A new school year is commencing and many of you now in the mindset “get inspired to inspire”.  I hope you have had a chance to re-charge as we outlined at the beginning of the season.  I have enjoyed listening to teachers from around the globe this summer in workshops and online. Many of you voiced a common concern “how do we artistically inspire kids amid the tragedies that have enveloped our country and the world in the past few months?”

Now it’s time to take stock of your natural strengths which make you seem almost supernatural to kids.  Maybe it’s your disarming sense of humor, incredible leadership skills or your ability to put yourself in a student’s shoes and offer empathy.  The secret ingredient?  The arts, of course.  As you select your season, your shows and your cast, pay attention to the intrinsic rewards your kids reap from these activities like initiative, resiliency, willingness to work cooperatively, creative problem solving and belief in human potential. These are organic tools that your kids  cultivate while putting on a show.

Allow your creative mind to use these tools to nurture the human potential of the many young minds that enter your programs in the next few weeks.  You have the natural ability to teach students how to communicate through the arts and learn about themselves and the world around them in the process.  This is rather inspirational in itself!

 Eleanor Roosevelt said it best.  “The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”

Those new faces are eagerly waiting for you.  Use your powers to make the world a kinder and gentler place – one musical at a time.

Read More Cindy Says.