Resilience

It happened in slow motion. 

I was watching out the window while a group of kids set up a shot for their commercial. They were in that zone of both productivity and fun, and their faces were beaming as they rehearsed and gestured about the blocking. Just then, a gust of wind caught the iPad on the tripod like a sail, and lofted it up and then let it smash on the ground. Their jaws dropped as they bent to retrieve the device, and then their faces crumpled as they saw the screen. 

The class was almost over, and so I met them at the door as they came in. "I saw," I told them, as they tried to explain. 

"But the whole commercial is on that iPad!" one of them pointed out in dismay. We gingerly laid the device flat on the table, and through shattered glass I carefully selected all the video clips and uploaded them to the student's Google Drive. Then I shared each one with me, and later, after they went to their next class, created a folder and shared it with the rest of the group. Then I put a repair ticket in for the iPad and turned it in.

It was a much more somber end to the day than we expected, but I predict that their enthusiasm will be back even before the iPad is.