It finally happened, and it happened in such a low key way that I almost missed it. After a decade of teaching, I finally heard a principal use the word "soul." I didn't mention it first, either. My principal brought it up, in a conversation we were having, and when I realized what had just happened I was floored. Here, finally, was an opportunity to talk about why I do what I do. Not dance around it, not dress it up in "academic" terms that are more acceptable in our field; no, I was finally able to talk about my belief in the importance of educating the soul.
This is a big deal to me. Like a really big deal. I firmly believe, and have believed pretty much my entire career, that there is component to our duty as educators that we rarely talk about. It is a component that is so central to our purpose, especially if we are arts educators, that transcends the education of the mind. It's a component that becomes continually marginalized in an atmosphere of "rigor," "accountability" and high stakes testing despite its great importance. My term for giving attention to this component of the child is "educating the soul," and it is a phrase I think about frequently. Over the years I have noted it's almost total absence in any educational discourse of which I have been a part: staff meetings, professional development, conferences and clinics, even those devoted to music. Sometimes the idea is hinted at: "character education," "soft skills," but those labels are incomplete and don't really get to the heart of what I'm describing.
I believe that making and experiencing music educates the soul. I believe the creation and the experience of all of the performing and visual arts educates the soul. As does the study of literature, the humanities, and the love and caring of any teacher for their students regardless of content area. Music, choral music, does this in a very particular and special way in my opinion, and it's ability to open the soul to beauty, both personal and aesthetic, is perhaps the greatest reason why we need it.
I know some of you, particularly those of you who do not come from a religious background, may feel hesitant about the use of the word soul. What I'm getting at is this idea that there is more to life than just the material, tangible world. There is more to our lives as human beings than simply mastering our environment and meeting all of our physical needs. We seek more than that: love, enlightenment, inspiration, wisdom, connection, the feeling of being part of something greater than our individual self, or all of the above! A meme I encountered sums this up succinctly, if a bit pretentiously: "you were meant to do more than pay bills and die."
So then as teachers, those of us charged with educating and inspiring the next generation of our society, we have a responsibility to prepare our students to live and not just exist. Unfortunately, the bulk of our curriculum and the expectations placed upon us by political and economic entities tend to skew towards preparing them to pay bills and die. We're quite good at giving our students those skills: do what we ask, learn this content, get into college, get a good paying job, be all set up for the aforementioned bill paying and death. I'm all for working hard, knowing how to do things, going to college and being able to support yourself financially-but we can't just stop there. It isn't enough.
This is the biggest reason that the arts are essential (NOT "nice to have," not just "important," but essential) to the education of our children and the lives of we adults. Yes other content areas and parts of the human experience can help provide us with rich inner lives that propel us beyond merely existing, but nobody does it better (in my belief) than the musicians and the artists, be they the amateur or the virtuoso. The arts teach our students to be expressive, to find ways to express their emotions and experiences that go far beyond what written and spoken language can provide. Sure, only a tiny fraction of the students that a music, theater, or visual art teacher encounters in their career will actually go on to become professionals in those areas, but that isn't the point. I come to work every day just as much to inspire the future engineer, nurse, or businessperson to have a meaningful, ethical, creative and expressive life through participation in and appreciation of the arts as I do for that one kid who might make it to Broadway some day. I want my students to grow up to be good people. And I work towards that goal by using the choral music experience to educate their souls.
I have never brought this up in a staff meeting. I have never mentioned it to an administrator before. I thought I'd be laughed out of the room, or maybe I just didn't feel like they would understand and so I tried to "translate" my beliefs into a form that would be more digestible to your stereotypical administrator. I certainly sold my current principal short in that regard, as I found out yesterday.
We were conversing about the upcoming school year (because of course I'm already at school), and I mentioned to him that I want to start a faculty choir this year. I know we have many staff members who have sung before or would like to learn how, and I decided to take the plunge because it could be a really cool thing. I certainly know all the benefits that choral singing provides to people of all ages, and so I thought this could be my contribution to staff morale. Furthermore, I thought it could help me build bridges with more of my colleagues in the building (I don't get out much, spending the majority of my time with my kids) and showing more people just what it is that goes on in the choir room to help them understand why some of their students are there pretty much all the time :)
My principal wholeheartedly supported the idea. He started talking about this new grant we got from Kaiser Permanente to help create a thriving school and partner with Aurora Mental Health to give more support to our kids' emotional well-being. He felt the idea of a faculty choir would be completely in line with this new initiative to make our school a healthier place not just for our students but for our staff.
