Thank you so much for your patience and sticking with the Zoom as we figured out how to make things work. I truly appreciate it. Your kindness is not surprising, as I see it reflected in your children.
This year’s 6th grade band is one of the kindest group of students I have ever had the pleasure to work with. Students would often help each other get their instruments set-up, move a music stand for a student, and make encouraging comments after a student played a song. This was a class where conversations about norms and proper behavior were about reinforcing what they were already doing.
Earlier in the year we often talked about their power to create a positive vibe in the room, and somehow, they translated this online onto Google Meets, and Zoom meetings. I found this inspiring, and as I looked forward to class with them when were at Parker, I looked forward to our distance learning meetings.
Sometime when I tell people that I teach 6th grade, they look at me with sympathy. Because they don’t know how wonderful and life-affirming it feels to work with young people like the 6th grade band students, who want to bring light and beauty in the world. Yes, there are challenges to this age group, but their potential for greatness in incredible. 6th grade band demonstrated this greatness as they showed up for themselves, and for each other.
I miss the 6th grade band so much, and it brings me hope and great joy to imagine how great it will feel to see them in person next school year.
*****
This has been a very challenging year with my paternity leave earlier in the year, to this situation with distance learning. One of the things that has continued to inspire and motivate me is this 8th grade band. I’ve always looked forward to teaching them. The ask thought-provoking questions, are excited to explore music, and most wonderful of all, they want each other to feel included and supported. If one of them makes a joke in class, and other people don’t get it, they will stop and explain it to those people…and then I will tell them to stop joking and get back to work.
They transformed the challenge of remote learning into an opportunity for individual exploration and growth. The result that you see in these videos is a reflection of how they brought optimism with them to class, and sought to create beauty, in a world that sometimes feels weighed down by destruction.
I love that I’ve had these students to miss these past couple months. It is a sadness, but more than that, missing them makes me smile, only people so wonderful as these 8th graders could make me feel this way.
No comments:
Post a Comment