This semester has been one of success stories so far. I posted on social media last month about my general chorus and the trajectory they’re now on, and the first week of March I posted about my Chamber Singers and their choosing to up their game. My singers in Vocal Workshop this term are also crushing it, we are having many breakthrough moments together. The one class I haven’t talked about is my Treble Choir. For context, this year it is an honors class made up of 7 Freshman, 13 Sophomores and 6 Juniors. They are all in there by teacher selection (or 8th grade recommendation by Jen Etter). We are almost 7 months in and I still haven’t found the key to unlock what I feel is their potential. The problem? It is the first class I think I have ever run with not one single Type A personality in it. One of the skills I think I bring to the table as a teacher is bringing disparate personalities and skill levels together to create a whole. I love doing so and after all these years I have quite the toolbox at my disposal to help me do so. But I’ve never had a class where everyone is in many ways a reflection of each other. And we meet block 1 at 7:50 each morning. There are days I literally cannot get them to talk. I try being a goofball (doesn’t take much…) just to get them animated, but our block 1 together every other day is a pretty quiet venture and just getting them to sing out is pulling teeth sometimes. You get the picture.

I am really proud of their individual and collective progress this year; they sound nothing like they did in the Fall and their skill set has grown. But two weeks ago we hit bottom. The girls were fine in rehearsal, but I got a sense they were just kinda, “there”. Nothing I was doing was motivating them, nothing setting them on fire. The same week they had a bi-weekly home video assessment due. The deadline was Thursday night which gave them four days to get it done, but I always give a built in extension to the following night in case they need it. As a bonus, Friday was a day off for them due to PD at school. I woke up Saturday morning excited to see how they did.

Half the assessments were missing. Half.

I was mad, angry. I was confused. I think most of all I was offended. Here I was doing everything I could to facilitate their growth: they have a state of the art rehearsal space, resources galore (they have practice tracks for all their music), gobs of time given to do their work outside of school, and 13 of the kids couldn’t lift a finger enough to submit their 60 seconds of video. That also presumably meant they hadn’t been finding the time to practice their work outside of class either. Honestly, I was really upset.

But then as the morning went on, I thought about a Stephen Smith story I told to my Chamber Singers just two days earlier. I told it for an entirely different reason, but the story was a lesson Steve taught me and my classmates my Sophomore year at Keene State College as an Ed major. It was to always look beyond what you see, because there’s always more there, you just need to be open to it.

So I went into school this past Monday ready to see Treble Choir block 1. They were tired beyond words as daylight savings reared its ugly head and polling the girls, on average they got about 4 to 5 hours of sleep and their bodies were saying it was 7am. I shifted gears and played an impromptu game of Jeopardy with them for the first half hour. I called my accompanist and told her not to come in. The students and I just had fun together and laughed a lot as we woke up. Then we had a solid rehearsal for 25 minutes. Finally, with 10 minutes left in class, I sat them down and I said, “I have a story for you.” And I began:

Steve was into Gestalt and new age theories, and he told us about when he began his career in the early 1970’s, he paid $500 and signed up for a weekend retreat somewhere led by an authority/author on Gestalt principles. I don’t remember the guy’s name, I’ll call him ‘Dr. Tim’. Dr. Tim held the retreat somewhere out in the woods in New Hampshire and all food and lodging was covered in a rustic setting. Steve and about 15 others got there mid afternoon on a Friday and met in a large room. Dr. Tim introduced himself and said, “We’ve got all your needs met this weekend, your bunks are upstairs and our chef is making supper as we speak (the chef came out and said a quick hello) and all you need to do is keep an open mind.”

“The first thing I want you to do is go out in the woods for 45 minutes and find an item that speaks to you; something you feel you can identify with.” The attendees kinda looked at eachother but went and did as they were told. 45 minutes later, they came back with things like acorns, twigs, a bird feather, etc. Dr. Tim had them sit in a big circle on the floor and said with a chuckle, “Okay, now please place your item in front of you. I want you to contemplate your item for 20 minutes.” Now everyone was looking at eachother like, is this guy serious? But they did as they were told and stared at their item for 20 minutes. Then when time was up, Dr. Tim was suppressing his laughter and he said, “Now, please take the item to your immediate left, and take it, place it in front of you, and contemplate it for 15 minutes.” This prompt started to get a rise from some of the participants but they again all did as they were told.

At the end of that 15 minutes it was supper time. Dr. Tim said, “I need each of you to pair up with someone for Supper and try to really get to know them, and it has to be someone you’ve never met.” Well, Steve being the kind of person he was, thought to himself, who was the least likely person to have someone ask to eat with them? And he decided that the person he wanted to eat with was the chef! A truly Steve move. So he went in and asked the chef if he could eat with him. The chef understandably gave him a bit of a weird look, but said okay, just as soon as he was done serving everyone. Steve told us that the two of them sat down and over the next half hour or so, hit it off big time. It turns out they had a ton in common, and shared many of the same beliefs and struck up an immediate friendship. Go Steve, that’s the kind of guy he was. They decided to catch up again over the weekend if they had a chance.

