Wow!!

I had the opportunity to see the Young Americans perform at Dave's school last night. To say that the performance the put on was amazing would be a huge understatement. They covered many types of music, from classical to rock to rap. I don't think there was more than 15 seconds of downtime at any point in the show. In addition to putting on their own performance, they also held 3 days of workshops for the students at the school. To see how much they taught those kids in just three days was astounding. To see the fun the kids had and how EXCITED they were about performing was even better. There aren't enough groups like this that come around and show kids that perfoming arts can be fun, and cool and exciting....not boring and dumb like way too many kids think. I teach in a whole different world than where these kids live, and as I was sitting in the audience plotting how I could get this group to my school the logistics of it were overwhelming. Not only would I have to make the same daunting number of coordinated food/housing arrangements as Dave and his colleagues did (although, thankfully not on three days notice!)but I would have to find sponsors in the community who would be willing to make monetary donations to cover the cost of the workshops for the kids at our school. $37 doesn't sound like a lot of money, but so many of the families in our school just don't have it. I don't think that's a good enough reason to say, nope, can't do it here. I think my students deserve to see something like that, they get exposed to so little beyond the playground and a basketball net. I am going right to my administration and finding out how I can go about trying to get this awesome, amazing group to our school. It may not happen this year, or even next year, but hopefully it will before too long!