Raise Your Voice: Falling into October

This is the fifth blog post in a series: https://choralnet.org/archives/662762

Happy October! How ya’ doin’?

My fall has been an absolute whirlwind of chaos and beauty. My ensemble numbers are finally rebounding and the enthusiasm of my students/singers is contagious! And fortunately, that’s been the only contagious thing! Excuse me while I knock on lots of wood.

If you’ve started your Solutionary Curriculum or Plan, you may have voted on a cause!
Last week, my middle school chorus classes made presentations to each other about what they thought we should focus on for our cause for the year. This in and of itself was very informative for the students, as some passionate and interesting presentations were made. We had about twenty-five potential topics, which I put out in a Google Form survey for vote. Unfortunately, right now we are tied, so I cannot yet announce to you our topic! There are a few stragglers, though, so hopefully their votes will break the tie. The two top topics are the ones that had the most thorough presentations, which is interesting: ocean conservancy and mental health. I’ll definitely have that result for you next month!

Once you have your cause, remember if you’re a school teacher to make parents aware of the topic in case they wish for their child to opt out. For this reason, I make the Solutionary Project only a small part of the curriculum until about a month before the fundraiser, after all of our required concerts are over. At that point, those not doing the project are released to study hall for the remainder of the year. That way, students can fully participate in chorus class without feeling left out.

Sometime in the next month or two, you can have your first assignment/sharing day. (I just have those not participating in this skip this one day). On this day, I ask everyone to find out something POSITIVE that has already happened in the area of our topic. I like to start this way because we are digging into a topic that we know needs work, and it can feel like the weight of the world is on our shoulders. By identifying good things that have been done in this area, we realize that we are not alone in caring about the topic, and also we won’t try to tackle problems that have already been solved. When I do this as an assignment, I put it out as a prompt in Google Classroom and then have the students share their findings in class for each other.

Hey, remember when I said this: “I may be starting an organization whose whole focus is solutionary work, in which case of course our project work will be encompassing.”
I’m doing it! We are called Solutionary Arts of New England (S.A.N.E.). Part of our mission is to coach and help others who would like to do solutionary work in the arts. Please, if you’re working on solutionary curriculum or activities with your choirs, don’t hesitate to reach out to us with any questions. We can also help you get started. The email is . And no, you don’t have to live in New England! All are welcome.

That’s all for now! Keep raising your voices!