Posted on

Life Skills: Fairness – The Definition

Word of monthEach month we will discuss a life skill with all of our students. This month the word is Fairness.  This word will be defined in the following ways for our students.

Young students: Fairness means: We all receive what we deserve and need!

Older students: Fairness means:  Treating others according to what is needed, deserved and appropriate.

Each age group has a worksheet that parents can use to continue the discussion at home with their children, and one for adults to allow them to think more deeply about the skill and how it applies to them. Would you like to receive the worksheet? Stop by our studio at 133 Gibralter Avenue in Annapolis, MD and tell us the age of your child. We will give you a worksheet and invite you to watch Mr. Joe discuss the word with the students in class.  You can also follow our discussions here on this website.

If you would like to become a member of Balanced Life Skills, come TRY CLASSES FOR FREE.   We are not your typical after school activity, in fact we are an education center, working with our students on physical skills along with empowering families with compassion, awareness and respect – creating a culture of peace – through the arts.  We believe in every child and build their self – confidence.  Balanced Life Skills takes part in community service and encourages each student to do the same.

Posted on

Roles and Responsibilities of Theatrical Production

stage_mgr1

Roles and Responsibilities of Theatrical Production

It is important to know what are responsibilities are. It is also important to know other’s responsibilities. Not only does this allow us to know who to go to in order to get assistance but it gives us respect for other’s talents and skills. Here is a run-down of who does what in theater.

PRODUCER

The Producer is a person who oversees all aspects of mounting a theatre production. The producer manages the overall financial and managerial functions of a production or venue, raises or provides financial backing, and hires personnel for creative positions (writer, director, designers, composer, choreographer—and in some cases, performers

DIRECTOR

A theatre director or stage director is responsible for leading the members of a creative team into realizing the artistic vision of the production. They oversee and orchestrate the mounting of a theatre production (a play, an opera, a musical, or a devised piece of work) by unifying various endeavours and aspects of production. The director’s function is to ensure the quality and completeness of theatre production.

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

The responsibilities of an assistant director in theatre may range from taking notes to actually staging parts of the play. Many aspiring theatre directors begin their careers assistant directing.

DESIGNERS

Designers are the heads of their respective departments, i.e., Lighting, Sound, and Set). They come up with concepts and themes based on the script and execute them in collaboration with one another in order to see the overall vision of the production carried out. This vision is established by the Director. Each department has its own team members.

STAGE MANAGER

A stage manager is one who has overall responsibility for stage management and the smooth execution of a production. Stage management may be performed by an individual in small productions, while larger productions typically employ a stage management team consisting of a head stage manager, or “Production Stage Manager”, and one or more assistant stage managers.

HOUSE MANAGER

In theatre, house management concerns the selling of tickets, the ushering of patrons in front of house areas, and the maintenance and management of the theatre building itself. House management staff usually work for the theatre, under the supervision of the house manager, and not for the theatrical troupe which is currently occupying it. Often in regional or smaller theatres the responsibility falls under the aegis of the production manager. In any case, house management works closely with the production management team for the presentation of the theatrical production

Posted on

3 steps to fixing that mistake!

mistakesWe made a mistake – responsible people would do what?  We know that they are going to be accountable to others for being on time, following through with their commitments, and if they make a mistake – do something about it.   Here is the 3 step process we have given our students to showing responsibility for their mistakes:

  1. Admit it
  2. Apologize
  3. Fix it

I asked each student to tell me which of these would be the hardest to do.  Amazingly they were evenly split with each of the steps getting about the same number of votes for being the hardest one to do.  Which one do you think would be the hardest?

Now consider this scenario:  You yelled at a friend when you were tired.  How would you show responsibility?  First you would admit it and that may sound like, “ I was wrong when I yelled at you yesterday.  I feel bad that I acted that way.”  Second you would apologize and that may sound like “ I Am Sorry”, each word sounded out and emphasized the way you would like to make the person understand how you feel.  The third step is ‘Fix It’  –  How would you do that?

Getting this conversation going with your children can help them to see how they can accomplish doing what is required, needed or expected of us.

Posted on

Dealing with the stress of being criticized

criticismNo one enjoys being wrong or when they make a mistake.  But since we all make mistakes and many times when we are wrong – there is almost always someone around to point them out – getting criticized can be very stressful.

