Author Archives: Elizabeth Chaponot

Every Time I Say I’m Never Going to Use This…

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Deeper Learning: Beyond 21st Century Skills (Leading Edge ...

…of course I end up needing it.  In this case, I’m talking about the stuff that I had to learn in my Preparing 21st Century Learners class for my credential. 

 The Jetsons Get Schooled: Robot Teachers in the 21st Century ...
21st (?) Century learners

    When I first opened up the book for this class, I was deeply skeptical. There was a lot of talk about school cultures, and that seemed way out of reach for someone who was just starting out as a brand new teacher.  There was a lot of talk of community buy-in, and revamping entire departments and schools, and that felt way out of my league.  Once I got deeper into the book, however, there were some great concepts that jumped out.  The first was the idea of group polishing of project-based learning plans, especially for new teachers. In the model that was presented, new teachers come on board for a week’s worth of PD that starts with veteran teachers modeling the group polishing method and ends with the new teachers presenting their projects for group polishing. I also was alternately intrigued and horrified by the idea of project-based learning as a whole.  Choice in what information they learned, and to what depth?? I struggle with the concept of not pushing all my students into learning all the things, so this isn’t natural for me at all.  But I love the idea of students pursuing knowledge out of interest instead of need to stay in lockstep with the class.
    With all of this in mind, I put together a crazy project-based learning thing that would end up launching RIGHT when shelter-in-place hit- through EdPuzzle, because we couldn’t be together in person.  The students had to choose a recipe and deconstruct the chemistry in a way that non-scientists could understand AND use to improve their cooking skills. Ultimately, releasing this during SIP was a blessing in disguise. The back-and-forth editing and discussion process I had with my students as they honed their recipes and explanations kept us in continuous contact in a constructive way.  Instead of a one-and-done grade for their explanation, they were allowed to keep revising until they got it GOOD – and then it went to an outside-the-school panel for a review. To me, that was one of the biggest scary logistical things about PBL: the outside dissemination of what the students have put together. I know the kids take criticism to heart, so exposing them to outside adult critiques was scary, but ultimately most of the students took the gentle critiques in the manner in which they were intended, making a great final cookbook product. Another great thing about having the cookbook project during SIP is that it gave the kids a reason to experiment around with cooking – they tried tweaking their own recipes, they tried each other’s recipes, and it helped keep up our sense of community.  On the last day of class, I had everyone cook someone ELSE’s food and bring it to the Zoom meeting while we debriefed the year.
  I highly recommend the group-polishing model to anyone who is about to do their first venture into the PBL world. When I was trying to put this together, I talked to not only my department chair and the other chemistry teachers (sorry guys), but I also reached out to the English team to see how we could incorporate some of the ELA concepts and/or teachers into the project. It was thanks to everyone’s questions that the final project took the shape that it did, and the deliverables and due dates got a lot more clear. 
DIY - Hand Polishing Rocks & Crystals (Sodalite) - YouTube
 I also found that releasing some control to the students actually worked well, and it allowed differentiation to a certain extent.  Some students stuck with very simple concepts, and needed extensive scaffolding and guidance to evaluate their recipes.  Other students needed guidance because they went to super advanced topics that wouldn’t be covered in the class at all, simply because they were interested in them! For each of the students, I tried to help them find resources to answer their questions. Some students really didn’t seem to be engaged in finding the answers, or even the questions (recipes) to engage themselves, which was frustrating. I’m not sure if they needed tighter guidelines/pre-selected recipes to help narrow things down, or if it was simply a mismatch between the question and their interests.
  For a first attempt, particularly in the weirdest year ever? I was pretty happy! Now comes the fine tuning for this school year…

Virtual Sharing out: Breaking the walls of Alludo

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I am not sure this qualifies as a blog post per say, it may be more of an open invitation.  We are now on year three of Alludo and, I have to say, it is a great pleasure to be one of the readers of people’s reflections and learning journeys. 

