Most of the time, I don’t teach music that I love. First off, my job as a teacher is not to teach students what music that I enjoy. My job is to instill a love of music in my students' lives buy teaching them how to better understand music in their own lives and beyond. The music that is most effective at doing just this is often music that I don’t personally love, or even like all that much. No, I don’t torture myself by teaching music that I strongly dislike, but I rarely in my free time listen to music that I teach for enjoyment.
This is why I hesitated so much to teach “Crowded Table.” This is a song that I absolutely love and it means so much to me. One of the first singles that was released from The Highwomen is a wonderful statement of values, and an expression of what of the wants that we should all share.
I love everything about The Highwomen, and I’m going to leave it to the pros to explain what is so important and amazing about their debut self-titled album (check out this article).
I wanted to shake things up. My 3rd graders ended the Thanksgiving program long before I started at this school ten years ago by performing, “Simple Gifts.” Yes, as I taught my students, “Simple Gifts” is an important American song, attributed Elder Joseph Brackett who wrote it down in 1848. However, I felt that my students needed more, my school needed more. For over a decade (likely decades), the expressions of this one white man from the mid-1800s had been central in the traditions of our school.
My school is made up of a lot more than white men, so I was determined to do something more. Instead of trying to replace a tradition that many people valued, I created more space. I moved “Simple Gifts,” from a finale to an introduction, and brought in “Crowded Table,” a song written and recorded earlier this year by women as the ending sing-along of this central school tradition.
“Crowded Table” was perfect. The meaning of the lyrics were teachable to my 3rd graders and while rhythm was a not exactly at 3rd grade level, the range and the contours of the melody worked for my 3rd graders and most importantly of all, my students really enjoyed singing this song.
My idea was that all of the other students in the audience would singalong with the chorus of the song while the 3rd graders performed. So, I prepped the other student by teaching “Crowded Table,” to them and every time, I was nervous, hoping that they would catch onto the song. I’m usually not nervous in my hope that students will like a song, but this one felt different. This song and this whole album just has meant that much to me.
With great pride I led my 3rd graders through the first verse, and then I turned around to invite the audience to sing along with the chorus and I heard singing from crowd, and felt the spirit in the room. Each time the chorus hit, the audiences voices got louder and louder, and by the end of the song, the whole school was singing together.
If the school didn’t get into this song, and not singalong very loudly, it would have been fine. However, this possibility felt like a failure to me, and fulfilling our fears that the youth are less than. Instead the students and my school showed me that they agreed with me, that our school values were nothing just posted on the wall, and that we all wanted to create a school and a society where “everyone belongs.”
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