Atlanta Georgia.  Where there’s a church on every corner and all the food is fried.  What’s not to love?  There’s just something about the deep south that calls to me and for several days this week I get to experience some of that true southern atmosphere. There are some in other parts of the country who perhaps consider the south to be a little backward in some respects, a place very steeped in and proud of their heritage and traditions.  And yes, while there are some obvious issues in the south (as there can be in any part of the country) that I won’t be addressing in this blog, there is also the charm, the slower pace, the quaintness,  and the hospitality that makes me slow down and relax in this great southern city.

I serve on a national board with some of the most wonderful people in the country who arrived in Atlanta yesterday from all over for two days of meetings and a research conference which follows.  One of the members is from Atlanta and she set up a trip to a lovely vineyard north of the city in a fabulous limo.  We wanted to be safe, after all.  Anyway, on the way, one of my southern friends referred to being warm in the limo as “sweatin’ like a whore in church”.  THIS is one of the reasons I love the south.  The analogies and colloquialisms are fantastic and so creative.  Phrases like “the butter done slid off his biscuit” need no explanation and I heard a new word at the winery that I had to write down.  The gentleman doing the tasting for us was obviously very proud of the work of the winery and the awards the winery had garnered.  He said he didn’t mean to sound  “bragadocious” but that these wines were just that good.  He didn’t smile, like, hey, I made up a new word or anything and it didn’t sound like it was off the cuff.  So it must be a real word, or at least, he believed it was.

After sitting on our behinds in a meeting for hours today, full of passionate, intellectual discussions and decision making, we were taken to dinner at a restaurant named Mary Mac’s Tearoom.  As we were taken back to the large room towards the back of the restaurant, I could feel myself getting excited at the prospect of the meal to come.  And sure enough, the buffet did not disappoint. Fried everything, except for the mac and cheese which was baked and the mashed potatoes which needed NO gravy and the coleslaw  The only way to do it.  Fried vegetables (okra),  fried meats, fried fruit (tomato) and fried bread (hush puppies).  I’m not going to even talk about the broccoli because I think it was an attempt to make it look healthy.  Cinnamon rolls, peach cobbler and peanut butter pie.  Is your mouth watering yet?  And pitchers of sweet tea, the wine of the south.  It doesn’t get better than that.

The absolute best part of the meal was when I just sat back and watched everyone.  If you could have seen the deep conversations from some and heard the raucous laughter from others, everyone engaged in some kind of interaction.  The two deans of colleges of music leaning in closely in that deep conversation.  The organization’s staff laughing with the board members over something silly.  Several members discussing issues that had come up in the meeting today.  People from other parts of the country trying the sweet tea and immediately diluting it with more water.  I’m serious. Kind, passionate, loving people enjoying great comfort food and conversation.  No cell phones – well, they were out, but not many in use and all kinds of face to face conversations.  The way relationships between friends and colleagues should be.  Wouldn’t it be amazing if all other groups/organizations/Congress could do the same?  But that’s another subject for another time.

The last two days have reminded me again that I’m a lucky girl.  I get to travel, work with and learn from tremendous colleagues, eat great food, and play a part in making things better for music educators and their students across the country.  I don’t want to be bragadocious here, but it doesn’t get any better than that.

Expectations.  Whether real or perceived, they can influence decisions you make about your life  If people you admire and trust tell you that you’re great at this or that or have great potential, you tend to pursue whatever that is.  At least I do. The problem is, no matter how well intended,  while someone might see something you do well, they may not see where your true passions lie and if you are not a strong person, strong enough to stand up for what you really want, you can become swayed by those well meaning friends, family or mentors.

At a very young age, I became a pleaser and I was quick to latch on to people who reacted favorably to things that I did.  It didn’t matter what it was, whether it was intellectual or not.  My dad would share his music with me, so I would find things I thought he would like so we could share that together.  My mother would marvel at how I could eat my brother under the table, so I would try to impress her with how much I could eat.  My reading teacher would compliment me on how well I could read and I would try to impress her with how many books I could read.  I volunteered to reorganize the music library in high school and the more my band director complimented me, the harder and faster I worked.  Anything I needed to do to get noticed or get complimented, I did, whether I really liked doing it or not.