Like the blog, I learn more about the hidden gems and talent of Carondelet through these thoughtful mission share-outs than I do from a one-stop classroom observation.  The observation captures one moment in time but does not always give me a feel for the thought behind the class: the “what came before” and “what will come after” (which is where the magic happens).

Last year, in the level three section, Joan and I tried to incorporate shared experiences amongst the Alludo players using VoiceThread as the interactive platform that would allow players to reflect on Parker Palmer’s Courage to Teach.  The completely asynchronous book club has pros and cons (a pro for me is the need to revisit the book every time a new reader comes into the mix)…

This summer, we decided that we wanted to experiment with connecting our learning platforms and provide access to the Reflections both through the Alludo missions AND the blog.  Alludo and the blog do not always hit the same audience so let’s see if we can have these worlds collide.

So what do you need to do?

Step One:  Connect to Voicethread (www.voicethread.com)

  • Register for a free VoiceThread account with your Carondelet Email address
  • Add yourself to the Alludo Group to be able to access the “locked” platform and interact with others (Link to invitation)

Then participate and interact with others on the different Voicethreads that are all themed around sharing what you have learned during this whole COVID19 world and how it has impacted your teaching and learning.

Here are your 4 options:

Voicethread shareout on an experience in which you meet and collaborate with colleagues

Voicethread in which you share about a podcast/webinar and how that impacted your practice

Voicethread in which you share about a book you have read and how that impacted your practice

Voicethread in which you share about an online course and how that impacted your practice

AP Psych Training……Online Edition

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AP Psych Training
I spent this past week doing AP Psychology training through the University of Texas. It was a bummer to not get to visit Austin but a great chance to see someone else lead online learning, also Texas is seeing spiking rates of Covid so it was honestly for the best.
I am collecting my thoughts now while everything is still fresh in my head and am curious to get feedback from people who either teach AP classes or who have experienced online learning from the learner’s end if any of this resonates with you.
AP Training online/distance learning
·      First of all I made the mistake of signing up for a session in Central Time….whoops. Had no idea Texas was two hours ahead so starting every day at 6am was rough. Be aware of your time zones.
·      After hearing from teachers in different parts of the country it is clear to me that while I still have a lot to learn about online learning, Carondelet in general really did a good job in engaging students while distance learning was going on.  I could not relate to the misery (minus missing my students and colleagues) that so many people were sharing.
·      It is HARD to sit in a Zoom meetings for hours on end and actually give your undivided attention to a teacher (how did our students do this??). I was DEFINITELY guilty of getting distracted with my phone or turning off my camera to finish chores around the house. In some ways, I would have been better off sitting my but in a conference center for the week. If we are going to be online again next year, I have a lot of work to do to improve what I did last year in order to make learning meaningful. Breaks were very helpful, breakout rooms were a God send, and a balance of asynchronous work time was a MUST.
Teaching AP
·      Thinking about teaching AP feels like a totally different beast than teaching Big History. In Big History, we can pause, take longer on something students are in to or need help on, but there does not seem to be much room to deviate from the schedule and I am wondering how AP teachers handle that?? It will be a big learning curve for me.
·      Another thing I realize, at least for AP Psych, is that I cannot possible cover all of the content and that students will have to be in charge of learning portions of the material on their own. This feels like a new concept to me, wow. How do you know what they can and can’t do on their own? How do you know how much homework is reasonable??
·      Our teacher for the week flat out said that he teaches to the test. I feel mixed about this. On one hand it is honest and real on the other it kind of sucks. Teaching to a test is everything we have moved away from in the past few years. How do you all wrap your heads around this?
AP Psych Folk in general
·      Minus the California jokes coming from the Texas teachers every 10 minutes I found people to be extremely generous with their resources. Files and drives were passed around like crazy. This was even more valuable that the lectures we had. I hope that this is a common experience for other teachers at these kinds of conferences. It’s scary to do something for the first time, especially when you are only working from a text book and the internet and a reminder for me to pass it on when I am in the position to do so.
·      We received access to a Facebook group where AP Psych teachers offer their Google drives AND mentorship. I had no idea this existed and have already been able to connect with two teachers who have taught 10+ years with the same text book that we have. Why is this not more common??
Anyway I now have a lot of information to go through, but wanted to share my experience and get some feedback from you all about your thoughts on teaching AP and/or how you are thinking about a potential online learning environment should we have to go back to that at some point next year.

