Day 6 at St. Florence: "You, shake your junk."

teachers are people, just like students. everyone can have good days and bad days. the fun part is getting bunches of people together on their good, medium, bad, neurotic days and having them try to cooperate and interact together on a daily basis.

my teacher shared about one of her past experiences at a school she'd like to forget. the staff there was cliquey -- "you can't sit there! that's mr. so-and-so's seat." St. Florence, small and quaint, is very much not like that. most of the students attending the school have been there since the beginning, and all their brothers and sisters went or still attend. though the neighbourhood is not the safest and the family backgrounds are not the most ideal situations, everyone at the school genuinely cares. little grade 1 kids will share their stuff like family. most kids don't have erasers; anytime someone asks to borrow one, two or three hands shoot up to volunteer and the erasers borrowed are always returned.

the teachers are as friendly with each other as the students are with their friends. for half the day we sat through a dry run of the thursday concert (more like classroom presentations). some classes did songs, some did dances, some did narrated scenes. the grade 6/7 class was easily the most impressive. they coordinated an elaborate 'stomp' routine that was simple, organized and quite delightful. grade 4s did dance routines, but dancing is hard for people on the cusp of puberty and feeling awkward about their limbs.

one of the highlights, especially for the teachers, was the segments of ballroom dancing done by the grade 8s. i don't know about you, but dancing in a public setting at the wallflower age for me would have been mortifying (tack on a cheesy mountie costume and i've got some lovely memories coming back to me now). the awkwardness showed in the people set in the background, with tentative touches of the hand; one brave hand actually ventured a bit south of the waist, but i'm not sure anyone else noticed. these guys did 4 different dances in different styles, to varying degrees of success of course. front and centre was the tallest man-child the school had to offer. relatively speaking, he is mature in manner and form. they got him to dance with 3 different girls (the pretties who could dance better than the awkwards). he moved with deliberation, poise, grace and at times a daintiness that belied his size. it sounds like i'm gushing, but i am merely quoting the teachers from their lunchtime schoolgirl gabfest about how graceful and elegant he was. one of the teachers said that he looked older than me; i took that as a compliment.