It’s how I got into music.  I so wanted to please my high school band director and the students I admired that decided I wanted to be a high school band director. I wanted them to be proud of me.  It soon became an expectation, maybe perceived, but an expectation nevertheless.  When I left college because I just couldn’t figure out what I wanted to do, I felt like a complete failure and that I had let everyone down.  But the truth is, I had never really made a decision for myself as to what I wanted to do.  I never felt that I had any other options. When I eventually went back to school, it was practicality that took me back to music because it would take the least amount of time to get the degree.

Not that I haven’t been relatively successful or committed to what I do, and I absolutely believe with every fiber of my being, in the power of music and that it should be a part of every child’s well rounded education.  I had a ball participating in band from 5th grade through college and have some of my best memories and friends from that activity.  However, if I had it to do all over again, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have done what I’m doing as a career.  You see, I have something to confess.  I admit that I’m a pretty smart person, just smart enough to be able to fake things pretty well.  I never had to study for the ACT or the MAT, I just happen to test well.  It got me into undergrad and grad school without any issues.

So, here I am after a career in music education, nearing retirement and realizing I have been chasing ghosts my whole life.  I’ve been trying to live my life for everyone else for so long that I don’t really know who I am or what I really want to do.  I still have people whom I greatly admire who tell me what they think I should or shouldn’t be doing and I still find myself wanting to please. I still have enough pride in myself that I don’t want to do things half way, but there’s no real passion behind it.  And like testing, I can always make things work, I’m just not the teacher I always believed kids deserve.

Even as I write this, I have a feeling there will be people who will be disappointed in me and that worries me.  Here I am, representing the profession at the state and national level and this is how I feel?  This is where I’m going to sound like I’m contradicting myself.  I don’t believe teaching is where I need to be, but I LOVE advocating for music education, I love getting together with others to talk about the direction of music education and helping young teachers.  I love working to find solutions to things and learning leadership skills. I never would have discovered this or had the experiences I’ve had in recent years if it hadn’t been for teaching and meeting those people who encouraged me or recommended me to do these things.  Ironic, huh?

Again, I go back to the God thing.  He knows the plans He has for me.  Maybe I was meant to take this long, winding, road to finally begin to figure out what I’m supposed to do for the rest of my life.  Learning to stop chasing the ghosts of the past, and to start listening to my inner voice for my future.

 

Not sure how I missed this terminology before, but I stole it from a Facebook friend who is totally into riding his motorcycle.  Wind Therapy.  Feeling that wind in your face, speeding along the road.  While I can’t identify with the motorcycle specifically – I’ve only ridden with someone else twice – I can identify with my little convertible and I remember that feeling riding my ten-speed as a kid.  There is something freeing and invigorating about riding out in the open, wind in your hair and face, without a window separating you from experiencing the sounds, sights and smells as you ride.

I am living for that first day this spring when I can take the top down on the bug and take off down the road.  As a kid, before I could drive, I can remember riding the 10 speed  down Parker’s Mill Road, a beautiful little two lane, tree lined road with horse farms on either side, peddling like crazy up the hills and doing that crazy fast coast down the hills. I could be gone for hours by myself, hearing the wind in my ears.  Probably what saved me as a kid.

I understand I grew up in a “different” time.  I suppose.  I grew up during a time when I could tell my mom I was going out, I was told not to miss dinner and I was gone.  I could ride to a friend’s house, I could ride to the library, I could ride to the airport by way of Parker’s Mill Road and watch planes take off and land while eating a plate of fries with a coke.  Can kids do that today?  I don’t know.  Parents today seem so afraid of all of the things that could happen to the child that they tend to engage them in organized sports where they can keep an eye on them instead of teaching them how to be careful when they’re by themselves.  I remember when my dad first let me go riding by myself about the age of eight.  I thought I was by myself, but the truth was he followed me in the car to make sure I was stopping at stop signs and looking both ways before crossing streets.  And he caught me a few times, NOT doing those things.  So I eventually learned how to take care of myself and by the age of nine I was riding with my friend from my neighborhood to the pool about two miles away.  I developed a sense of independence and trusted myself on this vehicle which could take me anywhere.

