Staying Positive

I just read this post in the Facebook Group I started a few years back called "I Teach Middle School Chorus!"

She sums up why I started that Facebook Group.

I wanted a place where I could have some influence on the dialogue because I'd seen so much negative stuff in so many groups on FB.  I wanted a positive place where middle school chorus teachers could help each other without judgments.  

Times change.

They always do.

But who could have predicted a Pandemic?!?

What I knew for sure when I created this group was that our approach to teaching the kids in our middle school classroom would not change.

They need encouragement.  They need structure.  They need laughter.  They need to know that you care.

The mode of delivery might change...and in my long career, the modes of delivery have shifted enormously.

...But the heart of it all would not.

Our middle school students have no idea how important a pandemic is.   By the time they turn 25, they will have a better perspective about what they went through more than ten years before.

I could see the twin towers in NYC from my house in Springfield, NJ when those buildings went down, and I watched the smoke rising from my front yard for weeks.  I taught in the South Orange/Maplewood, NJ school district at the time.  

I will always remember that day with those students and the months that followed that were filled with fear.

Things changed epically then and art became more important than I could remember at any point during my life until that moment.

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Our job is to help our students through whatever happens and to teach them to sing and read music regardless.

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About a month ago, I gained peace about my perspective on this current moment because I realized why I have felt the way I've felt...right or wrong...

I was an 18 year old young gay man in 1982 coming of age in North Carolina when the HIV pandemic became known to the public.  

I remember the headline..."Gay men mysteriously dying of gay cancer."

I was very naive.  I hadn't explored much.  

And it terrified me.

When I heard about the gay "cancer" and saw the ravaged faces and bodies of the young men who were dying, I knew I should probably just shut it down.

So, I did.

From 1982 until 1996, getting diagnosed with HIV meant you had it until the day you died and that you were dying really soon.

When you were diagnosed with HIV during that time period, the death rate was well over 90%.  

I watched my young vibrant friends die.

The ones who lived for a while longer sold their life insurance policies because they knew they were going to die. 

...And most of them did.

But for the ones who didn't die, they were financially ruined once they unexpectedly lived through the HIV pandemic when the drugs became available that made HIV a disease you could live with for a really long time.  

Watching my friends who were in their 20's and 30's die while nobody was listening was really hard.

So, for me...just for me...

...watching the world go through what we are all going through over an illness that lasts two to three weeks and has a 95% survival rate is really hard.  

HIV is/was permanent.

So...yeah....

That's the lens through which I see it. 

I know Covid impacts more people than HIV...   Suicide rates are up.  People who are older and in poor health are isolated and lonelier than every before.

...Got it...

...I'm being careful, and I certainly don't mean to be dismissive.  

But I just wanted to be honest and share what's happening for me.

And that's what it is.

You don't have to agree with me.  

....

That's why I want the "I Teach Middle School Chorus" FB group to be a place for solutions for teachers who face whatever we face.  Teaching middle school chorus is tricky...always...

And now it's even trickier.

But our job never changes.  It's always...

Solve what lies before us while teaching them to love singing and performing and to help them become musically literate.

When I failed miserably during my first year teaching this age group back in 1989, I decided I had to solve the riddle of this very special age group to love singing.

That's what I'll do as we face this current moment...

...If I fail, I'll pick up the pieces and do my best.  

Stay positive.  Find solutions.

In one of the most popular FB groups for choral music educator's during the early days of the pandemic, choral directors were pouncing on each other...criticizing and attacking each other...   I responded to one of the exchanges, and one of the members called me "delusionally positive".   

I'm not sure that is a grammatically correct way of speaking/writing or not...regardless...I sort of like it.  :-)

Being delusionally positive has worked for me for 29 years in the public middle school choral music classroom.

I've documented a lot of it on YouTube.

I'll take the label "delusionally positive", and I'll own it.  

Since I was a child, I've always avoided the "doom and gloom" people...the people who say things like "Wait until you are in the real world."  

That sounds like miserable place to me.   I wasn't interested in living there then, and I'm still not interested in living there now.

My cooperating teacher told me to avoid the teacher's lounge because it was filled with darkness.

I'm glad I did.  

I'm going to keep doing it. 

This is temporary.