Formative Assessment Tools

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How do I know my students know what I want them to know? It can’t be because I taught them. That’s only the beginning. Students actually knowing and synthesizing what I taught them is an entirely different thing. There are  plenty of quick tests for recall, but these do not test for understanding or the other higher level thinking skills.  For example, I could make a multiple choice test to determine which facts students might know about Thomas Jefferson’s treatment of his slaves, but what if I want to discover how well my students really understand the hypocrisy of Thomas Jefferson’s words about slavery? I can learn more in a few moments of conversation with each student than I can with even the best multiple choice or short answer quiz.
To find the answer to the question in the example I would present a Thomas Jefferson quote on slavery like this one: “This abomination must have an end, and there is a superior bench reserved in heaven for those who hasten it.” Then I would ask each student to explain the hypocrisy of the quote using several examples of Jefferson’s treatment of his slaves. It would take me about one minute per student to find how well each student both remembers the content and can synthesize the information. But might there be a even better, more efficient and more evidentiary way to accomplish my goal?
There is. And more than one. The fastest and easiest is Voice Memos. Every student has a voice recorder and knows how to use it. The typical Voice Memos lesson for evaluating student understanding of my Thomas Jefferson question might include these steps:
1.     Ask the question. “How do Thomas Jefferson’s actions show the hypocrisy in his words, “This abomination must have…””
2.     Give the students 10 to 15 minutes to write a brief outline of what they will say.
3.     Give the students 5 minutes to record their answer which must be between one and two minutes long.
4.     Tell students if they cannot complete the answer in the allotted time, they don’t know it well enough and need to do some more studying.
5.     Everyone who finishes turns in her voice memo to Schoology.
6.     After class I listen to the recordings and take notes.
7.     When I am done I know who understands the concept and who needs help.
This method is efficient because all the students are completing the assignment at the same time. It is more evidentiary because I have a record that can be saved and used for remediation or for determining progress. It also provides a record of each student’s ability to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate the content of the lesson.
I also use Voice Memos for determining the level of empathy students have for others. One such lesson begins with a video of an actual firefight in Vietnam. Students must take the persona of one of the soldiers and create a voice recording of what happened and what thoughts might have been going through his or her head during the firefight. Some pretty intense recordings have been created from this assignment.
Even more information can be ascertained by using a video recording program such as Flipgrid. Seeing student faces adds another dimension. Facial expressions provide a wealth of additional information for assessing student understanding. One formative assessment I created using Flipgrid was based on this introduction, “You have just lost your home in the Subprime Mortgage Crisis. You followed all the rules. Who is to blame? Explain every level.” Once again, this tool demonstrates each student’s ability to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate the content of the lesson. It also allows the teacher to “see” the ease level of confidence with which each student gives her answer.
Both of these tools work well for distance learning. Just set the due date time on Schoology to the requisite due date and time. Students don’t have time to look up answers or message their friends. These assignments can only be completed well if the student already knows the answers. It is close to impossible to cheat on a test like this one. Even if you have multiple sections, you can just change the question a bit for each section.
Aside from using time more efficiently, another great advantage these tools have over live conversations is they provide a permanent record of progress. These records can be a valuable addition to portfolios of student work. Students can see how much better they do in subsequent recordings.
I use VoiceMemos for shorter formative assessments. I use Flipgrid for longer, more involved formative assessments. Both of these tools are readily accessible, easy to learn, and more fun for the students, than formal written assignments. They are great tools both for formative assessment and for providing an interesting alternative to writing.

