This week was the furthest thing from uneventful. On Wednesday I participated in an in-service day with the 5th grade team. We spent the morning discussing the concept of “white fragility,” taking a deep dive into our own racial identity development. It was a fascinating discussion and I felt grateful to be in a space where we could talk openly and frankly, in a safe and supportive space about issues related to racial identity and racism.
There was good learning down in all of my classes. 3rd graders are progressing on their recorders and I am maintaining a cool head a calm atmosphere as they learn how to play these instruments. I told them that I refuse to teach in a chaotic environment. I stopped a class, and we talked about this for five minutes, just to center myself and the students. It’s not worth pushing ahead if we can’t create a calm space to create music. If I’m feeling tension and a challenge to concentrate because students are playing out of turn and goofing off, then my students must be feeling the same discomfort. It’s not all about how I feel, but sometime my feelings can be good gauge.
5th graders are behind, not because of anything they did but rather the arc of the year and my own planning. I extended a composition unit, and then lost time with this Middle Ages unit. This is only an issue because we have a performance of this music coming up. I’m debating how I use my time well. The choice I was facing was doing one less song or do less enrichment work around the songs (e.g. studying the history of the song, and the meaning of the lyrics). I’m leaning towards doing one fewer song. I’d rather have them perform two songs with an emotional connection and understand the “why” behind the song, than three songs with only a surface understanding of their meaning.
Middle schools kids? 6th has a great vibe and is moving deliberately. I’m concerned about the progress learning the songs but what they are learning is really solid. 8th grade is moving at a great pace with their learning but the vibe is tricky. They like the music, but they don’t have a positive sense of how they can work together. Maybe through their progress they can see each other.
Friday, my school had a Race, Privilege & Community Building Conference. It included parents, teachers, students, alumni, and administrators. We talked in small group about roadblocks to feeling a sense of belonging at our school, and what we can do to work on this. The afternoon ended with a student panel talking to all of the adults about their experience as students. It was touching, powerful, revealing, and challenging.
I will never forget the story from the students whose parent is a teacher at our school.
This idea of belonging got to me more than I expected. It’s hard to pull apart my feelings of not belonging in school with these same feelings outside of school. This is all due to the unique facets of my identity. For example, I don’t feel like I belong sometimes with the other male-identified teachers because most of them are sports fans. Well, this is not unique to school, and happens with almost every single man I interact with in my life.
There are things unique to my position at this school that leads to feeling like I don't belong. I am part of the music department but I am the department chair, so I am a step apart. I fit in with the other department chairs but we have different jobs because our departments have different needs. I am included with other grade level teams, but they have so much work they do with each other and not me, that I’m not 100% really with them.
Being social is hard for me outside of school, and those challenges carry across to my professional life. I think we can work as a school to overcome people’s sense of not belonging, but for me it’s hard to know what my school can really do. My school is and has always made an effort to make me feel like I belong and that I am supported. Some of this work must be on me...I guess?
I don’t have any conclusions with the concept of belonging but I have feelings I don’t know how to reconcile and I don't completely understand.
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