I had a realization after teaching yesterday. My students cast me in their video and I was the first one to be filmed. They had joked about this the week before, but I thought one of them would eventually want to take the part. This week however, when it came to assigning roles, they said that I should be character one. We are making a promotion video for the Who Are You? Youth Media Festival. In the video character one asks, "Who are you?" to different young people and they respond with their creative identity, i.e. an artist, poet, graphic designer, etc.

I am interested in performing and in expanding my creative endeavors to include more, but my performance skills are limited. I do not yet have the practice in front of the camera to be comfortable. The take was hard and I am not sure how well I did, but it was a good moment to be in the spotlight and have my students direct me. Something important was happening in that moment. As I reflected after class I began to see that it was my willingness to do something embarrassing, especially when I ask the young people I work with to do potentially embarrassing things. We are creating something together, in creation there is always the risk of failure and I have to be willing personally to take that risk if I am going to ask the group I am facilitating to take it as well.