My favorite class of the session

At Dancing With Class, we are often in schools for 10 week sessions.  Although the dance competition is a highlight - it's such a moving experience - one of my favorite classes of the session comes at about week 6, maybe week 7 or even 8 for some schools.  It's the class where the students stop being worrying about how weird dancing might be, or how hard the steps are.  It's the class where they begin to truly work together as a team.  You can see it in their body language - they're no longer trying to hide their hands in their sleeves, or trying to avoid making eye contact with each other.  They're excited about the dancing - they really want to get ready for that competition, they really want to do their best at this dance.  They look at each other and say "Come on!  Let's practice!"
This just happened at one of my schools, and I remembered what a great feeling it is!  I had been practicing the waltz with one group of students, while the others practiced merengue in the corner.  The waltz is one of the hardest dances, and with the infectious merengue music in the background, it was a little hard for my waltzers to concentrate.  But when I challenged them to try to do the entire waltz routine by themselves while I checked in with the other students, they really stepped up!  When I came back, they were so excited to tell me "Ms Megan!  We did it, we did it! We did the whole routine!"  Seeing how eagerly they worked together to accomplish a goal, I was so excited too.