CiRCE Institute

A Conversation with Lea Marshall and Rachel Woodham.

"Another reason is something I heard from a colleague: you play like you play. I learn so much from watching the kids play games. I learn how they’re going to be on the stage, who is a good leader, who can be present, and who can listen to directions.

Whenever I have auditions, we play a couple of games in the beginning, especially if I don’t know all the kids that are auditioning, so I can get a feel for how they move, how they interact with other people, and how committed they are to the game. I have a friend who used to cast only based on how kids played games."

Players Gonna Play: An interview with Theater Teacher Lea Marshall | CiRCE Institute Lea is an award-winning theater teacher at my alma mater, Leon High School, whom I had the pleasure of getting to know at my former parish. I also know firsthand from students and parents just how beloved a teacher Lea is. Not only that, Lea is a master of play. A helpful sounding board at […]

From Andrew Kern.

"It is a dismal symptom of our age that grammar is taught as if it were a post-mortem examination.

We treat the English sentence as a collection of cold, flinty stones to be counted and cataloged, or worse, as a series of rigid traffic signals designed solely to prevent a collision of meanings.

This is the grammar of the actuary and the clerk. It is static, it is sterile, and it is profoundly dead.

If we are to salvage anything of the dignity of our language, we must stop treating the sentence as a machine and begin treating it as a Person.

A sentence is not a formula; it is a life. And like any life, it possesses a distinct, organic hierarchy of being."

The Living Ghost: A Resurrection of the Sentence | CiRCE Institute It is a dismal symptom of our age that grammar is taught as if it were a post-mortem examination. We treat the English sentence as a collection of cold, flinty stones to be counted and cataloged, or worse, as a series of rigid traffic signals designed solely to prevent a collision of meanings. This....

From Anderson Underwood.

"Therefore, I’d like to offer a challenge (especially to upper school parents): Set a goal this year to read one book that your children are reading for school.

Why read what they’re reading?

For the readers among us, the answer may seem obvious. But for those less inclined, reading requires you to sacrifice downtime and amusements that you’ve come to depend on for rest or pleasure.

But the trade is worth making."

A Charge for Upper School Parents: Read with Your Kids | CiRCE Institute “I want to engage with what my student is reading and learning, but I never have time to read all the books they read.” Have you ever had this thought? Or maybe this one? “I was able to keep up with what my kids learned when they were in grammar school, but now that they’re […]