What a night we had at the Phoenix College Bulpitt auditorium to celebrate the Holiday Program! The energy of the night along with the uplifting voices definitely gets us all prepared for the holiday season! A heartfelt thanks to each of you who supports this night through the tax credit donation. Also, thanks to each parent who connected with me at the end of the program and shared their joy and experience as an audience member. While the night is over too quickly, we have already started planning the next one! Recognizing the layers of effort combined with Montessori classrooms’ emphasis on process over product makes it a successful experience for the audience and more importantly, the performers. The focus is on students learning how to do something, not just creating a perfect product. The KMS annual Holiday Program is one all-school performance when teachers guide the students towards an end product: a successful presentation. We never abandon “the process over product” educational philosophy of the school!
There is much that students learn through the process of creating and performing the Holiday Program. First, it is an experience of artistic expression through singing, movement, rhythm or poetry. As students get older at Khalsa, they have more and more opportunities to take ownership of the creative process that becomes their performance. This year, the Upper Elementary students took the human journey experience from their cultural curriculum to showcase the uniqueness of being human. In small groups, they collaborated on group movements, writing poetry, and creating props. They also spent many hours giving and receiving feedback to refine their message. In the end, it was truly the students’ creation.
Along with this creative expression, the Holiday Program gives our students the experience of diligent effort perfected through repetition. At the program, they saw their effort manifested and recognized.
Congratulations to all our students and to the teachers who guided them, for their efforts gave us such a warm Khalsa Montessori School community experience.