On top of the fact that this is great exercise, there’s something about riding in the wind, by yourself to wherever you want that is truly therapeutic.  I’m not sure our kids get that experience today and I often wonder how the lack of that affects them in school and just life in general.  I mean, I liked TV as well as any kid, but it was more fun for me to get out and do something than spend all day watching TV.  When kids today are not in their organized sports, they’re sitting in front of their screens.  Not learning how to make decisions for themselves, not learning to trouble shoot if necessary or think for themselves, by themselves.  I see the results of that in the classroom an it’s a sad, scary thing.

Just writing about this makes me impatient for the weather to break so I can get out and get some wind therapy.  I’ll wear my new “Bug” hat, put on the sunglasses, pull out of the garage and push that little button that will open the top and let the sunshine in.  And who knows, maybe I’ll get the bike out this year and try to recreate that feeling of being a kid again through a little wind therapy.  Now I just have to find some hills in Nebraska to coast down….

 

The dilemma is real.  Choices must be made.  The decision will affect us in the long term and must be taken seriously.  Should we move to a place with an open floor plan for our growing family or do we stay where we are and keep the heated underground parking?  Do you know how difficult it is to find a rental where you can get both?  We have found the best living space EVER and they can’t guarantee any garage, much less one heated and underground.

The garage is the ultimate in spoiled rotten.  We walk down the hall, take an elevator down to the basement and walk out to our two spaces next to each other in this garage.  The car is warm, I never have to scrape off snow or ice or worry about hail.  This is Nebraska after all.  However, upstairs, while we have enough furniture to take care of all eight of us when we get together, it’s pretty crowded and the kitchen is cut off from the rest of the common area.  And the kitchen is SMALL.  I have a group of men in my house who like to cook and they’re bumping into each other and getting cranky before meals.  First world problems, right?

So, the big question is, do we move to adjust for our family or do we stay where we are for our cars?  It sounds like a no brainer, right?  Most unselfish people would go for more space, but we’re actually hesitating because of the garage.  Scary but true.  So I start to make the pro and con list.  Where I am is all white walls, white cabinets, white floors and shaggy carpet.  The other place has hardwood and carpet and has pretty painted walls.  We have ugly white ceiling fans, they have cool ceiling fans in the bedroom only.  We have the tiny kitchen with very little counter space, they have a huge island with tons of storage and places for stools.  Plenty of room for the family.  But no garage.  I don’t want my little bug with its convertible top out in the elements.  Is it asking too much to have both?

I think back to the old days when Doug and I were younger and how we didn’t have a garage for the first ten years of our marriage and we somehow managed to survive.  We didn’t have one we could really use when we moved to Nebraska for Doug to go to grad school. It’s not like we couldn’t do it.  It’s a lot like other things in our lives.  We’ve worked hard to make things comfortable and we remember what it was like to not have things and struggle.  It’s the same reason we sit here at dinner time, look at each other and decide we don’t want to get off our butts to make dinner but we don’t mind going out or ordering in for dinner.  Because we can.  Just like I can stay right where I am and keep the garage.

 

Yep that’s me.  Judge Judy.  This time of year I get asked to judge a few contests, usually middle school level, which is actually a lot of fun.  I feel much more comfortable judging this level rather than high school – teaching high school choir was most definitely not my strength.  But I feel like I can give some pretty good constructive criticism and encouragement to these younger students to help them take things to the next level.

What qualifies someone to judge?  Well, it’s not always age or experience because I have seen younger teachers asked to judge.  Is it because you know someone?  Quite possibly.  Is it because you always say yes when someone asks? Again, quite possibly.  I would like to believe it’s because of the quality comments I make, but as with all judges, after judging a boatload of kids every five minutes for a few hours, your brain begins to turn to mush and you’re struggling to say something different, something more personal than “you need to use more air”.

Sometimes what amazes me (because I’m easily amazed), is that I actually remember stuff that helps the student.  Sure, I work with kids all the time, but I have an elementary  choir that meets once a week and I don’t always focus just on singing in my classes.  What’s even more amazing is when I judge instrumental solo and ensembles and I’m having to remember back a LONG time to help a student and the info is still there, lodged in my little brain.  I ask you, who needs Google, huh?

