PUPPET MONOLOGUES
Freemansburg Elementary School
May 8, 2019 – 9:30 am
During the 2019 school year, Doug Roysdon with South Side Children’s Festival Series approached Freemansburg Elementary School about starting a collaborative project with Mrs. Gilrain’s fourth grade class. The original concept was “How do we use the arts to address community, and community building, in the schools”. That concept soon grew into how could we incorporate a concept of international community. And so, a connection was made with Jan Brown of the “Bright School Network” in Rwanda. Through a series of emails, Roysdon proposed a plan to create “me puppets” with accompanying personal scripts. Freemansburg was interested in going deeper than the usual “I like” statements. They wanted to facilitate the students ability to connect on a deeper, more personal, level. These scripts would then be performed, with accompanying “me puppets”,videotaped and shared with the sister school who would then reciprocate with their own puppets and scripts. During this process Roysdon had help from Mrs. Gilrain, Freemansburg art teacher Sue Facchiano, and technology integration coach Anthony DiCicco. Through a problem solving interchange, spanning a dozen emails, the network was able to overcome the technological challenges, one of which was the national ISP of Rwanda, rationing only 1mb of data to Bright Schools a day. The back and forth collaboration will culminate in a live video chat between the two classes of students. Freemansburg invites the community to come see Mrs. Gilrain’s fourth grade class perform their puppet monologues on May 8th at 9:30 am.
About the Bethlehem Area School District
The Bethlehem Area School District is the 6th largest school district in Pennsylvania serving nearly 14,000 culturally and economically diverse students in 22 community-based schools. The district serves five municipalities: City of Bethlehem, Bethlehem Township, Hanover Township, Freemansburg, and Fountain Hill. The district enjoys numerous community partnerships with universities, businesses, and arts providers that extend the schools’ rich curricular and co-curricular offerings.
Information provided to TVL by:
Barbara Clymer
Executive Assistant to the Superintendent of Schools
Bethlehem Area School District
1516 Sycamore Street
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 18017
