End of week thoughts

One of the most exciting parts of this whole Institute has been meeting with and exchanging notes with other teachers from across the country. The teachers here are tools (that is, hard-working). From what I’ve seen, they care about their students and want to see them engaged in learning and achieving. Some of us teach in schools that enjoy 100% enrollment and others face the daunting task of trying to teach our students a subject when the administration and the community in which we teach (including, let’s not forget, the students) do not seem so interested in these same objectives. One first-year teacher said resignedly, "There's not much learning that goes on in my school."

I have pretty much teared up in class every day so far, once when Ben played with Mike Seeger, another time when Anne Ford presented her musical autobiography and talked about her love for her husband, and today when my own roomie played The Battle Hymn of the Republic. The Battle Hymn of the Republic! (It was tied in with her grandfather returning home from war.) How great is it to be with a group of individuals who readily break out into song (extraordinarily well) when a few bars of a familiar melody is played for them! As one of the younger teachers here, I am continually floored by the wealth of musical knowledge and experience surrounding me.