Webinars: Because What Else Do I Have to Do?

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Due to the Shelter in Place, I haven’t left my house since March 13. I went outside once, to buy a new phone because mine decided to unexpectedly stop working. I went to Best Buy curbside pick up (I totally recommend this). Other than that, I have been in my house watching endless hours of television, (Carole Baskin?) jigsaw puzzles, reading, and of course teaching my classes remotely (which takes up A LOT of my time and energy). I’m not sure these webinars can be considered to be “conferences” per se, but I will also discuss a conference that I attended at UC Berkeley, however I find that reflecting on these “mini conferences” to be beneficial. Needless to say, my schedule isn’t very packed, so I took this opportunity to attend several webinars via Zoom, because what else do I have to do? 

I attended many webinars pertaining to teaching remotely, in addition to webinars that addressed language instruction and providing Comprehensible Input via online classes. Some of the webinars were pretty informative, and it’s a blessing to be able to get some professional development for free, and from the comfort of my own home. Other webinars left a lot to be desired, but this also helped me realize that many teachers are in the same boat as I, trying to navigate these choppy waters of online instruction.

The first webinar I attended was on March 19, led by Lance Piantaggini about avoiding burnout with online classes. I didn’t find this webinar to be particularly beneficial. He noted

having a lot repeated activities and check ins, which are important to online teaching, however I found his use of very long check ins to be tedious and a way to pass time. He did point out that being organized and recycling material is useful to avoid burnout however, and I found that with online teaching, there are so many resources and tools that it becomes overwhelming and unorganized,  so I have attempted to hone my focus on a few platforms that work for me, and keep the structure similar each day, so that students can find an expected routine, rather than constantly experimenting with different tools that can get cumbersome, confusing, and ultimately frustrating.

The next webinar that I attended was on April 21, led by Alicia Quintero. This webinar focused mostly on remote learning and techniques that this instructor had been using to teach her classes in Spanish. Her focus was on asking students check in questions to keep students engaged in a sense of community. She did mention that she has pretty long Zoom sessions to teach her classes, and I find this to be burdensome for some students. Again, this instructor emphasized reusing activities and structures to keep students familiar with activities, so that they could almost automatically know what to expect for the next class. This instructor also focused heavily on being meticulously organized with planning out lessons first in a physical binder, and having all of her resources and materials out in front of her physically, so that she could keep track of her lessons and instructions. I do believe that staying organized, and structured during online instruction is vital, to keep a level of cohesiveness and clarity for the instructor and students. This was the most valuable lesson that I took from this webinar.

Another webinar was on April 14, led by Bryan Kandel. I have attended many of his webinars in the past, and he has a lot of great tools and ideas that I have found useful and have implemented in my own teaching.

Bryan’s focus is on comprehensible input and how to achieve this in an online setting. He had some great stories (that he wrote himself) and he narrated the stories in Spanish and he included corresponding pictures and images to help with comprehension as he read along. He used tools such as Screencastify and slides to facilitate his instruction, and he kept activities simple, organized, and consistent. Again, he used familiar platforms repeatedly to avoid confusion. He used activities such as calendar talk, and he was directing instruction mostly himself. He suggested platforms such as EdPuzzle, FlipGrid, and video responses to illicit student response and student engagement. EdPuzzle is a way to ascertain that a student watched a video tutorial and answered the corresponding questions. I have found that in the past, if I scheduled a video tutorial for students to watch, many of them would skip the video and move on to the activity immediately, to finish faster without actually learning. EdPuzzle makes sure that a student watches the entire video and answers corresponding questions throughout the video to show that the student understands the material as they go along. Flip Grid allows students to show a video response, and record their answer and it allows other students to view their classmates’ videos and respond as well, which is also a great tool for comprehensible input. It was validating to see that I have also implemented these practices in my class and that I’m kind of on the same page as this other instructor.

