Week 11 of the 3rd School Year Impacting Choral Music Classrooms

This is my 30th year teaching public school choral music.

I've seen some stuff and have weathered it.

In March and April of 2020, I watched as the choral educator community melted down on social media.

"I'm changing my major.  Choral music has no future."

"Singing in groups is over.  Anyone who thinks otherwise is a delusional optimist."

I watched choral music educators attack each other because of their varied approaches to dealing with something none of us has dealt with. 

The attitude of some in our community was similar to one I saw long before the pandemic...

It was the "I have all of the answers" group...the "I know how to do this, and my way is best" group.  

I saw people who think that way back in 1981 when I was in Allstate Chorus in North Carolina when I was 17 years old, and I was sure I never wanted to be them.

So, when I saw choral music educators attacking each other at an epic level starting in the early days of the pandemic and far beyond, I decided not to participate.

It's so easy to attack people you don't know from behind a keyboard.

It's not brave.  It's the opposite.  It is like road rage.  For many years, regarding road rage, I've said under my breath, "Go take your anger out on the person you are really angry with. 

You might get resolution."

People who follow my work already know my motto about the pandemic.

"This is temporary."

Music and arts have survived for thousands of years and through many pandemics.

People who think/thought that this momentary world event would steal that away from our human spirits permanently are short-sighted.

Broadway is open.

Live Concerts are happening right now.

Europe is opening.  I've had a few friends who've traveled since Labor Day to Europe, and they were surprised at how easy it was in many of the countries.  While Europe got off to a slow start compared to the USA, many European countries have reached and surpassed the USA in vaccination rates and are living their lives fully. 

Remember Japan during the Olympics?  They were panicked.  

Look at them now.

This is today's covid graph for Japan.  

I am in week 11 of my school year.

We are singing in masks.

I definitely don't like it, but it's not as bad as I thought it would be.  

Those little 6th grade voices were always small, and now they sound smaller.  So, it makes me work on diction and rhythmic execution and precision more than I've ever done.

We did our first mini-concert in late September.

I created a YouTube LIVE link for my parents so it would feel "live" since they can't come into the school building yet.

The kids needed that experience so much.  So much of their world has been erased.  So much of what they expected has been cancelled.  

Can you imagine dealing with that on a world-wide basis at age 11?

I am working to rebuild the confidence of my students...Confidence in their singing, but more importantly in building their confidence in the fact that things that we say will happen will actually HAPPEN.

Right now, I am preparing the holiday concert, and we are planning for our biggest event of the year, our spring musical revue.

I am working on it the same way I would work on it pre-pandemic except that I am wearing a mask while I teach it. 

I am certainly hoping the mask situation ends soon...as we all are...but we need to be smart while we are deciding the best ways to give our students some sort of version of what we know choral music education is supposed to be.  

They don't know any different.

This is temporary.

Hang in there.

Sight Reading Factory and the Google Classroom!

Many of you know that I partner with Sight Ready Factory.  (If you purchase any teacher or students subscription from Sight Reading Factory, use the promo code "scubed" to get a 10% discount...it doesn't matter whether you are an S-Cubed user!) 

Here is how I use SRF with my students- Once my students finish S-Cubed Sight Singing Course Level TWO, I jump right onto Sight Reading Factory where they soar using their well-developed skill sets that they get from completing the full S-Cubed Sight Singing Program for Beginners..  

So, I was excited today to get this email from Sight Reading Factory, and I wanted to share it with you. 

SRF is now integrated with Google Classroom! 

Sight Reading Factory & Google Classroom Integration

Hello Google Classroom Teachers! We’ve been hard at work over the last several months working on a Google Classroom integration and we’re excited to announce that it is ready! Features of the Google Classroom integration at SRF include: Teachers and students can use Google Single Sign-On to log in to SRF with their Google account. (Teachers and students don’t need to remember/manage separate logins to SRF now!) Teachers can create or edit assignments in SRF and those assignments are automatically added to Google Classroom. Students can launch SRF assignments directly from their Google Classroom accounts. Teachers can quickly grade all student submissions in SRF and those grades are automatically sent to Google Classroom. Students can see their feedback and review their SRF assignments from Google Classroom. All users can launch SRF practice sessions from their Google Classroom account. Below are 3 important points to understand before getting started with the GC integration. Below those three points are the instructions to use for getting started! If you have already signed students up for this school year, we can help you revoke the student code usages for those students so that you can use that student code to import your Google Classroom students. Keep in mind that these classes you will be importing will be new classes in SRF. You can duplicate assignments from your old classes into your newly imported GC classes. However, the class will be a clean slate with no practice log data and no assignments. If some of your students already have a SRF account and their SRF account is using an email address/username that is not the same as their Google Classroom email address and you import those students, they will essentially be using a brand new account. If you want them to be using the same account (so it has their practice data and assignment data history), you should make sure that your students that already have accounts in SRF are using their Google Classroom email address as their email address for their SRF account before you import the class. Check out this article for updating a student's email address/username. Check out the links below for instructions you can use for integrating Google Classroom with your SRF account: How to Import a Google Classroom Class How to Create and Edit SRF Assignments for Google Classroom How to Manage Google Classroom/SRF Enrollments Students and the Google Classroom/SRF Integration Check it out and let us know what you think! The Sight Reading Factory Team

Acceptance in the Choral Music Classroom-A Podcast

I was a guest on the Choral Connectivity Podcast last night, and we talked about the important of acceptance in the choral music classroom.

Here is the heart of my message -

"Sometimes it is that thing about you that some believe to be your greatest weakness that could quite possibly be your biggest strength...and that if you can learn to love that thing about you that others perceive to be as odd or different, you can find the light that will illuminate the path that will help you move in the direction of becoming exactly the human being you need to be to leave your permanent, positive, life-changing mark on the souls in the universe who need your God-given gifts the most."

If you'd like to give it a listen, here is a link- It's episode 5!

I shared many personal stories that shaped my approach towards not auditioning my students to be in choir and toward creating a climate and culture of acceptance in my choral music classroom.