Talent Shows, my new side business

I think I mentioned before I had agreed per some of my clients' request to help coordinate a talent show for the entire school. As soon as I committed I began to wonder why. I had so many kids sign up, I had to hold auditions. I hated to pick and choose. Social worker me, I wanted to include everyone. But, I had a teacher and the music teacher help me pick out the participants. Once that was set, I then had kids walking into my room at various points of the day, every day, to talk about what they were doing, when they could practice, etc. I was happy to help them facilitate what they needed for the performance, but I had to get snippy when kids just started walking in my room. I already have that problem with teachers- walking in without knocking. Confidentiality is a paradigm not all teachers understand. . . .

But as we got down to the wire, I had three students (who are also three of my clients) hosting the show and they worked hard to help me organize and get things together. We had some amazing performances and some that seemed to go on forever, as happens with elementary school talent shows. I got lots of great feedback from the teachers and I think many of the students enjoyed. I think the participants particularly got a thrill from the excitement and applause. All in all, I would probably do it again. Now that I know how to organize it a little better and make sure I have plenty of allocated time for rehearsals.

The side story is in the midst of coordinating the script, who was performing when and such, was that the principal almost put an end to it when one of the students was found to have pictures of naked men on the camera she had brought in to take photos of the show. She wasn't aware they were on there, but they were there. . . scandalous and made the afternoon all the more crazy, on top of the usual afternoon blow ups.