Coffee Shop

One of my goals, when I was a teacher, was to have like, a little spot that would be like part of a stage. I would have like pallets and maybe like, put down like a, like a blanket and then have it be with like a chair. And, and I wanted it to be styled like an open mic night at a coffee shop and I wanted that to be a spot where, after every unit, learners could get up and present their poetry, stories, songs, or some piece of work they wanted to showcase.

Our whole classroom would transform into a coffee shop with nibblies, cocoa and tea, and we would put up a sign so we were no longer in a classroom. We were in a coffee shop. We could invite other teachers and the principal to come by, enjoy some snacks and see what we were up to.

Now I’ve always wanted to do that. So I thought, why not share this idea with the teachers I’m coaching now. Well, one teacher took the idea and ran with it.

It was really cute. She made a flyer, so professional-looking, that even Jonathan thought it was from Starbucks. She called it the Coco Café and served mini hot chocolates with marshmallows, candies, and cookies, and the learners were the entertainment.

The learners crafted had snowglobes out of a paper plate and a plastic plate, They had then wrote poems about what their snowglobe would feel like if they were inside them. When they presented, the principal came and some other teachers, and I was able to attend too. 

I just love it. We celebrated their creativity, their hard work, and their courage to present.

I love the idea, especially kids in rural communities, who might not know about things like open mic, who don’t know they can go to places and share their creative endevours. So, I'm always trying to think about how to incorporate their work into like the bigger whole. And that's a cute and easy way to celebrate, acknowledge and propel learners' work. It was really easy, we all got to play pretend and replicate an experience for these little ones.  It was so beautiful.