Holiday Music

We have a program called Holiday Music featuring the Piccola Carolers. I've actually been booking performances for carolers off and on since 1975--- more recently through Opera Piccola. What does this program have to do with our educational arts company, which provides access to the arts for under served audiences? A capella music in four part harmony sung by beautiful voices isn't heard that often outside church or temple; you could say we're making this kind of music accessible to people who are literally on the street. But beyond that, I find other common denominators with our mission, like building community, expressing voices of diverse cultures, etc. The longer I teach and work in the arts field, the more interested I become in ways the arts can help in people's lives, and how the arts intersect with so many other fields (philosophy, neurology, health/healing, literacy, youth development, career readiness).

I had the privilege of singing soprano in some of our quartets this season, as well as conducting my high school chorus/voice class in some holiday music performances. Music, like other performing arts, often thrusts me into a present tense euphoria that is better than any artificial high invented. Weighed down by problems and debt, I nevertheless experienced an inexpressible feeling of joy, and entered into a time "zone" that had nothing to do with the clock.

I'm reminded of the popular video that was going around the Internet about the brain scientist who experienced a stroke. Her description of the absence of left brain linear thinking, and the boundary-less state of perceiving the world through her right brain sounded similar to some of my experiences with music. We sang for a group of elderly Alzheimer's patients who appeared almost autistic in their lack of ability to speak or respond "normally." My high school chorus could not be more diverse. Yet the music seemed to float us into a mysterious mist of what? Vibrations? Sound waves? A softening happened, a unity of hearts that can't really be put into a pie chart for our upcoming grant proposals in January. In the season of gift giving, this is a gift I wish I could give to everyone.

Getting Along

Organizations, agencies or businesses that want their projects to go well apparently now appoint one person on the project team to be a "blocker." This is someone whose job it is to raise questions, object to the majority plan and generally inject alternatives into the group discussions. The theory behind it says that having a designated blocker prevents mistakes and produces a better end result. As Marty Nemko says, it's comforting when people agree with you, but you grow when they disagree. Yet so often we feel that people don't respect us, like us or love us when they disagree with us.

The blocker idea is actually quite comforting to me. It's similar to the role of the artist in society: to look at things differently from the established view and to prompt people to think. To encourage us to see things from a new perspective. Often when you're working with a group, there's a pressure to be nice, to go along with the flow, be a good team player. And I like that, too. But we need the blockers, even though they annoy with their seeming negativity and endless questions. I hope I can remember this thought and listen when a student tells me my method of staging a scene should be changed or a colleague tells me things have changed from last year. I try to remember this thought when irritated over the lack of "accord" at the recent Climate Change conference. Perhaps sometimes the wrestling over differing ideas, the struggle to answer difficult questions, is where deep learning and creativity takes place.

At this time of year, when I long to return to an illusory golden, perfect Christmas time that didn't exist, the amount of quarreling and tension at work and at home is highly unsatisfactory. The police of course know about increased domestic altercations during holidays. Why can't we all float along in a serene jello of agreement? Say 'cheese' and smile for the family or office photo just after a big argument over the budget or who empties the trash.

I'm stepping out of the frame. Give me the blockers with their doubts and questions. I embrace the struggle (for a moment, anyway, before I return to holiday bliss).

I'm late I'm late and it's all important

Late, late, late: name of the game this time of year. No matter how much is cut, there's always too much to do. The eyes of teachers everywhere glaze over. We can't help it. We have to do more and better for the kids so we work longer hours than contracted.

This week my students performed, and Opera Piccola presented a staged reading of my adaptation of "The Grinch" at our Second Sundays play reading/open mic. My vehicle became a packed junkyard of scenery frames, bags of props and costumes, sacks of food and pizza boxes-- not to mention piles of papers, and handkerchiefs for my cold. Oakland blurred by my car windows as I dove (yes a car and its driver can dive) from home to office to rehearsals to performances to food stores to copy stores to schools to... to.. my 94 year old mom's "retirement community" building. I alternately froze or dripped sweat as I stumbled with my stuff from facility to car to facility to car. Load in, load out, drop off, pick up. Hurry, hurry, we start singing at 4:00 and it's 3:45 and we're in traffic! Call them! No, cell phone out of battery! We forgot the necklace prop! Use anything, here's a string!