I also attended a conference in UC Berkeley called the World Language Project. This was a 6 week course every weekend, and it was incredibly informative and helpful to professional growth. I learned many activities that facilitate comprehensible input, and gained access to authentic resources, which help move my instruction to more reality based for my students to understand the value and importance of language learning, rather than going through the motions in a vacuum for the sake of getting a grade. I have shown meals throughout the world, and students compared school lunches from around the world in the target language (Spanish). This was a very valuable course, and I hope to continue taking other levels in the future.

Building Anti-Racists White Educators

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Racism, sexism, and elitism were institutionalized long before the first English settlers arrived at Jamestown in 1607. The class I just finished through the UC Berkeley History Social Science Project focused on racism in the United States and what we, as educators, can do to help our students and the public understand the long standing and  insidious nature of racism and to pursue actions to  accelerate the process of ending racism.

Racism in the United States is a subject that cannot be ignored. We read in the news about  white people carrying guns while protesting coronavirus restrictions. These people are praised by our president. We read about a black man who is shot for jogging in the wrong place at the wrong time. The discrepancy is obvious. These are just two examples of endemic racism in white America.

Closer to home, when I hear my Carondelet black students telling me about how they are followed by store employees when shopping alone or with their mother, but not when they are accompanied by white friends. And when I hear about Carondelet Latina students telling me about white adults telling them they should go back to where they came from, it shows how deeply racism is ingrained in the minds of so many white Americans. This is not something happening in some southern state or in the midwest. These are Carondelet students who experience racism on an almost daily basis right here in Contra Costa County.

We also need to acknowledge that it is white people who are the problem. And that includes all of us white people. Sure, none of us are racist, but can we even pretend to know what it is like to be not seen by others as being white? Can we know what non-white students hear when we speak to them? We can have the purest hearts in the world and still be seen as racist. We need to talk about racism as teachers who want to better understand how it affects our non-white students. We need to talk to students to see our reflections in their eyes. Most important, we need to explain to our white students how ingrained racism is in our society and what can be done to eradicate racism before the next 400 years pass by. Understanding is the first step to making change. Doing nothing is not an option, not for those of us who wish to “serve the dear neighbor.” 

Google Extension: Annotate Pro

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Google Extension: Annotate Pro

Do you ever find yourself making the same comments on student’s assignments?  Yeah, me too….  This is a resource that will (hopefully) decrease some grading time. 
Oh! I forgot to mention in the video.  Make the comment a “favorite” (next to the active button), this will eliminate a few clicks during the grading process.
Note: No grading has been done during the making of this video 😝 …  I know I’m on maternity leave. I just can’t help it.
To make up for it- here’s a picture of the little guy 🙂
Hope this resource helps now and in the future! 

Necessity is the mother of invention

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We have just found out that we will be sheltered outside of our school until the end of the school year.  That brings about feelings, and in my case, some pretty weird dreams.  When we transitioned to this four weeks ago, one big recurring thing I heard from teachers was the fear that there would be no way to properly evaluate learning as no tests could be given because there was no secure way to administer a test that excluded options to cheat.

Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has ...
This fear got me to thinking about our whole educational system. Truth be known, everything gets me thinking out our whole educational system so why would this be different?
I specifically went back to thinking about Clayton Christianson’s book Blended in which he writes that kids come to school for two reasons:
1) to feel successful 
2) to interact with their peers
(Note: I did not put that in quotes because his book Blended sits on a shelf in my office at Carondelet)
Thus what the adults are worried about is not what weighs heavily on the hearts and minds of our students. The focus on exams feels misguided for a few many reasons.
For one thing, we must lead with our ultimate objective: our objective is not to turn students into trained monkeys who can spew out facts but rather intelligent adults who know how to learn, who know how to seek information they want or need, and who are able to process this information in a way that will allow them to use it effectively AND consciously and unconsciously make connections between this new thing and all the other things that they have encountered. All new information is a puzzle piece towards the construction of a never-ending individual masterpiece.
Then, there is the basic premise about testing that we know to be flawed.  We know that we retain things that we have practiced often and used over and over again.  An exam invites students to cram for a one-time event which is the exact opposite of sustained learning. We cram, we test, we forget.  Sometimes we go back and do a take two on cramming if it is something that may show up on a final exam.   
This pretty grim scenario is a best case. It is for a student who does not experience any anxiety that impairs her ability to demonstrate mastery in high stakes, timed, and pressure ridden situations.  When you consider that exams are one of the leading causes of anxiety in students and that the primary accommodation awarded to students in Ed support programs is extended time, you have to acknowledge that placing any human in a state of elevated anxiety triggers flight or fight responses in students that actually make them less smart… 
Both these realities are not exactly big reveals and I am certainly not stating anything that we all don’t already know.   So why is the biggest cause of teacher angst (in and outside of Carondelet) in this switch to online learning the fact that we can’t test because we fear students will cheat?
I think our mistake in this transition is fearing that because they can’t test they won’t learn — forgetting that the test is not why they learned things in the first place. They learn because of the thousand other creative things teachers do with them along the way that I read about in your blogs and see in your classrooms that create the lasting learning outcomes we strive to get.
If anything, the online format forces each student to engage in the work individually whereas live classrooms allow them to sometimes hide behind their peers.  I have taken masters level English courses online and bottom line, no one wants to do your work for you (at least not consistently) so you are stuck with producing something on your own. 
So, how do you know if a student has learned something…?  Truthfully, in similar ways that you do in a traditional class:
  • You use varied, frequent, short assessments to force them to quickly re-use and relive things that need to be remembered.  
  • You take away the cheating piece by making longer assessments similar to those open book take home things you did in college (and breaking that up to be digestible to a high school student).  
  • You leverage video systems and force them in situations where they have to teach something in their own words.  I know that I learned more about what I actually understood when I had to explain something to my students as a young teacher.
  • When you do need to test, you can use lockdown browsers which will not keep students from pasting stuff on the wall just beyond their device, but it will cut down on things like “cut and paste” or switching to browsers… Again it is more about developing test questions that focus more on analysis and less on regurgitation.

That sounds like a lot of grading!  Well, it is and it isn’t… we can leverage tech tools to automatically grade some quizzes in a quick way to provide instant feedback on drill and kill stuff (Schoology, EdPuzzle, and Go Formative all have viable options).   On longer assessments, we can share the workload and bring students into the feedback loop — especially in the early stages of a more complex assignment. For those steps, we can start focusing on engagement over perfection… It also brings back other students into the lives of peers who have otherwise potentially become disconnected as they shelter in place.

The Definition of Insanity Revisited | Espressive

The bottom line is that we need to shift our focus because to mourn not being able to give exams is misdirecting our energies on what the true loss is…   Our mourning should be for the loss of the two things that bring them to school: the loss of real human connection — the interpersonal relationships they forge when at school, and the opportunity to feel like they can succeed…  Our solutions should have us focus our energy on recreating those two realities… and diversifying the way we engage and assess helps us do that.

Using Desmos to have a little fun in Precalculus!

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I have found myself in a pretty lucky situation in
Pre-Calculus. For a variety of reasons I am a little ahead of where I need to
be in the curriculum so I am able to slow things down a bit while we are remote
learning. I am grateful because the particular chapter we are covering is very
challenging for most students. Polar coordinates, Complex Numbers in Polar form
and Vectors are never easy in the best of times but I want to make sure that
the students can still master these very important concepts.
Polar coordinates are
a brand new concept to the students. They are used to graphing on a rectangular

coordinate system using ordered pairs (x, y).  The polar coordinate
system looks like the figure below and the ordered pairs are now (r, θ)
where r is the length of a radius and theta is the angle.

For most students, polar coordinates are completely bizarre
and seem to have no relevance to real life. However, when I was developing the
Trigonometry curriculum for the new Math Program, I came across a Desmos
Classroom activity for introducing polar coordinates. This activity uses images and situations students have seen in the movies
for navigation on submarines and aircraft to put this coordinate system into
perspective.

