We had a great week, but Friday was by far the icing on the cake. The trip to the air and space museum was incredibly informative. Though I have been to the museum many times, I think I enjoyed this trip more than any other trip I've made there. As he explained both the science and history of flight, Mr. Clendenen demonstrated a passion not common in ordinary museum docents. He not only introduced to us the three primary types of flight propulsion while we were standing outside the museum, he encouraged the students to classify different aircraft propulsion based on what they could observe as we considered different aircraft inside. We got the bird's-eye view of the development of flight from World War I era planes until spaceflight, going into detail about the development of materials for construction and methods of propulsion. We also marveled that this development happened over the course of about 50 years. Though we spent 3 hours on the tour, I feel that we could have spent six and still had plenty to see and learn though I'm sure everyone was happy to get off their feet and eat lunch when we did.
The field trip was exciting, but the day wasn't finished yet. When we returned to school, we jumped right into the Shakespeare festival that the high schoolers had prepared. Everybody had helped in some way. Maggie had made a creative background scenery, created with pieces of paper rather than simply painted, and Will and Nick had prepared the snacks. Others had memorized parts to put on the presentation. When all the students were seated on the gym floor in front of Maggie's scenery, the fun began. After Ellie's introduction of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Madeline presented Helena's speech when she decided to betray Hermia's plan to run off with Lysander so that Demetrius, who used to love Helena but now loved Hermia, would be interested in Helena again. I won't be able to mention all the parts that were presented, but the audience was laughing and applauding many times throughout the presentations. I think that the highlight was when Arjun reenacted Bottom's overdramatic death of Pyramus. In this scene in the play, Bottom is presenting a play for entertainment at the wedding of the main characters. The piece is memorable because Bottom loves to act, but he isn't very believable. Nonetheless, his passion for acting endears him to his audience in spite of his lack of authenticity. Arjun did the piece great justice when he fell to the floor with his four-foot sword, the students giggling with delight.
