We’re off to a good start this year. I like my schedule, I have (for the most part) really good kiddos in my classes, and I’m getting along wtih the new administration. So… I can’t complain. Hopefully off to a good start is indicative of the rest of the year and not the karmic balance for what hell is to come. 
We’re working on our own version of Alice in Wonderland for presentation in December. As always, I’m awed and amazed at my students’ creative abilities and desire to create a beautiful production that works as a whole. Anybody who thinks that teenagers are lazy or selfish doesn’t work with them; they are the greatest group of hopeful, intelligent people and so full of possibilities for what can be.
We’ve divided up into groups, and some are working on costumes, set pieces, or different pieces of the props. I’ll give them a problem (“how do we make hedgehogs the croquet sequence?” or “The back right corner of the stage needs something tall that people can climb on and that has a child-like quality to it) and they come up with a solution (“build paper mache hedgehogs covered with fabric fur on top of radio controlled cars” and “create 2′ and 3′ blocks, like the kind with letters on them, paint characters and items from the show on them instead of letters, and stack them”), give me a supply list for me to retrieve over the weekend, and start construction on the next week (we have a sample hedgehog – it works beautifully, and the framing for the blocks has started. I have the most amazing kids. And no, I’m not in some rich, feted district, for those of you thinking that. Teenagers want to do good work. And, I’m convinced, theater attracts the coolest people.
So… next time somebody tells you that the youth of America are a sad lot, tell them they are ridiculously wrong.