Each week our students participate in Learning Outside the Classroom, a hallmark of the University School approach to learning. Students participate in 30+ field trips a year to experience everything from an artistic performance to touring a landfill, and visiting a religious place of worship to participating in a community service project. These outings provide our students the opportunity to link what they learn in the classroom with real world experiences, and they help our students become more engaged citizens in our community. This week’s reflection was written by Charlie Dunlevy about a performance by the Mayhem Poets.

This week, we went to the Gaillard to see a group called the Mayhem Poets. As I walked into the Gaillard, I stopped and my mouth hung open in awe; it was beautiful. Before the actual show started, a couple local poets came to recite their own poetry, which I found myself relating to a lot. Finally, the Mayhem Poets came on. They started with a comedic poem called ‘my name is’ and afterward introduced themselves formally.

Then, they each went on to say their own separate poems, which were about any topic from global problems to the troubles of growing up. They did a couple more poems as a group, then asked people from the audience to join them. One of the activities that they did with the audience members that got to go on stage was called a one word poem, they had to make a poem by going around and each saying a word and each person could only say one word at a time; this has some very funny results.  

About half way through the audience participation, I realized something. In most of the poems I heard, the poets had talked about being young, shy, and insecure, just like me. And yet, here they were, important people with families, children, and whole auditoriums of people waiting patiently to hear what they had to say. This performance showed me that no matter how small I feel right now, I can grow to achieve my goals one day. So, overall I would say that I had a great time at this LOTC, and I can’t wait to see what comes next.