Three hundred and eighty-eight days. That is how long I went without hearing my choirs sing fully together. There was the shutdown, where we weren't together at all, and a period of remote choir that lasted a couple of months this winter, but most of the year we've been hybrid, with only parts of the choir singing together at once. There were no rhyme or reason to these cohorts...here's a cohort of only 6 kids, here's a cohort of only 3. The tenors? We'll split them randomly, right down the middle so these boys won't know what it's like to sing with their whole section. We've managed, we've worked hard to just tread water and not lose any more ground than we have to (how about that for a mixed metaphor), but it hasn't been easy and hasn't always felt a lot like choir. Until today. On Day 389, all of our students were back in the building at once, 5 days a week. No more hybrid. No more cohorts. There's a lot of strong feelings about whet...
I am a high school choir teacher teaching at one of the most diverse high schools in my state. I am in my fourteenth year of public school education, and I taught middle school choir for the first twelve. My program's mantra is "Embrace the Struggle," and that mantra continues to take on new significance in a time of great turmoil and upheaval.