I know it sounds like I don’t take this very seriously, but I do.  You see, I understand that what I say, if not said correctly, can discourage a student from continuing in music.  As teachers, we ask our students to do some pretty uncomfortable things, like learning a piece of music from memory, dress up and sing in front of someone they don’t know who is going to give them written and/or verbal feedback and a score of some kind.  A score that they can compare to others.  If the teacher has prepared the student correctly, hopefully that student can use the feedback and whatever score they get in a way that they don’t take personally but use to improve their skills.  So many times, singers take things way too personally because singing can be so emotional and such a vulnerable thing to do in front of others.  After all, we carry our instruments with us all the time – it’s a part of us. It’s my job as a judge to identify those things students do well to lift them up and then find things that challenge them to go to whatever the next level is for them, reinforcing the fact that these are skills we’re learning and they can indeed improve.

Why is it important to ask students to put themselves in this position?  I believe, especially in the current culture, that it’s important for a student to learn to introduce themselves, square their feet, look someone in the eye, do something to the best of their ability that scares them, take a chance at failing and learn to deal with it.  Something where, once they start, there’s nothing parents or teachers can do – it’s all in the hands of the student and the adults have to let go.  It’s learning the etiquette of the discipline and gives the student an opportunity to share something meaningful.  This is not just improving musical performance, it’s teaching life.  If you can do the things I mentioned at the beginning of the paragraph, you have a great advantage in school and in life.  Period.

So tomorrow morning, bright and early I’ll drive to a small town and judge for a couple of hours, hoping that I can teach, inspire and motivate young aspiring musicians through my comments.  After all, I have to live up to the name of Judge Judy, don’t I?

 

 

One of the things I look forward to over Spring Break is pretty shallow.  I love to go clothes shopping.  Much like the rest of my life, I get bored with the same thing all the time and I have to go out of town next week, so of course I needed to get something new, right?  But the best part of my shopping experience is that I have my own personal visual designer who guides me to buy just the right things to wear.

Not to be confused with a personal shopper, a personal visual designer is just there to look at what I put on and I can tell just by looking at him if the visual design works or not.  He is a professional, having been a visual designer for almost 40 years and he is an expert at shape, color, design and movement.  And what is clothing after all, but how fabric works visually on the body?

Not that I don’t get a say, but I’ll be honest – I need help when it comes to clothes shopping.  My go to is to find a mannequin that is wearing something I like and buy THAT outfit.  I have three stores that I go to regularly because I know things fit most of the time and last a long time.  My job is to try things on and decide if they feel good or not, but then I need input from someone who has a clue to tell me if it really works.  I know colors I like, but despite that I tend to stick with basic black with the excuse that it goes with everything, so encouragement about color is helpful.  I’m trying to challenge myself to buy more patterns but even then I need to be careful because there are visual problems with patterns that are too big or too small depending on a person’s size.  Again, the reason I need a personal visual designer.

I’m not sure how much my visual designer likes doing this with me, but he is usually able to find a comfy “man” chair as he calls it and he will use my changing time to check his email, put smart aleck remarks on Twitter and Facebook and read articles on line.  His only job is to look up when I walk out and let me see his face which tells me everything.  The smallest raise of eyebrows or crinkling of his nose tells me everything I need to know and he will actually take the time to tell me what he thinks works or doesn’t work.  I appreciate that he doesn’t just tell me what he thinks I want to hear but is honest with me if something works or doesn’t work. Again, I want it to look and feel good for me, but his opinion matters as well.

So, the shopping excursion was a success today, thanks to this special guy, and we had fun just spending time having lunch together and walking around doing a little shopping on a beautiful spring-like day.  Life is good when you’re married to your best friend, but even better when he cares enough to be your personal visual designer.

 

 

A mirror is a fickle thing.  One day you look in the mirror and think, hey, I’m looking pretty good and the next day you look and think, who is that old woman and why is she blocking my view?  For me, a mirror is usually just a tool, something to help me make sure the hair is in place, that I don’t have sleepies in the corners of my eyes and that I don’t have something stuck in my teeth.  It’s also to make sure I’ve chosen something to wear that hides my lack of a waist and that things match the way they should.  Once in a blue moon, things click and I do look at myself and think “looking good, kiddo!”.  These are the days when I maybe snap a selfie before the look or feeling disappears.

