Year 8: Week 33 - Moving Past the Silence

After the 1st and 2nd grade violin group finished playing their songs, I stood up to announce the next group to perform. Right before I started speaking, I heard the silence of anticipation, but something didn’t feel right in the audience. There were too many students who looked disinterested, too many student slouching, and an overall feeling of restlessness.

I looked up at the 8th graders in the balcony and thought of them being asked to watch a groups of little kids at the end of their 8th grade year. I realized in that moment that maybe they needed a reminder of why we were here. Then I looked at the first graders right in front of me, in their seats squirreling around, and thought that they could also use a reminder of what it meant to be an audience member.

Before we continue, I’d like to talk about why we are here. What is the purpose of you sitting here in the audience? There’s three main reasons for you to be here. First off, to enjoy the music that is performed today. The students up here are performing a great variety of music, and there’s a lot to enjoy on a musical level.

The second reason you are sitting in the audience is to help create community. When you sit in the audience and give of your energy, your time, and your attention, you are telling the people on stage that what they matter. And 8th graders, look you are doing reflections on the most meaningful times you’ve had at this school. If you think about, many of these moments you are writing about, are meaningful because there were people you shared these experiences with supporting you.  Right now, you have power to create something special for the students sharing their musical work who are on stage right now.

The third reason you are in the audience is because you have the opportunity to exercise a very important part of skill needed for conversations. Listening to music, and working to understand the emotions, the stories and the meaning of what you hear strengthens your ability to interpret people’s words more effectively. The ability to do this is as important in a conversation as formulating thoughts and emotions into words that you speak. The ability to talk, and listen to understand others, are the central tools we utilize to being active in our democracy and positively contribute to our country as a citizens.

We continued the assembly, and the students on stage performed really well. The audience was receptive, and seemed to work harder to understand and support what they saw on stage.

The student body at my school has always impressed me with their ability to be quiet during assemblies, and I think we can push them to go beyond simply being respectful to truly actively participating as audience members. I’m not talking about clapping along (which is sometimes appropriate). I’m speaking to actively listening to, engaging with and thinking about with what is being presented.

There’s more potential to learn, and grow, we just need to push students beyond the silence, into a realm of true learning and growth.