As a national company devoted to bringing high quality educational school assemblies to schools pretty much all over the country, our performers naturally spend a lot of solitary nights on the road. It can be a lonely life. Sometimes, in a twenty four hour period, a performer may speak to only hotel clerks and waitresses outside of school hours. So when it happens that they are in a location where they have friends it is always a bonus. And when two or more of our school show performers find out they are in the same place at the same time they always like to get together for a meal and some good conversations, trading humorous “war stories”.
Education Through Entertainment
We are celebrating a birthday here at Mobile Ed Productions today! Mobile Ed is, of course, located in Michigan where we were founded more than thirty years ago, and from where we have launched super cool school assemblies on tours taking them to most of the states in our country. But Michigan is our home, and today is the birthday of the State of Michigan!
Mobile Ed Productions sends wonderful school assembly performers from Michigan (and a few other states) out on the road every year in August to begin touring to schools pretty much all over the country. It is a rambling, crazy way of life alternating between the exhilaration of performing great school shows in front of happy kids and teachers and the loneliness of empty hotel rooms and long miles on the road. Thanksgiving and other family oriented holidays, usually give us an opportunity to get home for a few well earned days with loved ones.
Anyone who has kids will know this. Just before holidays they get excited. Gee... kind of an understatement there, huh? Ballistic might be a better word, or frenetic, animated, distracted ... you name it. But one thing is for sure, it is hard to get them to concentrate on school work. Whether it be summer vacation, fall break, winter break, Thanksgiving ... it doesn’t matter, they will still work themselves into a frenzy, and it is very frustrating trying to calm them down to accomplish regular school work during these times.
I have written before about one of our presenters who is a personal favorite of mine and a very good friend. His name is Toma, and he performs several shows for us but is especially renowned for his own creation Young Authors Day.
Around the country there are numerous science centers and museums, ranging in size from small to really large. All have one thing in common. They are all designed to educate kids and adults alike about science, and inspire our young to find the excitement in science and possibly find their way into careers in science and engineering.
For many years, while my own two children were in elementary school here in Michigan, I was the Dad in charge of scheduling school assemblies. I brought in a lot of different programs. The principal at the time was a really wise man named Jim Felix. Jim had been principal at our school in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan for many years. A tall, Gregory Peck kind of fellow, Jim had experience and wisdom to be envied by any young principal. Every year I would meet with him and go over the programs I was suggesting, and listen to him fill me in on anything good he had come across and we would decide which shows to bring in for the school. Jim was always interested in the science programs. He said he believed that part of the reason our school did so well in science scores was that every year we hit the kids with at least one and sometimes two different science assemblies. Good ones. Not glorified “magic” shows, but real science like chemistry, physics, astronomy and so on. And it did, indeed, show up in the science scores every year. The students really liked science and wanted to learn more.
That is the key to science assemblies. It isn’t what facts the kids actually learn in the assembly that is important. What is important is that they see that science is not boring, not dry, not something to be avoided, but rather how exciting it can be to witness chemical reactions, or the effects of Liquid Nitrogen or to ride on a hovercraft. What is important is to give them an enthusiasm for the subject which will allow skilled teachers to then fill their minds through classroom followups. Science assemblies are like can openers for the brain. They open up a young mind so the teachers can then fill it with all the good stuff kids need to learn.
Geoff Beauchamp is the Regional Manager of Mobile Ed Productions where "Education Through Entertainment" has been the guiding principal since 1979. Mobile Ed Productions produces and markets quality educational school assembly programs in the fields of science, history, writing, astronomy, natural science, mathematics, character issues and a variety of other curriculum based areas. In addition, Mr. Beauchamp is a professional actor with 30 years of experience in film, television and on stage. He created and still performs occasionally in Mobile Ed's THE LIVING LINCOLN.
Sky Dome Planetarium is one of the most popular school assemblies in the country. And why wouldn’t it be? For kids there is hardly a more awesome experience than to enter their gym and discover a huge silver dome occupying half the room and standing some sixteen feet high. And then to enter the dome itself through a mysterious tunnel, sit in the dark inside and then to be treated to a wondrous journey into outer space and beyond! We have never met a child (or adult!) that did not think this a totally awesome experience.
With curriculum based instruction embedded thoroughly throughout the program this great school assembly is also a huge hit with teachers, as it reinforces educational benchmarks in several areas.
And so we are happy to alert you that we have made more than one tour available this year in the midwest. Michigan and Ohio schools, being right in our backyard so to speak, ave always had great opportunities for scheduling this show, but with extra performers now available, Skydome will be able to visit several states that have not had great access to this portable planetarium school assembly before.
Sky Dome (sometimes confused with the older Star Lab program) is available this school year to midwestern schools in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, Missouri, Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minneapolis and even Texas, Utah, Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota!
For those in other parts of the country, do not despair, as we have additional performers resident on the East and West coasts and available to service schools both in California and the eastern states of New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, Delaware and all of New England.
So let the stars shine over your school!