the idea I’d like to spread is the
importance of fun in education in its
connection to learning in 2002 when the
testing pressure increased in schools
with the advent of No Child Left Behind
I would hear teachers say I no longer
have time for the fun stuff my answer
was why would you give up that those are
the areas where I feel the most passion
the areas where I was myself the areas
where I felt like I did my best teaching
where the students then students could
feel it a few things about me I retired
from teaching in June of 2016 after 37
years in elementary education after that
I traveled about for nine months and I
left coeur d’alene in September of 2016
on my bicycle and I rode from here to
San Diego and then I continued to fill
the fulfilled a lifelong dream and I
traveled for the winter as a ski bum I
travel around the West one of my
favorite parts of my bike trip was that
friends and family joined me along the
way and rode various legs of it
including my daughter and her husband
who rode the entire organ coast with me
and have a few pictures here of my bike
I noticed a year ago when I was eager to
take off and travel and this year I’m
very excited to be staying in Coeur
d’Alene
I love Coeur d’Alene I love the
geography the people the town and the
lake of course and one of the fun things
I do with the lake is we kayak and
paddle out to the floating green at
night and then we dive for golf balls
[Laughter]
there were four of us on this mission
and that collection of golf balls is a
result of 45 minutes of diving yes for
the last 10 years I taught fifth grade
at Sorenson magnet School of the Arts
and Humanities a school a public school
which I helped create and the fun-filled
curriculum of the school includes the
kids get to learn there a weekly arts
and a daily arts and humanities block in
which the kids learn to play marimbas
and African drums the string instruments
and band instruments they take classes
in visual arts and in making pottery
they sing they dance they perform feeder
and the juggle so Sorensen kids love
coming to school in 1994 my life took a
fun twist when I took my interest in
juggling and my ten year old daughter
and we traveled to Burlington Vermont
for the International jugglers
Association festival and I have a vivid
memory of walking into the gym
filled with a thousand jugglers one of
the things I took away from the week was
the fascinating ways in which people had
incorporated juggling into their lives
most of the thousand people were
hobbyists like me and a very small
percentage are actually making their
living juggling I left there and I came
home determined to use juggling more
deliberately in my teaching and I did I
started a school juggling Club I
incorporated daily juggling breaks in
class which in are these were movement
opportunities in an hour our desk
oriented sit in your seats schools it
was a I think it was a big help
these juggling brakes were where a help
to me and to the kids and I think they
made our days more productive the kids I
started to teach others to juggle I got
better the kids learned rapidly
we started performing at other schools
and I realize I could get the kids to do
almost everything almost anything if I
promised with the promise of a juggling
break so as soon as your desk past his
desk inspection you may go to the gym
and juggle was very effective we are
having a ton of fun with juggling when
Sorenson became a magnet School of the
Arts 10 years ago with juggling as one
of the Arts the juggling x’ popularity
exploded our Monday night juggling in
the gym would have we we would
oftentimes have over a hundred kids and
their families there we had a Tuesday
morning juggling before school juggling
and with my fifth graders we instituted
juggling buddies so we were reading and
juggling buddies with the kindergartners
we get together weekly and they the 5th
graders would help the kindergarteners
with those skills and then at the end of
the year they would do it they did a
performance with the for the
kindergarten graduation I have a little
video of Alise fifth grader Elise and
we taught that we spent a lot of time
teaching the kids the importance with
the routine of having a beginning and a
middle and an end and that was very
helpful also the our performance group
was get a frequent request to perform at
other places and we we did that
including large venues and I have a
little video to show you and we would
oftentimes have 90 kids at our 7:00 a.m.
practices and I have a video to show you
a snippet of a half-time juggling show
[Music]
they’re good they’re good kids were
juggling just continued to grow kids
would take their juggling props on
family vacations I would hear funny
stories from families about how
such-and-such was broken in the living
room as their kids were juggling
obsessively apples and oranges were in
in danger sixth grader Jake shared that
he had exchanged an impromptu juggling
show for ice cream on a family vacation
in Mexico I was loved and what was
happening in the parents were loving
what was happening with her with
juggling the next big step was in 2010
former student Shay his family was they
were taking a year to travel to to live
in Bolivia his father was an emergency
room physician and his mother a social
worker and they wanted to go to Villa
Bolivia to volunteer with their skills
and to give their their family and
experience living in a different culture
while they were there they met she met
John Cannell who was an American who had
traveled to Bolivia when he was 18 and
he started teaching street kids how to
juggle to give them better skills to
help support their families John this
evolved into John forming a nonprofit
organization called performing life
Bolivia which is active today twelve
years later and as it has helped
thousands of kids develop circus arts
skills and with their academics when
John when che and his family returned to
coeur d’alene they said wouldn’t it be
fun to bring John from Bolivia bring him
to Sorensen for a juggling residency and
we talked about it for a couple years
and then we did in 2015 and 2016 we
brought John Cannell and a brother and
sister duo of Ed a lead and a Scarlett
and they came to Sorenson school and
coeur d’alene for a week of juggling and
cultural residency I have a video I like
to show you is just a snippet of some of
the energy of that week something I saw
this week was a lot of practicing and
that that is a scarlet from Bolivia what
are our teachers
[Music]
addley
[Music]
[Applause]
it’s Carla
all of that crazy energy culminated in a
show on this stage at the end of the
week Thursday night show they’d started
working with the kids on Monday and on
Thursday night we did a show on this
stage what do I see in that video I see
kids having fun with working solo or
working alone
with that all that craziness in the gym
sometimes there’d be 150 kids in the gym
we had virtually no discipline problems
because the kids were able there were
lots of choices of ways they could get
involved and it was who we saw kids
setting goals individually setting goals
that followed some of the school things
we had set up we had established a 50
club as soon as you can get 50 throws
with beanbags you met you were you were
recognized as soon as you can pass the
globe test these balls that plastic
balls balance on that and kids worked
hard to get to accomplish those we had
the kids what I saw in the in the video
were kids creating and they loved
working together in groups to create
routines and shoot for being in the show
and certainly one of the one of the
wonderful big things that came out of
this was the multicultural appearance
experience of the kids learning about
Bolivia and we worked hard on that from
starting in September they came in
January of helping them to learn about
Bolivia and if we had a Sorensen student
on stage right now who had been there
during that time they would say John is
scarlet and I had a lead are their good
friends yeah how did all this how did
this fun enhance learning certainly the
one of the biggest thing was confidence
we performed the kids performed often in
front of large groups and I saw this
transfer to the classroom at any time
with classroom presentations or anytime
there in front of an audience their
confidence was evident one time before
one of the Gonzaga shows performances I
was standing
with a group of kids before they went on
I said are you nervous they kind of
looked at me with a puzzled look of no
it’s like oh okay
they’re confident the group work they
did which was extensive through a
juggling working with larger teams and
working with partners was led to
wonderful things in the classroom group
work which we did a lot of including the
generation of ideas the the sharing of
their own ideas and listening to others
ideas a wonderful life skill and finally
we know that the most impart of teaching
is is our relationships and I develop
these relationships with kids that were
beyond academics we had fun together and
we got to know each other in different
ways and I think that was the basis for
my work with these amazing kids and now
I would like you to meet some of these
kids and see some of what they can do
[Music]
this is Nathan Nathan’s in sixth grade
his father has named Eric Edmonds
[Laughter]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
job Nathan Marissa and Linda uses these
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
and now I get to have a little fun with
these kids
[Music]
[Music]
buh-buh-buh we give ourselves three
tries three tries
[Applause]
[Music]
literally okay
[Music]
up down
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause] [Music]