From there he started talking about how basically our whole educational careers (his and mine, we're fairly close in age) have been defined by No Child Left Behind and the era of accountability. That things have swung so far towards high academic standards and achievement that we stopped teaching our students how to be emotionally healthy and how to be good people. And then he said this:
"That's what I love about your choir concerts, Phil. Most people who attend leave feeling so uplifted and happy, and it isn't because they have a great understanding of the music you're doing or an appreciation of its complexity. They feel that way because your concerts move them, emotionally and spiritually because of the power of the music you choose and the way your kids perform it. I think something like that for our staff would be a great idea and you have our full support. We need to start moving back in that direction, where we do things that are good for the soul." (Note: not a direct quotation, paraphrased from my memory of the conversation).
I was flattered of course, but far more important was the fact that he, without any prompting from me, was able to articulate what I believe is so incredible and important about teaching choir and why it is so valuable to people's lives: kids and adults, performers and audience members. He even used my terminology. And then I was able to say the following (again, paraphrased...I wasn't this eloquent at the time):
"It makes me so happy to hear you say that because that is exactly what I am trying to accomplish and it is the reason I do what I do. I firmly believe that my purpose is to educate the soul in the way that other subject areas educate the mind. When I worked in a building where I was expected, as a music teacher, to make my class more academic and more like other classes just for the sake of "rigor" and checking the box, I did not do well. So I am incredibly grateful to work in a school where my purpose is understood and I am allowed and encouraged to teach choir in a way that will work towards nourishing the souls of my students."
I am incredibly fortunate to work in this school with this principal. No, things aren't perfect in my school or with my administration, they never are, but I definitely know how blessed I am to have found Prairie. I could work in another school where I had a bigger budget, or a nicer facility, or didn't have to deal with as many "behaviors" as I do here, but I cannot put a price on being left alone and trusted to do my job in the way I know in my very bones is the right way for me to do it. If and when I ever leave my school or get a different principal with different priorities, I will adapt but I will always remember these years as incredibly special and significant.
If you teach in a building where you are not given that freedom, and the culture is decidedly "soul-unfriendly," don't lose hope! Remember what is truly important about our profession, our calling. After doing that, find ways, however you can, to still reach your kids (and your colleagues, for that matter) and nurture their souls within the constraints you operate in. Do whatever it takes to stay true to yourself, your purpose, and this mission of teaching beyond curriculum, standards, and assessment to something far more ethereal, indefinable, and important. You may not be able to bring up the importance of beauty, transcendence, or feeding the soul in your next staff development, but that doesn't mean that these ideas are any less vital or critical to our work. They have never been more important.
This is a big deal to me. Like a really big deal. I firmly believe, and have believed pretty much my entire career, that there is component to our duty as educators that we rarely talk about. It is a component that is so central to our purpose, especially if we are arts educators, that transcends the education of the mind. It's a component that becomes continually marginalized in an atmosphere of "rigor," "accountability" and high stakes testing despite its great importance. My term for giving attention to this component of the child is "educating the soul," and it is a phrase I think about frequently. Over the years I have noted it's almost total absence in any educational discourse of which I have been a part: staff meetings, professional development, conferences and clinics, even those devoted to music. Sometimes the idea is hinted at: "character education," "soft skills," but those labels are incomplete and don't really get to the heart of what I'm describing.
I believe that making and experiencing music educates the soul. I believe the creation and the experience of all of the performing and visual arts educates the soul. As does the study of literature, the humanities, and the love and caring of any teacher for their students regardless of content area. Music, choral music, does this in a very particular and special way in my opinion, and it's ability to open the soul to beauty, both personal and aesthetic, is perhaps the greatest reason why we need it.
I know some of you, particularly those of you who do not come from a religious background, may feel hesitant about the use of the word soul. What I'm getting at is this idea that there is more to life than just the material, tangible world. There is more to our lives as human beings than simply mastering our environment and meeting all of our physical needs. We seek more than that: love, enlightenment, inspiration, wisdom, connection, the feeling of being part of something greater than our individual self, or all of the above! A meme I encountered sums this up succinctly, if a bit pretentiously: "you were meant to do more than pay bills and die."
So then as teachers, those of us charged with educating and inspiring the next generation of our society, we have a responsibility to prepare our students to live and not just exist. Unfortunately, the bulk of our curriculum and the expectations placed upon us by political and economic entities tend to skew towards preparing them to pay bills and die. We're quite good at giving our students those skills: do what we ask, learn this content, get into college, get a good paying job, be all set up for the aforementioned bill paying and death. I'm all for working hard, knowing how to do things, going to college and being able to support yourself financially-but we can't just stop there. It isn't enough.
