RE Log Spring 2021

Last spring, when we were entirely remote, it was hard for me personally. Last fall was harder professionally. In the spring, we were all home – I had my children, Ines, 5, Belen, 6, Joaquin, 9, around 24/7. There were four different grade levels happening at the same time, all day long. We had their classes going, and the one I was teaching. We were all quarantined, so I couldn’t have my parents over. My kids needed help with technology because they’re little. It was nuts. Now, they’re back in school, in physical school, and I’m back at Ransom Everglades. (For the first month last fall while we were all still remote, they attended RE’s ‘Wee-mote’ School.) I’m in my 11th year. I have never worked as hard as I have this year. It takes so much planning, and so much creativity, because you have some students right in front of you, and others on a screen. At least in the beginning everyone was the same. Everyone was home. I can do a virtual theatre curriculum. The hybrid is incredibly challenging. I had to reimagine a theatre curriculum: how do you handle the essential performance element when we are having classes in a tent, and some students at home? So I decided to flip the classroom, flip my usual approach. Typically, students do analysis at home, and perform at school. We did the opposite. During class time, I would show great performances, or performers that really excelled, and I would say, ‘Ok, use the rest of your class period to memorize and tonight you’re going to record it.’ Then they would drop their performance videos into my Google Classroom and the following day we would watch them, and talk about them. Because they were at home without an audience, they didn’t get the laughs, they didn’t get the reactions. But we had to make do with the situation we had – and it did work! It just took a lot of rethinking in the moment. The other hard part was this new element of video production: Video editing. I didn’t study that; I do live theatre. A musical theatre performance during COVID-19 is now a video production. So I’ve had to learn entirely new skills. The kids have made it work. They’re just so happy to be there and share time and space with each other. They really need that. Every student that is in my class wanted to be there, and they just wanted to have a good time. They are very grateful. I feel very thanked. They are just like, ‘Tell us what to do and we will do it.’ I missed being on campus. I’m such a social person. I need to have interaction with people. I need to see people. For me being on campus was monumental; I wouldn’t change it for anything, and it’s only going to get better now. I think we’ll be wearing masks for a little while, but I’m hopeful that next school year will be close to how things used to be. I can’t wait to do a live show again!” Cecilia Gonzalez Middle School Performing Arts Faculty In person 16 Ransom Everglades LOG SPRING 2021