Happy Holidays from all of the teachers at Armstrong, and from me, Ms. Karlson!
It’s been an unusual Fall for the kids in music class compared to the last two years.
We are able to join together in activities that were not allowed to us through covid.
I want to reiterate for anyone who was not able to come to any performances this December that performing for a live audience is now an unusual experience for the children. The last assembly or concert we did was in 2020! This fall has been full of assemblies and sharing and performances. The children have less experience in these situations, and are therefore more nervous – as is to be expected. I myself and trying to get used to planning for these performances and follow them through, and that is another shift of mind-set for me. I have been shifting and shifting through these past three years of a pandemic, and another shift back to “normal” with children to whom a live performance is unusual is another mind-shift. There is a large learning curve that comes with learning performance skills when one has never or rarely been to a performance!
And I am sure it is a shift for parents as well. There was so much enthusiasm from parents to see their children sharing their gifts on a stage. It was lovely to have the opportunity to give that gift to parents who want to see their children succeed and perform.
And we have been slowly teaching the children how also to be an audience in a live performance. Knowing how to behave in a live performance is foreign to most of our students now. I thank all of my fellow teachers and the parents who were such great audience members through our last few performances. As I said at the Mall and at our December assembly, the kids really need the support and encouragement that was provided by those attending. Being patient and kind and unconditionally supportive is a great way to model the behaviour that makes a great audience great. People can really shine when the audience demonstrates positivity and “takes what is given to them” with enthusiasm. This is something I teach the children. Know that performance decisions are made for a reason. Mistakes can be made and forgiven. The performers are doing their best. Bad audience behaviour will just throw off the performer and make the performance worse. Unconditional support will make it better.
I hope parents, the other students and my colleagues will continue to demonstrate this in the future so Armstrong kids can enjoy performances for the rest of their lives and make us all proud to have modelled this life-skill to them.