So it’s now after supper, and Dr. Tim is just truly enjoying tormenting everyone. His next prompt was, “Go out into the woods and see if you can find another item that speaks to you.” At this prompt, one of the attendees got mad. They said they didn’t pay $500 to go find twigs, they wanted to know when the instruction was to begin. And Dr. Tim just laughed. That riled up another who said this was beginning to look bogus. Dr. Tim was laughing harder now. Another said, “If this is what the weekend is going to be, I’d like my money back!” Dr. Tim smiled, “I haven’t cashed a single check yet, I have them right here – if you’d like to go, come on up and get your check!” It cleared the place out! Steve told us that everyone was bewildered at least, ticked off at most, and every single person went up to get their check so they could leave. Dr. Tim wasn’t even sad, he was smiling the whole time he was saying goodbye to everyone!

Steve was last to walk up to Dr. Tim. He looked at him and said, “I don’t want my check back. I’m going to leave too, but somehow I have to believe something happened today I can learn from. And you know what? There were no guarantees either way, so I’m going to chalk this one up to experience. Please keep the check.” Dr. Tim for the first time became serious, looked right at Steve and quietly thanked him. Then he went into the kitchen to say goodbye to the chef. Tim told him that if nothing else he made a new friend! The chef told him the same, “Here’s my phone # and address. It was great meeting you too – if you are ever in the area, look me up. We have much more to talk about, let’s do so!” And as Steve turned around to leave, the chef added, “And by the way, if you can, tune into Good Morning America on Monday morning, they’re having me on as a guest!” And Steve was stoked, he had met a celebrity chef!

As Steve drove home, he was thinking about the day. And all of the sudden, he told us in class, it dawned on him. He realized what might have happened. Turns out he was right. Monday morning he tunes into Good Morning America. At some point, they say, “Now for our next guest we are excited to welcome a well known author on Gestalt Theory and he’s here today to tell us more about it.”

And out walks the chef.

The reason Dr. Tim and the actual chef switched places to begin the retreat was to find out who was truly willing and able to go through a weekend where they would have to look beyond what they think they see, to go beyond their own filters of pre-determined expectations and go beyond their own perceived boundaries. Steve looked at us Sophomores in his class and asked us, “Do you think that was worth $500? I’ve never looked at people the same way ever since. Neither. should. you.” That story changed my life and I remember Steve telling it to us in class like it was yesterday.

I then looked at the girls in front of me and said, “The reason I just told you that story this morning is because half of you didn’t bother to submit your assessments to me by Friday night. I was hurt, I was angry, I was mad and frustrated. I not only gave you four days to submit it, I gave you a 5th day as a build in extension and you even had the day off – and still chose not to do it.” As I was saying all this I could see some of the class start looking down at the floor and one of the girls actually started to tear up. ” I told you the story because I remembered what Steve taught me, and that’s to never look at anyone with judgement. I don’t know what the 13 of you were going through, I don’t know your circumstances, I don’t know what’s going on in your life. There’s a lot about you I see but most of who you are I don’t see. So I promise you: I will never judge you. I’m not you, I’ll never pretend to be. I will always hold you accountable but I will never judge you. So I’m not mad. I’m not upset, I’m not hurt, I’m not angry. I’m not even sure I’m disappointed now. That’s why I just told you this story, so you’d know why”

And with that the bell rang and they were off. Fast forward two days later Wednesday morning: best rehearsal we’ve had in seven months.

Showing grace. That wasn’t Steve’s objective in telling impressionable college sophomores his Dr. Tim Story, but it is a direct illustration of how to justify it when it seems like there’s no other justification available. I begin each morning with a cup of coffee and a quiet Bible study. This week ironically, even this morning, I’ve been reading in the New Testament a ton of God’s grace on display toward his often rebelling children of Israel. There are always consequences to actions, choices and behaviors. But in addition to that, and well beyond that, grace is a simultaneous expression of unconditional love that this world and our students in particular so desperately need. There was a time in my career where I believed accountability meant “justice” in every harsh iteration of the word. After all, how else will our students learn and grow from their mistakes?!? But as I’ve continued my career, I have slowly learned that the time to love on someone is not when they are making your life easy and they do everything you want. The opposite is true. You love on them when they are being difficult, inconvenient and complex human beings. Because you don’t know what’s really going on behind the scenes. Because you never know when you’re judging Dr. Tim but you’re really actually interacting with the chef. Only after fostering every kid, not just the convenient ones at the convenient times, do you unlock in them what they’re all capable of being. Or at least have half a chance to be.

This was heavier blog post this morning, but it’s one on a topic I really needed to be reminded of this month. I wrote it today in case I’m not the only one.