Year 12 – Week 10: It’s Not All Lost

Students have lost a lot during this ongoing pandemic.

My students didn’t perform on stage, some of them had less music class than I years past, and they didn’t sing in school for a year and a half. They are not in the same place musically as students I had in previous years. I don’t like thinking about my students being “behind” because that implies that they are somehow deficient, which they only are if you compare them to educational standards that cannot be applied to students right now. And I don’t like the term “learning loss” because it implies that they lost something. Our students didn’t “lose” anything. They were denied opportunities to learn because of the pandemic and the lack of prioritization on children throughout this crisis.

I don’t want to walk into my classroom feeling sorry for my students, thinking about how they are behind and what they can’t do. I wish things could have been different for them, and I am empathetic about their experience, but we are also in the space of privilege in the present. And with all that we are given, we need to do the best we can to move forward positively.

My thinking lately has been more on what they can do and will do more than what they can’t do. While growth opportunities have been lost, we can create new opportunities in the present. The potential in our students is still there.

My 6th graders did a group composition project. It required a lot of discussions, compromise, and creativity. Overall, they worked really well together. The compositions were fun, and they worked in an inclusive and supportive way. There is work to be done in thinking about what it means to collaborate. I was worried after hearing over and over how students lost the ability to work together that this project would not go well, but it did go great. The students felt this in the room as I did.

I have some wonderful singers in my 5th grade. I wanted to give them a challenge, and one of my co-workers suggested teaching them “Stand By Me.” I could teach them the bass line, melody, and some harmony lines, and they could become a apella group. I’ve don’t simple 2-part things with my 5th graders in the past, but nothing this complex required a good level of musical independence.

They learned the parts much faster than I thought they would. I was getting excited. So with only eight of them around the piano, I asked half of them to sing the bass line and the other half to do the melody, and they kept it together. I was floored. I can’t remember the last time I was that genuinely impressed with a group of my students. They were doing things that students in previous hadn’t and probably couldn’t.

Some of it is me growing as a teacher.  But most of it is the students.

Yes, our students missed out on experiences, but the most important things: their potential and spirit are still there for us to nurture if we give them the support, the space, and the light to grow.