I thought about going against the obvious this week and NOT writing about Fiestas de Quito but after experiencing such amazing performances by our Middle School and High School students I just couldn’t resist celebrating the awesomeness!!

In the weeks leading up to Fiestas de Quito there has been a lot of time and energy put into this celebration of the founding of Quito.  Our Spanish Department deserves a lot of recognition for the time, effort, and crazy amounts of energy they’ve put into helping our students plan such beautiful performances.  Being new to Quito I couldn’t quite fathom the scale to which this celebration would go, it was mind-blowing!  ¡Muchas gracias!

Our students held nothing back and demonstrated an amazing amount of pride, not only in Quito, but in themselves and the work they put in preparing for these performances.  To watch our students push themselves out of their comfort zones while on stage in front of a standing-room only crowd was absolutely inspiring.  I’m impressed more and more everyday with the level to which our students are willing to be risk takers.  However, Fiestas de Quito took that to a whole new level, providing them with a context in which they were engaged and excited to share their efforts and talents with our community.

As educators this is what we strive for, creating an atmosphere for our students that allows them to take risks, learn, and grow in a manner that is comfortable for them.  As I walk around Academia Cotopaxi I see this happening everyday.  Our students are comfortable in their classes and feel safe in their learning environment.  Students see their teachers and the other adults at school as people who care about them, people they can go to if they need help.  The positive relationships we build with our students here at AC create an atmosphere filled with daily opportunities to learn and grow.

Fiestas de Quito is a wonderful opportunity for our community to come together and celebrate the amazing city we are privileged to call home.  As you enjoy the festivities and revelry take a second to stop and think about how you are working to build the positive.  Have a look at this very brief post by best-selling author Jon Gordon.  He talks about the power of positive interactions and the ratio of positive to negative that his research shows to be the tipping point for effectiveness.  It’s very interesting and has applications to life in general (and certainly has implications for the classroom).  Very interesting stuff 🙂

Enjoy the music and parades everyone!  

¡Viva Quito!