Learning to deal with criticism can be very helpful when it comes to anger management.  Many times the hardest criticism to hear is the one that has a little bit of truth to it or one that we fear is a bit true.  This can be difficult to face and we may become defensive because a nerve has been hit.  Someone may even question our motive for our behavior – and this can really take us off our even keel. In both of these situations if there is any truth to the criticism, it is an opportunity for us to grow, change or modify ourselves – as long as we are able to avoid becoming defensive.   If there is no truth to the criticism we need to remember that there is always going to be someone who has an agenda and is ready to criticize not just us but anybody or anything.   We need to learn to brush it off and not let it affect us.

Learning to deal with the stress of criticism also includes our ability to consider the source of the criticism.  Have you ever noticed that the person who has children who misbehave all the time wants to give parenting advice?, or the guy who is always broke wants to give financial advice?  Consider the source, when those kind of people are being critical.  It never hurts to hear  them out, but to do so and take it personally may become too stressful, resulting in an angry mood.

Finally, be kind to yourself.  Everyone makes mistakes, take responsibility for the mistakes we make by 1. admit them,  2. apologize,  3. see if there is a way of fixing them – but do not beat yourself up over them.  Doing so really takes the stress off.  We begin to view our mistakes as learning experiences and we can do better the next time.

There you have three steps to dealing with criticism that comes from the well intentioned, to those with bad motives to criticizing ourselves.  Thinking about this ahead of time will protect us from losing control of our anger due to criticism.

Posted on

Finding the strengths of children to ward off bullying

solutionWhen children do not feel safe, it makes it almost impossible for them to learn in the classroom.  While creating a culture of peace is our goal, the day to day situations in the interim must be dealt with by each individual teacher and parent.

With so many children targeted by bullying, we many times have focused on the vulnerabily of certain children.  Are they quiet or reserved, is there a difference with them (glasses, physical, learning etc..) do they have a need to be popular, are they overweight or not good at sports, speech impediment, or may be aggressive toward others?  All of these children are vulnerable to being the target of bullying.

Those same children though have strengths that can be built on that would enable them to be resilient and cope with bullying situations, while the teacher and parents are working on building a culture in the home and classroom that creates a kind and peaceful atmosphere.  When you consider a child who is vulnerable, also ask yourself what their strengths are.  How might they use those strengths, how can we build the child’s resilience?  Then most important is who can be a part of the support network for each of those kids?

It may be certain positive peers who can be there for them.  A guidance counselor or other teacher in the school may be a part of the network.  How can parents be helped to learn how to help their child grow their resilience?  This network around any vulnerable child is the key to reducing the chance that they will become targets or victims of bullying.

While we are doing this with individual children – every classroom and home should consider the 3 step process for changing culture in their community.

  1. Step one is to set the expectations for the behavior and attitude for all in the community.
  2. Step two is to role model what those expectations look like for all others in the community.
  3. Step three is to teach – talk about the expectations on a daily basis.  This is always done when there are no emotions involved.  It should be mirrored by all in the community, every teacher, every parent, every coach on a daily basis.  

These 3 steps will help everyone involve to get a clear picture and develop the peace we all want in our family, schools and community.

Posted on

Taking on personal responsibility

personal-responsibility1Taking responsibility for ourselves is not just about when we make a mistake. Many times we hear children say after a bad behavior – “He made me do it.” The difference between an adult and a child is that as we mature we begin to realize that we are responsible for our thoughts and behavior. We are who we are because of everything we have done, the way we think and the words we speak. Our life experiences – good and bad – have created us.

Sometimes circumstances are not great at the moment, or we are in the process of changing seasons (age, relationships, financially) and blaming those things never allows us to move forward in our lives. The question we can ask though is what can I do now to get the job done, to keep the commitments I have made to myself and others, learn from my mistakes to make my life and the world a better place.

There is plenty that we cannot change – but we can always recognize what we can do to move forward with our lives. How do we help children learn this skill and attitude?

It comes down to the 3 step process – the same one for changing culture in our family.

  1. Set expectations

  2. Role model what you would like to see

  3. Teach (talk about it) on a regular basis with our children

We are going to make mistakes in this process and on a day to day basis. When we do though, we must admit our mistakes rather than running and hiding from the mistake. Most mistakes can be fixed and doing so or dealing with the consequences sets the example for our children.