Relationships are intense this time of year, vacillating from love to anger in a blink. After an acrimonious argument about whether or not to perform their puppet skit about substance abuse, my students figured out how to solve their problem. The result convulsed the audience, which grasped the stern moral of the scene while laughing hysterically. Although they refused to take my advice on the scene, my students ended up doing exactly what I would have wanted. At an elementary school, a teacher who had previously seemed irritated from overwhelm when I showed up, greeted me this time with a cheery, "We're ready for you." A parent rages on the phone about wanting to kick her rebellious teenager out of the house.

What does the background mantra of "enjoy the season" mean in this whirl, where there is no time to stop and recognize? Moments of joy or tears emerge without warning. Hearing Maurice Sendak speak on the radio about a young French girl dying of cancer who can laugh at Sendak's drawings and comfort her mother in the same moment. Standing outside the Masonic Home in my caroling costume on a break, feeling hot spiced cider glow down my throat. A young boy who came late to the performance crying out "Oh, please!" when we asked him if we should do "The Grinch" play again so he could see it. Embracing fellow artists and students after a performance, feeling a happiness of closeness that flies in the face of overwhelm, loss or grief.

The Numbers Game

Grades were due last week. The way it works these days, points are entered online for assignments and classwork. The grading program adds up the points for you and, presto! automatic grades! Sounds easy, but since I only teach one graded course, I haven't found time to figure out how to enter everything for the special "add it up" function. Instead I sweat through an arduous process in which I add up points on pieces of paper.

Is all this necessary? Luckily, the points I add up usually result in the grade I would have given the student anyway. It doesn't take long in many cases to figure out whether a student is interested enough to contribute to class work and really thinks when doing written assignments. But I go through this lengthy numbers process anyway-- perhaps in order to justify the grades to myself, parents and students. I notice that some students have mastered this numbers game. They miss class for weeks, but come back very apologetic, make up missed written work, ask for make up work and somehow get the points to add up favorably. Other students fail the numbers game: they attend class more regularly but don't do all the assignments and miss key class times, like the day of a quiz, or don't ask for make up work. More than half of my students appear mystified by their less -than-ideal grades: " I was here," or "I got an A, didn't I?" And there's also the issue of innovation. We tend to grade higher for those who learn what the teacher teaches in the way the teachers or textbook recommend. What about the student who doesn't agree, who actually cares enough to disagree with the textbook method?

Philosophically, I have questions. What is this system preparing our students for ? Sometimes it seems as if it's preparing them for a kind of Chekovian bureaucracy, where employees do the least amount of work possible to enable them to get paid and continue in a job. How do you translate into numbers a students curiosity, interest level, potential, or improvement? If you give everyone an A regardless of their effort or quality of work, is that fair to those who tried harder than others? It's almost impossible to give what I would consider a fair, just, grade. Yes, it helps for students to have goals in a course, to feel the work is important. But where is there the space to relate one's grade and numbers to one's deeper self, one's life?

An attempt to address the whole child is covered in this district by a Citizenship grade and Comment Codes ("consistently improving, a pleasure to have in class, good participation"). What do the grades, citizenship rating,and somewhat condescending comments accomplish? I fear we;ve set up a model of a competitive society in which winning is paramount. We love contests, raffles, sports, awards. "And the winning number is..." gets our adrenaline pumping. "What did you get?" the students ask each other, followed by a deflated shrug or a victorious smirk.

The political fallacy of the ancient world was "might makes right," which is now perhaps being replaced by "winner takes all." Small surprise that nations can't agree on climate control or arms reduction when embedded in our education are beliefs about being an adult: win over the other guy and more is the same as better.

How can we escape the focus on the numbers, the winning over someone else, or the "victory" over the unit requirements, and instead focus on actual education?