6-11-2025 12:32am

Last Day of Class...Break Some Glass!!!

Beth Callahan Editor

LEBANON, OH -- Stress is a feeling of emotional or physical tension that can be caused by challenges or change in one's life. Even children deal with stress, and all the changes that happen at the end of the school year can be stressful. Saying goodbye to classmates, teachers, and the regular routine that has been followed for the last nine months, along with the other "unknowns" of what the next year will bring, can create excitement, hope, anxiety and stress.

To help students at Lebanon's Berry Intermediate learn about stress, artist and glass maker Darren Goodman stopped in on the last day of school to let the students relieve some stress by breaking some glass.

Goodman, who just wrapped up his “GLASS Through the Lens of an Artist” at the Middletown Art Center had an exhibit called "Tears of Joy." As the exhibit was coming to a close, Goodman was allowing people to break the "Tears of Joy" glass pieces that were created across the US and Europe, to release tension and stress.

Goodman, whose exhibit in Middleton was partially funded by the America 250 - Ohio Project explained, "I decided to smash and scatter the tears creating shard, which I will use as a starting point for a future project."

Goodman, then, took this idea of breaking the glass to his friend Abigail Hanser, the art teacher at Lebanon's Berry Intermediate. Goodman explained that he and Hanser have been working together since 2014.

With this being their 11th year and possibly final end of year project together, Goodman thought it might be fun to have the students participate in the America 250 - project by breaking glass on the last day of class while learning about how to release stress.

"Several of the remains of pieces were brought to Berry Intermediate for a celebration and releasing of stress presentation," he said, adding that before the kids met for the event, they were given a paper to write "thoughts on how stress can sometimes help us become stronger and wiser, if we manage the stress properly."

Here are just a few of the profound thoughts the students shared:

Isabel...There would be no heroes, if there weren't hardships. We need hard things in our life to appreciate the good things. Life is too shart to focus on the bad stuff.

Grayson ... Mistakes can be hard to get out of, but they can improve you.

No Name ... In darkness there are things that might frighten you, but there is a light you must find to keep brave.

Tyler ... When you work out, you get tiny rips in your muscles, which heal and become stronger. After you fight an infection you become strong again. After they Hydra looses a head, two come back to replace the missing head. I listen to music to get through stuff. I squish stress toys to work through challenges. Sometimes stress can make us stronger.

Palmer ... Challenges are like mountains that you try, but a lot of times cannot be moved.. That's why you need to surround yourself with friends who will move these mountains with you always so you can cry your tears of joy together and break free.

Not only did the kids have fun breaking the glass, so did Principal Kletzly.

Along with making and breaking glass, Goodman is also a musician. To end the presentation, Goodman tied the two arts together. First, he asked one student whose statement he really liked to sign his guitar with her words, which reads..."You can turn your stress into energy to get things done."

Goodman, then, ended the presentation with a song that he composed on his ukulele, which you can hear in the video below, along with some photos of the kids breaking glass on the last day of class.