial impulse is to define, breakdown into individual parts to understand, and then identify a solution to re-build it better, often the process gets stopped or viewed in the breakdown step. The engineer can perhaps look at all the pieces/parts and decide, well maybe I can't do it better (yes, it can happen but you don't know until is over-analyzed) so I will just leave it alone and go design something else. Or the engineer's spouse may come into the room and say, "What the hell did you do to my clock ?!" and stomp off before it is put back together to automatically say I Love You when the alarm goes off.

Now don't get me wrong, there are mean people is this world who like nothing better than to break things just for the pleasure of breaking it but being the overall optimist that I am, I think there are fewer than it would initially appear. Everyone has a little bit of that "engineer" in them but it takes training to see it as a process leading to improved performance. You learn that when you take something apart you do it respectfully, you don't throw the pieces all over the room because that means you might not be able to put it back together. So I try to look at the overall picture when I see a critic being a twit and think of them as possibly an "engineer" in training. I look to see if the criticism was preceded by awe and followed by constructive thought.

When I critique something, I try to do it respectfully. But I can not help but try to analyze and improve because without constructive thought and action everything is stasis and that is just not acceptable.



(psst - I have a creative side too and when my artist and engineer start a fight in my head the only thing a sane person can do is take a nap.)

Holst Remember when Adam made his " prepare, create, love" statement? Ever since, it stays with me and inspires my teaching efforts. It really is the perfect philosophy and practice for teaching!

I have enjoyed being able to have time to enjoy Adam this summer, too, and still get to sleep a bit, lol. I start back Monday with a full week of meetings and then have students on the 13th.

This year we will have iPads in our classroom and apple TV with our classroom projection system, so I am already trying to figure out cool new things to do using ipad technology in
my classroom. I wish I knew as much as some of you do! If any of you have suggestions or ideas, do your part for education and PM me, lol. Also, if you know of any apps, I'd love to hear of them.

Linda I'm with you. Taking things apart is one of my favorite ways to learn --to explore and to understand and to mimic and to rearrange to come up with new and/or different/better creations. It is also a gift to just be able to experience art entirely in the moment without losing any part of the experience to analysis. I often feel pulled between the two sides and the discussion always brings up heated debate when we are in my poetry unit, lol, even amongst my 8th graders!

As far as Adam goes, seeing him perform live keeps me gloriously in the moment and outside of my head. Maybe that is one of the things that drives me to see him again and again whenever I have the chance.

Mahallia. I love your video and your story! Adam has touched so many of us in such real and unexpected ways. Amazing and powerful!

LindaG, I really enjoyed your essay In Defense of the Critic. It made me think some more about what I wrote yesterday. I'm going to continue to use Phelps as an example because it makes it less emotional than writing about Adam, less likely to obscure the meaning or seem that I am criticizing someone on this board -- which I am not.

I find that I don't mind if someone knowledgable offers analysis. In the case of swimming, the TV commentator Rowdy Gaines is an extremely knowledgable championship swimmer and a gold medalist himself. When he says that if only Phelps had extended his big toes or whatever, it might be annoying, but it is also interesting and educational. He knows what he is talking about and he truly loves the sport.

What I can't stand is when sportscasters demand that the athletes account for themselves ("So, only a silver in that one event, Michael? What happened?") or crab that somehow the "show" went off script, or lament that the person might have a life that does not revolve around entertaining us.

I liked Phelps' response to a question about "looking more human this time around" -- I've always been a human.

ame, I used to think that the Internet was an "unreal" world. Then I discovered that many human connections could be made with people all over the world, as mahailia wrote. Usually these are good, occasionally bad, but very real indeed.

I do believe that our setbacks lead us to know ourselves better. The struggles in life lead to self-knowledge. I have a good friend and neighbor in her 80s. Years ago she told me "40 is prime time" and now I know what she meant. When I was younger I didn't understand myself. It's still a journey but a more interesting one now that I have at least a few things figured out. LOL.

Mellie, I skipped you in my thanks. Sorry sweetie :-[