It takes a lot of faith during the first couple classes when you are teaching a group of students a song, to believe that it will in fact be ready by the time the performance comes. Even when it’s a song that I’ve taught half a dozen times and had students successfully perform, there is still doubt. You have to push through that doubt and not project that on to your students, because they need the time and space to work through the process on their own terms. Also, I have found that in my community, placing a lot of stress on students is not always conducive to them being more productive.
I carefully plan out the classes leading up to the performance, try to hit the right points in the process with time to spare. But it’s tricky. If you move the students too fast, then they might peak before the performance. While this isn’t as much of an issue with advanced high school students with 5th graders, having the students be performance ready too early is not the best situation. When this happens, it’s difficult to keep momentum and excitement going.
There’s a magical moment in every performance preparation process when I hear a group of students run through a song, and I relax knowing that it’s going to work. No longer am I running on faith. Instead, I have concrete, audible evidence, that we are going to be ok. The kids can start and stop together, they know their parts, and there is a spark of the meaning that is shining through. This spark needs to be nurtured, and uncovered, but when it’s there, and that moment come with a huge feeling of relief, and excitement.
This moment happened twice this week. On Monday with my 5th graders and today with my 8th graders. No, I don’t tell my students, “before this moment, I wasn’t sure that we would be ready for our performance.” I try to show my enthusiasm and talk about how we just experienced a special moment, which we will never happen every again.
I told my 5th graders, it’s like reading a book for the first time. You can read a book over and over again, and if it’s the right book, each time you read it the experience is fulfilling. However, it’s never the same as the first time. You can recapture, a lot of that wonder, but you can’t get all of it. Learning a song is the same thing. You can always revisit a song and play it and enjoy it, but there’s nothing like that moment when it comes together for the first time. For my 5th graders it was singing a song successfully as a round for the first time, and for my 8th graders, it playing in sync together and feeling the complete arc of a song.
Sometimes, I remember that moment when it comes together and I see where are going to be with a song more than the performance itself. It’s interesting how some students feel it along with me, and other’s don’t. One of my goals is to help students share in the wonder of this moment, and see how what they just did is special, and important. There is pride that comes in the way we work, and joy in important parts of the process. The satisfaction that comes from working through the process carefully holds meaning, and unlike the fleeting moment of a performance, can last a lifetime.
No comments:
Post a Comment