While I was sick recently, the mirror really did reflect how badly I felt.  Of course, not  showering for several days will do that to a person, but I marveled at how my body, which felt so bad on the inside could actually manifest that feeling on the outside, especially if you don’t do anything to combat the look, like applying make-up and hairspray, for instance.  It could explain why everyone knows when a man is feeling bad because he has no line of defense like women do.  Sorry guys.

I’ve read that some therapists or self-help gurus suggest that you look in the mirror each day and tell yourself how much you love yourself and how great you are.  I’ve tried that but then I have trouble stifling the laughter afterwards.  I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to take this kind of thing seriously.  The problem is, there are those days when you look in the mirror and you allow what you see to completely control your mood and attitude for the day.  Despite the fact that I’ve plateaued in terms of my weight for some time, some days I feel I look fatter than others and when I think I look fatter, I’m completely bummed out, even if it was exactly the same as the day before.  It’s silly.  I wonder if it’s a little like the chicken and the egg.  Was I feeling bad about myself before I checked in the mirror and the mirror just amplified that feeling or did the image change how I felt?  I’m obviously thinking WAY too hard.

Getting older does help somewhat because I can lower my expectations.  You can stop laughing now. I mean, I am 158 years old, as I tell my students, and I look pretty good for that age, right?  I suppose there’s always room for improvement and I have to admit that if someone tells me I look younger than I am it’s a bit of an ego boost whether they mean it or they’re just being kind.  However, I know how old I am and on those days when I really look my age, or what I perceive is the way I should look for my age, I usually tell myself, “it is what it is” and I go on my way.

What I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older, is that the mirror cannot be trusted.  Oh sure, when you’re young and it’s all about wearing just the right thing and having the latest hairstyle and make up, the mirror is your friend.  But it doesn’t always reflect the real you, the part of you on the inside that brings the sparkle to your eyes or the look of confidence to your face or the pride in your stride.  That feeling that you know who you are, you know what you can do and you know how to get things accomplished.  It doesn’t reflect the experiences and challenges that have shaped you into the person you’ve become. I would never trade this old face for my youthful face with all of its insecurities and self doubts.  I like knowing who I am, despite what the mirror tries to tell me.  To me, there’s nothing more beautiful than a woman who exudes confidence in herself, whatever her age and that’s the woman I hope I grow up to be.

I want to strongly emphasize to all women that we are more than our reflection in the mirror; that we can reflect upon our lives and ourselves and determine who we are, with or without the make-up and hair.  It’s totally cool to want to look our best, whatever your personal idea of “best” is, but instead of always trusting the mirror, let’s just trust ourselves and work to become even more beautiful on the inside.

 

Sure, I only created the title to get your attention – hopefully.  Sometimes my brain works in very strange ways, going off in tangents that I’m not always in control of.  If you sit and think about family, the thing you DON’T always get to pick, it really can mess with your mind.  The idea that you or I even exist is so fragile and was based on so many variables that if you think about it too much it can make your brain hurt.  Are all of those variables a matter of personal choice or is it fate or something even greater in charge?

Think of your parents.  How did they meet?  What history did they have before they met that caused them to be interested in each other?  Did they just happen to be in the right place at the right time?  Were they coming off of a bad relationship?  Was it a matter of convenience or were they childhood sweethearts?  My parents met in San Antonio Texas, far away from their original homes of Chicago, Illinois and Hamilton, Ohio.  They were both serving in the Air Force, both were divorced.  My dad was 33 and my mom was 20.  Both had lost children.  My dad was an introvert and my mom an extrovert.  They came from completely different backgrounds and were almost a generation apart in age.  My younger brother and I are a product of that union. We were never quite sure they loved each other as it seemed they tolerated each other most of the time, but towards the end I believed they were certainly dependent upon each other.  But I exist because they chose to be together.

My husband was raised his entire childhood in Bewley Hollow in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, the same place his mother and previous generations had lived before him.  I was born in San Antonio as an Air Force brat, so I moved to many places during my childhood.  When my dad retired, after crisscrossing the country one summer to decide where to live, we settled in Kentucky because at the time, my maternal grandmother lived there.  So Lexington it was.  I was set to go the University of Kentucky and my future husband was set to go to Morehead University until fate stepped in.  He made the decision not to go to Morehead and go to UK instead, where we eventually met.  I had dated many people, he had not.  He was raised in a rural area, me in mostly urban.  He’s an extrovert, I’m an introvert.  He’s a trumpet player, I’m a soprano.  Right there tells me it never should have worked!  We were almost 21 when we married and by all accounts, according to research marrying that young can increase your odds of divorce.  But here we are, nearly 38 years later, best friends and inseparable.  Think of the astronomical odds against us meeting at all, much less getting married, but here we are.  To make it even more weird, we attended many of the same band events during high school from our respective schools and never met.  So close.

