ABS Thursday Notes-April 21, 2022

Published for the Arts Based School Community

April 21, 2022

How We Do It and Why

Mary Siebert

“It might take an hour of play to know a person, real person lurking behind the mask.” 

• Pragya Tiwari

Did you experience a bit of a shock, when you first saw certain people without their Covid masks? People new to you, in particular, might have surprised you by presenting a face dramatically different from the one you had imagined. It takes some getting used to, but if you can work or play with them for a while, you forget the mask, and your imagined first impression fades.

We have an unusually large number of new 8th graders this year, and several new staff teaching them. Meeting and building relationships with about 120 new students would be challenging in any situation, for those new teachers. But getting to know hundreds of students whose voices are muffled and whose lower faces are obscured? Wow. We needed these restrictions and were grateful for the protection… but they brought additional hurdles with them, as everyone knows.

For new students, it’s scary to attend a new school. Imagine doing this when you’re in 8th grade - that awkward, shifting time of growth, when peers and their opinions or judgments are cringingly important. Imagine doing this masked and distanced. And now, imagine that your teachers and the other students expect you to dance, act, write, sing, play instruments, draw, and just generally express yourself openly… in front of and even with one another! In our school, students have done these things together for nine years, by the time they reach 8th grade. It’s second nature, because they’ve been incorporating the arts into learning, learning in small and large groups, performing, and making art together since they were five. The discomfort of “partner dancing,” or of speaking to a large group… these things have been folded into their learning for years. And now, as a new kid, you’re supposed to jump right in.

This year, we have eight new 8th graders. That’s more than a sixth of the grade, and it’s very unusual. These new kids arrived during distancing and masking restrictions. We wondered: could they get used to our culture? Even with a mask on, there is no hiding out, here. The arts team wondered aloud, back in September: “How on earth will we do an 8th grade show, with all of these restrictions and all of these newbies?” We decided to make the performance as late in the year as we possibly could, and hope for growth and recovery. Well, the end of the year approaches.

Yesterday, I watched 8th graders rehearse dances and scenes for Lion King, repeating lines, steps, and songs over and over. The floor of our theater filled with couples, fully focused and rehearsing gracefully in respectful cooperation. The waiting students, when they began to chat a little too much, were reminded by the dynamic Mr. Brown to be supportive of one another, and they quieted.

If anyone was initially self-conscious about singing or dancing, from romantic partner scenes to high-energy big chorus numbers, they seem to have left that worry far behind. They will be getting laughs, and they will bring tears. While many of our students prefer to rehearse in physical masks, the emotional ones seem to be dissolving. We have a show! Hakuna Matata! 

Disney’s The Lion King Jr. Will be performed NEXT THURSDAY, April 28, at 7:00 p.m. by the ABS 8th grade at First Presbyterian Worship Center, 200 N. Cherry Street. The show lasts about one-half hour. Admission is free, but donations are gratefully accepted to help us cover production costs.

Literacy at Home

In order to provide continuing support for North Carolina’s youngest readers, The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction Office of Early Learning has developed and released “Literacy at Home.” This digital resource provides literacy activities at each grade level, pre-kindergarten through fifth grade. Families and communities may access this resource for activities that specifically target the literacy skills of phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, reading comprehension, and oral language. When children grow in each of these foundational areas they are well on their way to becoming proficient readers.

Daily Lunch Options are Here

In an effort to provide expanded daily lunch options for our families, we're launching a new online lunch ordering system (MyHotLunchbox) on a trial basis. 

If you would like to order lunch you will need to set up an account with MyHotLunchbox. Menus and prices are available to view within the system.