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.