Then I look at my children.  They exist because of the two of us and the timing of deciding (or not deciding) when we were going to have children. We have three boys and we chose to move those three boys from Ohio to Nebraska where two of them have met their spouses.  The thought that we decided to move and how it impacted these future relationships sometimes challenges my thinking.  Did we move because it was our destiny to move and their destiny to meet each other?  Did we keep them from meeting others they might have married if we had stayed?  One son and daughter in law are making the decision to adopt.  If we hadn’t moved here, where would that child have gone?

The whole process is really a bit strange in our culture if you think about it, and obviously I am, WAY to deeply.  Most of us find ourselves looking for that one person to spend the rest of our lives with.  Others are totally comfortable being by themselves. It’s a crap shoot, isn’t it?  How do we KNOW that this is the person we were meant to be with forever?  You can choose to love or not to love and maintaining a long term relationship is HARD, even with your best friend.  After all, you have decided to stay with that person til death do you part, right?  That could be 60 years and life has a way of getting in the way.  Can you stand to be with one person for that long?  Think of the roommates you couldn’t stand after six months when you discovered all of their bad habits and then you make a decision to marry or live with someone for the rest of your life?  Is it fate?  Is it choice?  Are you forcing something that wasn’t meant to be and just making it work or have you found that perfect person who encourages you to be a better human being and vice versa?

I’ve discovered that yes, you CAN pick your nose, uh, I mean friends and those friends can truly become family.  You can’t pick the family you were born into but you CAN choose to be the best person you can be regardless of whether you pursue a long term relationship or not.  Picking a significant other, should you want to, can be a challenge, but what I think I discovered is that if you overthink it, it’s not the right person.  If you’re questioning, “is this the one?”, it’s probably not.  Because I think you’ll know when it’s right.  It doesn’t mean it won’t be hard and there won’t be challenges along the way, but you’ll know.  I did.

 

 

I swore I wasn’t going to write about this but it has taken over my household and I’m not sure I have a choice.  My husband even suggested I write about it to which I initially  responded with a resounding NO!  But as I kept observing things today, it was the only thing speaking to me, so I’m giving in.  So, hello March Madness.

The day began with the Kentucky – Tennessee game, the SEC championship game.  For those of us who went to UK, nothing sucks like a big orange and there’s a special animosity between these two schools.  It was a great game and the good guys won, so it’s very relaxed in our house at the moment. Apparently, there are no basketball games too small today as my boys just keep surfing the TV for another one to watch.  Between that and watching the commentators whose shows are named things like “Bubble Watch” and “Bracket Breakdown”, it’s all that exists right now.  In my husband’s defense, he grew up on Kentucky basketball, which is its own form of religion.  I mean, we once waited to start a Sunday evening church service because everyone wanted to finish the Kentucky game first.  We sat in the pews watching on a tiny TV and then started.  It was a small church, but you get the idea.  Almost nothing is bigger than Kentucky basketball.

While others in our apartment complex are displaying Easter decorations on their doors, ours has a Kentucky welcome on it with a Kentucky door mat which will stay until they are out of the tournament.  We all own multiple Kentucky shirts, stock Ale-8 drinks for watching games (made in Winchester, KY) and a 1978 NCAA championship commemorative drinking glass that we refer to as the Chris Gettlefinger glass that we set out to invoke the spirit of Chris whenever it’s a really big game.  I’m serious.  Basketball is serious business.

We are superstitious enough to believe that having outsiders come over to watch the game with us is bad mojo since Kentucky lost the couple of times we tried it, so only immediate family is allowed to get together.  In years where Doug is on spring break, he plans to go to a local sports bar and spend hours on the first couple of days watching multiple games at once to check his bracket.  Filling out the bracket is a big deal and we take who wins seriously with one of us having to take the other out to do whatever they want at the end.

