CUSD drama teacher creates daily videos to inspire students

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- A Central High School teacher is spreading some cheer to his students everyday using the internet.

What started out as somewhat of a joke for drama teacher Matthew Bridges has turned into much more.

"They started as me at home with my family doing the stuff we do every day," said Bridges. "I showed myself pulling weeds one day and put it on google classroom and the kids loved it."

These videos quickly turned into an everyday occurrence.

"My whole family, we wake up in the morning, we game plan over breakfast, we film, we break for lunch, we film again, we upload it during dinner and we watch it together," said Bridges. "It's what we're doing all day long."

The Central High School drama teacher who decided to share some encouragement with his students on google classroom, found the kids liked it so much, he started posting daily videos to YouTube.

"This particular group of seniors in my theater 4 class, I've had some of them for 6 years," said Bridges. "Somebody posts a comment or emails my show saying, 'I look forward to these every day. I look forward to these videos every day, these videos are my favorites thing in the whole day."

Bridges says it wasn't easy for students when the campus closed their doors and their spring production of Matilda was canceled.

"Our principal actually came into the classroom and told us how sorry he was about the show getting canceled and our last day a lot of the students were crying," explained Senior Anicia Gaucin.

Bridges says he hopes watching the daily videos helps bring a new normality for students.

"I started watching them and was like, these are great, it just really felt like we were able to connect with Mr. Bridges in a way that we didn't get to on our last day when we had to say goodbye," added Gaucin.

Mr. bridges has already produced 25 daily videos, with new ones coming out every evening.

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