When I was in ninth grade, I spent a class period TAing the guy in charge of building sets and making props with my two best friends. This was our favorite class period because it was just the three of us meeting with him in the auditorium to help with whatever on the days he was there.

I say on the days he was there because he was only there about half of the time which meant that we had a whole period to just do whatever with each other half of the school year. Sometimes we'd read or work on our writing. Sometimes it was helpful to have the period to work on projects and such.

I'm making it sound like we lived for the days he was gone. That's not true. We did all really enjoy helping with sets and props and him teaching us cool tricks for making props and decorating sets. For instance, he showed us how to make a mold out of cement when we helped him make a plastic seashell for the school's production of The Little Mermaid Jr. He also showed us how they make cobwebs on stages and in movies. It was so cool getting to work with him and hear his stories of when he was a set designer for Disney. I don't know why he quit with Disney and chose to work at a small charter school in Utah, but I sure am glad I got to work with him.

Most of the time we were helping paint sets or doing our own thing but those days he was building the big props and set pieces, we learned a lot.