For those who don’t already
know, Desmos started as an online graphing calculator but it has developed into
so much more in recent years. A teacher can set up an activity and invite their
students to join and the students can proceed through a series of screens that
have different tasks and questions. The teacher can monitor all of this from a
teacher dashboard and when the teacher wants to share out student work, the
students’ names can be anonymized by substituting in the names of famous
mathematicians! I have used this several times in class already (this will be
the subject of a different blog post) but I wasn’t sure how this would work in
a remote classroom.
The students started the activity by watching a short
movie clip showing a tense battle in a submarine with the sonar operator
shouting out the location of “bogeys” that were attacking the sub. The students
then advanced to a screen that set up the activity.

I was able to watch
their progress as they moved through the screens.
After a series of
screens where students learned how to use polar coordinates, the students were
put to the test!

The students were
racing to see who could finish first. I was able to watch the students work in
real time and was announcing over our zoom meeting who was the closest to clearing
all the bogeys.
The activity also gave me a
great opportunity to check for understanding.
  
In the end I was able
to get some final feedback. I highlighted a
couple of fun comments.


I think the class enjoyed this and I am going to
be looking for more Desmos activities for us to do in the future!

What do we do?! WE SING.

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When the planes hit the twin towers 19 years ago, I was teaching at an elementary school in a suburb just north of Boston. Because of the school’s proximity to where the planes took off, we immediately went into lockdown. Parents came to school at 10am frantically asking for their kids, and most tall buildings in downtown Boston were evacuated. Faculty gathered around a small television in the faculty room to try and make sense of it all. No one knew the right thing to say or do, and no one could talk about anything else. We felt confused, scared, uneasy. It was all consuming and exhausting.

It strikes me that this coronavirus pandemic brings about the same sorts of feelings for me. As a world we are all struggling to wrap our minds around something that we don’t fully understand. And, while trying to manage our own fears and anxieties, as educators we are challenged to also manage those of our students.

How do we as humans process all of this in our bodies? How do we attempt to answer the “unanswerable?” To this, I ask you to recall what Congress chose to do on the night of 9/11. As a music teacher, I was particularly surprised to see that they stood on the steps of the Capitol and sang. I am of the belief that there’s a real honest connection to our soul when we sing, play an instrument, or listen to music. (Which is why I believe in the saying, “when you sing, you pray twice.”) Something special happens with music, and it’s something I don’t believe we fully understand yet.

So, what did I do last Friday after the school cancellation announcement? I bet you can guess. My students came into the music room full of discomfort, worries, and questions. When I answered as many questions as I could we sat in silence (a rare thing in the choir room!) It was then that I shared with my students that over the past couple of weeks, I had noticed that I couldn’t stop singing. I told them I didn’t even realize it until yesterday evening when I was making dinner and my kids begged me to stop. I literally have been humming or singing something constantly since the news about coronavirus became more serious. I was once again reminded that singing is my body’s way to cope. It is the way I process, express, and often distract myself. When I asked my students if they felt the same way, most nodded. (I figured they might! After all, they are choir kids…just like me!) That’s when I shared with them that, somewhat ironically, a piece of music they wanted arrived that day: Elton John’s “I’m Still Standing.” When I asked if they would like to sing it, they all jumped up eagerly. Over the next thirty minutes we worked together to pull the sections together. At the end of the rehearsal, our students’ faces looked calm, relaxed, and happy. It was exactly what they needed!

In times like these when our students, their families, the media, EVERYONE can’t stop talking about coronavirus it’s important for us all to remember what helps. And for me and the choir students, it’s singing. If you don’t know this song, I invite you to check out the video. And maybe…sing along. 😉

A note about the video: Yes, this is not the original. In my opinion, Elton’s version reigns supreme, but I wasn’t sure I could post the video (if you google it you’ll understand why.) So, here’s Taron Egerton’s version from the movie “Sing.”