This year is especially complicated because Nebraska may have played well enough to be on the “bubble”.  We’re waiting for a few hours to see if they will going to the tournament and if not, to see if they’re in the NIT.  My husband is having to create pep bands to go to wherever the team might go and then to travel to wherever they might go should they win the first game.  It’s quite the niche job, as the director has to put together certain size bands, know how to travel with them, make sure they’re settled in their hotels, keep them on schedule, proctor tests for students missing classes, deal with bus drivers, security and venue staff, work with marketing, deal with scripting of the game, oh, and conduct the music, knowing the game well enough to know what to play to get fans excited or to keep them excited.  Something a Kentucky boy would know very well.  He’s lucky in that, as big a pain as the preparation is, he loves his job and being in the middle of the big dance is exciting for him.  He has the opportunity to mix his two great loves, music and basketball, so what more could you ask?

So, as much as I was fighting writing about this, it is my life right now.  Our daily schedule is run by it, and our time together is determined by it.  I have to admit I get sucked into it as well, as much as I fight it and I’m secretly looking forward to filling out my bracket so I can win again this year : )

He’s a cutie, about four years old, energetic and alert. And very quiet.  He didn’t speak when he came into my room but he was fascinated right away by all the stuff in it.  The media specialist had noticed it first, that this child, who is autistic and does not speak, seemed to perk up any time there was music involved in her lesson. So this morning during my plan time was this grand experiment where I would get a chance to meet him  and see if I had anything in my room that might catch is attention.

We started out simply with a Quaver music video and some rhythm sticks for all of us to  play a steady beat to the music.  He copied out movements right away, but then I noticed that he was rubbing the sticks on his face.  I occurred to me that he probably liked the smooth feel of the painted wood on his face, much like my son used to like the feel of fabrics in his hand. So I immediately went to instruments with different sounds and textures. The cabasa was my first choice with the beads scraping on the metal sheet underneath.  He could feel the beads and hear the sound and really seemed to like it.  So I went to some mini maracas  which he tried to “unscrew” to see what was inside.  So now I knew he needed instruments that had texture AND he could see how it works.  So we tried a frog for him to scrape, but the cabasa seemed to be the big hit.

So as he was walking around the room, I pulled out a xylophone, took off the cover and handed him the mallets, showing him how to hit the bars.  A big smile broke out on his face and he said “xylophone.  X.”  His para looked at me and asked, “did he initiate that?” to which I responded positively.  Then almost immediately after, he looked at the ball of the mallet and said “yarn. Y.”.  This child has all kinds of information but it’s locked in his head.  Maybe he doesn’t feel like he has to speak.  Maybe he just doesn’t want to. But the excitement we felt when he spoke using the instruments was wonderful.

What is it about the power of music that speaks to kids and apparently allows them to speak to us?  As I was speaking to some of my older students this week who were nervous about singing by themselves, I reminded them that singing was something they did naturally when they were very little.  They made up songs and dances and didn’t worry about what people thought, but somewhere along the line, someone told them they couldn’t sing or didn’t sing very well, or maybe they just decided they weren’t as good as one of their favorite artists and so they became self-conscious.  Making music comes naturally to human beings whether it’s making up your own songs or banging on pots and pans.  Children should always be encouraged to continue these things.

So back to my little autistic student.  Seems he also has a love for letters, so I’m thinking about working with my media specialist and creating an alphabet with instruments so he can experience the texture and sound while learning the letters.  Hopefully the combination will encourage him to keep verbalizing what he sees and hears.  It’s fascinating to try to get into the mind of a child, regardless of his or her circumstances, but this one particularly so.  My fear is that this child, who obviously needs to walk around and “experience” things through touch and sound will be hindered from doing so because it is not the norm in a classroom setting.  We think we need to teach all children to sit quietly to learn and that it not necessarily the truth.  Yes, it’s a great skill to learn, to sit and listen, but children, like one of my own sons, can surprise you.  They may look like they’re not listening to you at all and be focused on something else entirely, but when you ask them what you just said they can spit it out verbatim.

This child has obviously been paying attention somewhere, he just chooses not to spit out the information when requested.  So perhaps we need to entice the child to show us what he knows by creating an alphabet that engages him.  So, the experiment will continue and we’ll see if music and texture can change things for this child.