I had always experienced severe anxiety when it came to being in front of people, as early on as 2nd grade show and tell, but here I was taking drama. It was a requirement to participate in the school productions and I auditioned like I was supposed to not realizing I would end up a principle player in both an ensemble production and a musical that year. I enjoyed the class and it taught me a lot about what I was capable of and how to be comfortable outside my safe, normal group of friends and how to relax and have fun in front of strangers. This was a set of skills I would use almost everyday, at work, at church, just about everywhere. I learned other valuable lessons there but some of the most important lessons were learned the very last day of class.
Each teacher does their own thing the last week of school. Some want to cram as much last minute knowledge into you to help prepare you for the world ahead of you. Some want to allow you to express yourself while still within the safe confines of a controlled classroom setting. The teachers that have been around long enough understand however, the majority of the student body has really already mentally checked out and doesn't care or appreciate anything to be learned in those last days. My drama teacher understood this better than anyone. He prepared us the day before, we would be learning a new skill we didn't know we had. We rolled our eyes, determined not to be impressed as the bell rang and we all filed out.
When we came back to class the next day, the room was empty. No desk, no chairs, not even the platform we used for practicing our skits. The floor was bare. The only thing remaining was the handful of playbills and posters from previous performances hanging on the wall. We were each given an item to hold. Some had tennis balls, others had hacky sacks, and a handful of us were issued socks filled with sand. "In the next five minutes, if you do what I tell you to do exactly as I tell you, you will all learn how to juggle. We will spend the rest of the class time practicing." We scoffed. How would he do this? Teach all of us? To juggle? Isn't juggling something it takes months for professional clowns to learn? Does he think we are only capable of being clowns?
Unbeknownst to most of us, our teacher was a an avid juggler. He would go to carnivals and amusement parks over the summer and juggle full time. He started us out slowly, showing us how to toss the object back and forth. Once we got comfortable with one, he gave out second items and walked us through the over/under. After about two minutes, we were given a third item and with in the promised five minutes, the entire class was juggling. Soon we were teaming up and tossing things across the room between six of us. He gathered us in a circle and we all juggled together crisscrossing back and forth.
The bell rang and we left class with a strange new ability. Occasionally over the summer, I would pick up some tangerines out of the fruit bowl or grab three rocks off the path and just toss them around. I am still not even close to professional status, but I can juggle just about anything for a little while. Staplers, hatchets, basketballs, you name it.
But juggling was not all I learned on the last day of school. What I learned was I wasn't done learning. If I try something new and practice, I can figure out just about anything. I watched a great teacher take a group of skeptical kids and reveal to them an ability they didn't know they had. He took five minutes and gave us all, not just a new trick, but an icebreaker for parties, a boredom buster for those long lines we would endure when appearing for jury duty, and an opportunity to encourage others. Every chance I get, I teach people to juggle. Watching them struggle at first is always entertaining but seeing them realize their own capabilities in the end is magical.That day revealed a lot to me about myself. I love to learn. I love to teach. I have talents even I don't know about. Never in a million years did I think that last day of school would be one of the most educational.
