Before this week's break, I assigned parts for our class play. I love doing a play with my class. I love the rush of rehearsals and the fun of the first day with costumes, and I especially love watching the children grow into their roles. In the past, I have always written the play myself. There are several reasons for this, but the main ones are that I have a small class, and I am very picky. Most Waldorf schools whose teachers have published class plays have classes of 20 to 30 children. My class of eleven is the largest I have ever taught.

Okay, so there are excellent pedagogical reasons for writing my own plays, too, but this year, I have been a little tired, a little overwhelmed by my own life, and I was very glad to find a play that I could use in the book _25 Plays_ Inspired by Waldorf Class Teachers_. David Mitchell's Child of the Nile is not perfect, but it has moments of humor and of dramatic tension, and my class is delighted.

Class play time brings a certain holiday air to my classroom. The children are eager to begin, but they easily dissolve into silliness if I am not very careful with my lesson planning. During our first read-through, I gave children parts to read that I wanted to hear from them. I choose the roles with great consideration of each child's needs and abilities. This year is no different.

WB is a sweet boy who has just turned nine. He has golden-toned skin and wide-set blue eyes. His front teeth stick out slightly, evidence of his sucking his thumb for comfort. WB struggles with reading and math, though his skills are better than he lets on. It is as if he prefers the security of being helped through his work to the satisfaction of braving it on his own. I have chosen him to play the part of Moses in our play at the evening performance. It's my habit to have two children share each role, each performing it once; this allows for a built-in understudy and gives me more freedom
to assign roles therapeutically. WB, after struggling to read through a few pages of this part, came to me and whispered in my ear, "Ms. Tigress, I really want to play Moses."

"It will mean a lot of hard work, WB," I replied. "There's a lot of reading, and a lot of memorizing to do."

"Yes, well, I know my birthday verse already, and I can learn this the same way. I know I can."

Who am I to doubt this confidence?

For the daytime performance, I asked AC to play the role. AC is a small, determined girl with huge eyes and a voice I have to strain to hear. She is the second of four children and the youngest in the class; she won't be nine 'til the end of April. AC is, by contrast, an excellent reader who loves to write funny little stories and illustrate them in her free drawing book. She desperately wanted a big part this year, and she has really increased in confidence this year, losing some of her hesitance and shyness. I know she will have no trouble reading and memorizing her lines; her challenge will be to make them audible and not to rush through them breathlessly.

I am looking forward to Monday, when we will start practicing in earnest. This work will only be during the Morning Lesson. The rest of the day will proceed as usual, with Spanish, music, form drawing, painting, math practice, story time and reading, handwork, and games. So that we don't spend all our time in the expansiveness of drama, I'll be telling them the
stories of Ruth and Naomi, of Saul, David, and Solomon, and working with them on journaling about our play and writing our the Psalms of David in our lesson books. Last week, we heard the story of Samson, and there was a general feeling of satisfaction in Samson's sacrifice of his own life to bring down the Philistines. His strength was vindicated, a sign of the triumph of spiritual knowledge and understanding over the fetters and chains of material greed.

~~Tigress