This is the biggest reason that the arts are essential (NOT "nice to have," not just "important," but essential) to the education of our children and the lives of we adults. Yes other content areas and parts of the human experience can help provide us with rich inner lives that propel us beyond merely existing, but nobody does it better (in my belief) than the musicians and the artists, be they the amateur or the virtuoso. The arts teach our students to be expressive, to find ways to express their emotions and experiences that go far beyond what written and spoken language can provide. Sure, only a tiny fraction of the students that a music, theater, or visual art teacher encounters in their career will actually go on to become professionals in those areas, but that isn't the point. I come to work every day just as much to inspire the future engineer, nurse, or businessperson to have a meaningful, ethical, creative and expressive life through participation in and appreciation of the arts as I do for that one kid who might make it to Broadway some day. I want my students to grow up to be good people. And I work towards that goal by using the choral music experience to educate their souls.
I have never brought this up in a staff meeting. I have never mentioned it to an administrator before. I thought I'd be laughed out of the room, or maybe I just didn't feel like they would understand and so I tried to "translate" my beliefs into a form that would be more digestible to your stereotypical administrator. I certainly sold my current principal short in that regard, as I found out yesterday.
We were conversing about the upcoming school year (because of course I'm already at school), and I mentioned to him that I want to start a faculty choir this year. I know we have many staff members who have sung before or would like to learn how, and I decided to take the plunge because it could be a really cool thing. I certainly know all the benefits that choral singing provides to people of all ages, and so I thought this could be my contribution to staff morale. Furthermore, I thought it could help me build bridges with more of my colleagues in the building (I don't get out much, spending the majority of my time with my kids) and showing more people just what it is that goes on in the choir room to help them understand why some of their students are there pretty much all the time :)
My principal wholeheartedly supported the idea. He started talking about this new grant we got from Kaiser Permanente to help create a thriving school and partner with Aurora Mental Health to give more support to our kids' emotional well-being. He felt the idea of a faculty choir would be completely in line with this new initiative to make our school a healthier place not just for our students but for our staff.
From there he started talking about how basically our whole educational careers (his and mine, we're fairly close in age) have been defined by No Child Left Behind and the era of accountability. That things have swung so far towards high academic standards and achievement that we stopped teaching our students how to be emotionally healthy and how to be good people. And then he said this:
"That's what I love about your choir concerts, Phil. Most people who attend leave feeling so uplifted and happy, and it isn't because they have a great understanding of the music you're doing or an appreciation of its complexity. They feel that way because your concerts move them, emotionally and spiritually because of the power of the music you choose and the way your kids perform it. I think something like that for our staff would be a great idea and you have our full support. We need to start moving back in that direction, where we do things that are good for the soul." (Note: not a direct quotation, paraphrased from my memory of the conversation).
I was flattered of course, but far more important was the fact that he, without any prompting from me, was able to articulate what I believe is so incredible and important about teaching choir and why it is so valuable to people's lives: kids and adults, performers and audience members. He even used my terminology. And then I was able to say the following (again, paraphrased...I wasn't this eloquent at the time):
"It makes me so happy to hear you say that because that is exactly what I am trying to accomplish and it is the reason I do what I do. I firmly believe that my purpose is to educate the soul in the way that other subject areas educate the mind. When I worked in a building where I was expected, as a music teacher, to make my class more academic and more like other classes just for the sake of "rigor" and checking the box, I did not do well. So I am incredibly grateful to work in a school where my purpose is understood and I am allowed and encouraged to teach choir in a way that will work towards nourishing the souls of my students."
I am incredibly fortunate to work in this school with this principal. No, things aren't perfect in my school or with my administration, they never are, but I definitely know how blessed I am to have found Prairie. I could work in another school where I had a bigger budget, or a nicer facility, or didn't have to deal with as many "behaviors" as I do here, but I cannot put a price on being left alone and trusted to do my job in the way I know in my very bones is the right way for me to do it. If and when I ever leave my school or get a different principal with different priorities, I will adapt but I will always remember these years as incredibly special and significant.
If you teach in a building where you are not given that freedom, and the culture is decidedly "soul-unfriendly," don't lose hope! Remember what is truly important about our profession, our calling. After doing that, find ways, however you can, to still reach your kids (and your colleagues, for that matter) and nurture their souls within the constraints you operate in. Do whatever it takes to stay true to yourself, your purpose, and this mission of teaching beyond curriculum, standards, and assessment to something far more ethereal, indefinable, and important. You may not be able to bring up the importance of beauty, transcendence, or feeding the soul in your next staff development, but that doesn't mean that these ideas are any less vital or critical to our work. They have never been more important.
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