After-School Project Spotlight - January 2021

Glendale Middle School teacher Scott Savage leading his Zoom puppetry after-school project.

Teacher

Scott Savage

School

Glendale Middle School

Grade Levels Served

6-8

District

Salt Lake City School District

What made you want to begin this after-school project?

I wanted to do a theatre program that would be simple enough to do in person or over zoom, as well as something that would give students something to work on outside of the traditional "sing and act your heart out!" classes. I've long felt that theatre can be so much more than showtunes. Not to diminish the value of those things, but theatre is fun because it's fun. I wanted to do something that people would feel less pressure to be "the best" at and instead think, "that sounds fun." Over the last year, I've had the opportunity to teach puppetry courses to students across the country digitally, and I wanted to bring those skills and the positive things I had learned from doing them to my own students. This has been such an odd year, that my goal, really, has been to get students to simply try something new.

What does an average day look like in your after-school project?

We generally have had our classes different every day. We usually do a few things in every class, however. First, we do some sort of pre-assessment. We discuss what we've been working on previously, or on the first day I asked what students know or thought about puppets. Next I usually demonstrate or model with a mix of my own puppets and supplementary videos and materials what we're going to be doing and discussing. I have students practice and follow along, or we stop and discuss what they're seeing. Usually we have a portion of class dedicated to skill building. This can include actual puppet manipulation or it can include discussion of character building to give our puppets personalities. We then usually finish class with students modeling their skills that they've learned or discussed, asking questions, or working on the project for that day -- especially since some of our students have been able to only build their puppets during class time.

How do the students like the project so far?

Other than the fact that the breaks in schedule have made it hard to sustain, the response has been very positive. I had students who I'd never met asking to enroll. I had students joining the class late, and still finding that what they were doing was engaging and useful to them. We laugh, the kids have lots of creative ideas, and I think that the skills they're developing are things they enjoy.

Anything else you would like to add about how your project is going?

So far it's been very enjoyable for me and I think very rewarding for the students. COVID and being in my first year at the school made the project less well enrolled than I had hoped. We also had issues finding out where funding was for our project so it was difficult to keep things going as we transitioned through the class. However the project itself is something I'm very proud of and think can be sustainable in the future!