Coals to Newcastle

In my recent course with 40 Orff teachers held at the Jittamett School in Thailand, I told them (through my translator) about the expression “Coals to Newcastle.” I confessed that it might feel like sharing my theme of The Humanitarian Musician, my hopes to make better humans through music and create cultures of mutual respect and empathy was indeed “bringing coals to Newcastle." Thai culture is at the top of the list when it comes to showing respect via bowing, something kids as young as 2 or 3 are trained to do. And the remarkable Jittamett School, created by Krongtong, a visionary teacher who came to our Orff training around 2000 and came back from inspired to start a preschool based on the dignity and delight of children, is a model learning community that deserves international recognition. What could I possibly offer that they all don’t already know?

 

Well, when you wrap you thinking around the next imaginative possibility, even my inferior coal could be valuable if I shared new ways to mine it or use it or think about it. I believe my approach of doing one activity 10 or a hundred different ways was both valuable and intriguing for the teachers to experience and consider. 

 

But one day at lunch, Krongtong told me that it had been so important for her to hear my thoughts and stories because they so clearly mirrored her own. It gave her renewed appreciation for the initial vision she had that now was 25 years into “just the way we do things around here.” It’s easy for us all to take our accomplishments for granted and this renewed her conviction that she has indeed been on the right path. Especially with a new generation of parents that don’t seem to understand the depth of profound educational vision, it helped remind her to stay the course. I was moved to hear all of it. 

 

As the workshop came to a close, I thanked Krongtong, her mentor Mom Dusdi who first began Orff training in Thailand (and who I had met several times before she passed away in her 90’s), my translator Nance and the whole team of the Orff Association, almost all of whom had studied with me in our San Francisco International Orff Course. I also thanked my colleague Sofia for her part in watering this vision, teaching many courses here and especially helping walk the group through the steps to become an official association.

 I thanked the participants for their wonderful energy, expressive dance, great singing, excellent musicianship, childlike playful spirits, laughter and tears. To close, I taught them the exquisite canon Da Pacem Domine, walking in a spiral as we sang and asked Spirit to “grant us peace in our day.” As the last note echoed out, I told them the little story I’ve told before in these pages. About the man walking a beach littered with starfish who had washed ashore or were dying in the hot sun, unable to get back to the water. He began throwing them one by one into the water when a man approached from the other direction and asked what he was doing. When he explained, the other said, “Do you realize there are probably over a thousand starfish on this beach? You can’t possibly save them all. What you’re doing is foolish and will make no difference whatsoever. The man picked up a starfish, threw it in the water and said, “It made a difference to that one.” 

It was a reminder that when we feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the world’s evil and needless suffering, we do what we can to bring others to their true home, one starfish, one child at a time. I believe the tears shed after that singing and story and the whole beauty of our two days together was enough to water a thousand starfish.