So, last weekend I took my umpteenth group of students on the annual NRHS Music Dept. Leadership Retreat. 7 kids, two adults (including myself) one semi-cramped cabin in the mountains. You may remember that on last year's excursion, I got horribly sick. Fortunately, no such malady ruined this years trip for me, although I did manage to stretch something in my leg, leaving me with a semi-limp for a couple of days.The retreat went smoothly. This year we managed to spend more time in "bonding activities" than in meetings, but that may have been a good thing. One of the students recently had some kind of knee surgery, which eliminated the traditional three-hour hike up a stream bed to a pile of rocks we like to call "Devil's Pile." Instead, we spent some time at a local water slide n' mini-golf place. Everyone had a blast.
On the second night, I taught the group to play Robo Rally - a board game that requires that the player manage a complicated movement system while simultaneously trying to do as much damage to their opponents as possible. Oddly enough, the clear winner of the evening was the quiet, shy uber-Christian girl who managed to reach all the checkpoints, deal my robot enough laser beam damage to force a repair shut-down, and push her co-president's robot in to a bottomless pit of death. Twice. My favorite part of the game came when miss Lisa looked at me with her big blue Disney eyes and said in an innocent-but-eerie tone "Mr. M.... I think I'm about to kill you." It was a wonderful Stephen King moment. Creeped out everyone at the table.
Every year I do the retreat I become more and more aware that the venue remains the same, but the faces change. I looked at the dinner table and flashed back to councils past - going all the way back to my first year at New Republic. I realized the extent to which I have become not just a teacher, but an institution - a process that students go through as they progress through their middle school and high school careers. I suddenly foresaw myself years from now, welcoming children of former students into my classroom - proud parents who want me to give the same gifts to the next generation, and the next.
It all felt very "Harry Potter."
In the hallway outside my classrooms hangs a plaque dedicated to a man who held down the Old Republic instrumental music program for thirty years. I hope at the end of my career that I will have earned my own plaque there... maybe at Rocky Pines as well. I think I'm on my way. It just seems funny that my road to that is paved with things like games of Robo Rally.
On the second night, I taught the group to play Robo Rally - a board game that requires that the player manage a complicated movement system while simultaneously trying to do as much damage to their opponents as possible. Oddly enough, the clear winner of the evening was the quiet, shy uber-Christian girl who managed to reach all the checkpoints, deal my robot enough laser beam damage to force a repair shut-down, and push her co-president's robot in to a bottomless pit of death. Twice. My favorite part of the game came when miss Lisa looked at me with her big blue Disney eyes and said in an innocent-but-eerie tone "Mr. M.... I think I'm about to kill you." It was a wonderful Stephen King moment. Creeped out everyone at the table.Every year I do the retreat I become more and more aware that the venue remains the same, but the faces change. I looked at the dinner table and flashed back to councils past - going all the way back to my first year at New Republic. I realized the extent to which I have become not just a teacher, but an institution - a process that students go through as they progress through their middle school and high school careers. I suddenly foresaw myself years from now, welcoming children of former students into my classroom - proud parents who want me to give the same gifts to the next generation, and the next.
It all felt very "Harry Potter."
In the hallway outside my classrooms hangs a plaque dedicated to a man who held down the Old Republic instrumental music program for thirty years. I hope at the end of my career that I will have earned my own plaque there... maybe at Rocky Pines as well. I think I'm on my way. It just seems funny that my road to that is paved with things like games of Robo Rally.
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