CINCINNATI: ARRIVAL AND FIRST DAY ACTIVITIES

Sunday: October 2nd

GOING TO CINCINNATI

What a trip!!

We were told to be at 7:30am at the hotel reception ready to jump on the van towards the airport. Our flight was at 10:15am. You can guess, we all had to wake up at about 5am if we hadn't packed our suit cases the day before. Well, we all did it in time!!

But none forsaw what was coming!!

Some of us hadn't had a good sleep and so we only wanted to enter the plane and take a nap of about 2 hours, which was the approximate time that took to get from Philadelphia to Cincinnati.

The minute I sat on my seat, I fastened my belt and closed my eyes. About an hour later I woke up and to my surprise the plane was still in the airport in Philadelphia!! What had happened?!

I asked Jose from Nicaragua and told me the plane was about to take off when a metal gadget fell off on someone's head and the plane had to come back to the gate. It seemed to have been a noisy event, complaints, personnel from the airport coming into the plane, and upset people desperate to arrive in time to have connections.

Finally, we took off at about 11:20am. I just can't believe all that happened while I had a little nap!!

Day 1: October 3rd

Meeting 1: The Children's Theatre

Being there was so refreshing. The theatre, the story, the children (aged 5 or 6), the Primary teachers and the actors, ohh!! the actors and actresses were just four but highly talented!

The story on stage was inspired by the so well known fairy tale The Pricess and the frog. Nevertheless; the play has an original script and a creative storyline created by Jen Scott, the director. They named it 'The Prince frog'. It is a such beautifully written story for children to teach them not to be spoilt and know how to be a good friend.

Stage

What was really different to all plays I've been to, is that after the play was finished, the actors and actresses stood in front of their very young audience and invited them to ask any question they may have. Many a child raised their hands and made the most interesting questions ever. Some of them were:

- How do you manage to change clothes so quickly?

- How long did it take them to memorise their lines?

- Why were there other characters different from the Prince frog and the Princess?

- Who made the scenary?

- Why were some of the actor wearing black clothes when holding the puppets?

- and other questions alike.

The actors answered all of their questions for about 15 minutes.

At the backstage we met the director and the actors who told us how important it was for them to teach children values and to be good people because the future of the country will be soon in their hands.

The fouractors and the director (in blue)

The Children's theatre is not a common theatre. The members are all professionals in the field of Arts. Some of the activities they do are:

- Do school performances

- Go to schools to do workshops for children to deal with social topics.

- Do free performances in the streets.

- Organise Art summer camps.

They advised us to integrate arts in the Teaching of English by first talking to the Arts teachers we have in our schools and do something together. She told us that if we google the following words we'll find plenty of suggestions:

- how to introduce active plays in the classroom

- Improvisation games

- Tips for art integration in the classroom

I will quote what Mrs. Jen said they wish the children keep in their minds and hearts:

"There are no limits to how many times you can try or to how many times you can fail."

Then I'd say that the meaning we give to our lives is not based on how successful we are but how many times we try and so how much we learn.

Meeting 2: Princeton High School

Named after Princeton University, this public school has awards for its Excellence in The National Elementary and National Secondary School Recognition Programs and offers its students the International Baccalaurette Diploma Program.

Here we had a great talk with Mr. Jim O'Connor, Social Studies Department Chair and the great team of ESL Teachers. They had arranged a meeting for us with students from the countries we are from. I met two Peruvian students who were from Callao and were with their families in US trying to have a better future. Great teens!!