Performance Review

Have you noticed that in airport bathrooms these days, there’s a machine as you go out that asks you to rate the bathroom? How every call you make to solve some issue is being recorded for quality control and they want you to take a survey at the end? How the culture of Facebook Likes has seeped into every corner so that we all doubt whether we’ve hit the mark unless we get the proper emojis, number of hits or performance rating?

 

I’m as susceptible to this growing addiction as anyone. When an acquaintance gets 500 hits on a casual Facebook post, I wonder what’s wrong with me who only got 150 on something I thought was much more worthy. But when it comes to the things I know deep in my bones— like the classes with kids I mentioned yesterday—I’m well qualified to feel the atmosphere and know I hit it just by the reaction of the children. I don’t need them to put it into words.

 

But the other day, I came home to an envelope on my doorstep with some 20 little notes from the 5^th grade class I sang with. Of course, their wonderful teacher set this up, taught them a good lesson about how to know when something was special and give a nod of thanks for it. But the kids were free to write from their heart and you can imagine how it warmed my heart and even moistened my eyes. I love their perceptions of how our time together made us happy, made us laugh and loved the little bonus descriptions of kindness, joy and positivity, how one noticed the balance of silly and calm songs. Sweet to hear that some were sad when it was over and hoped that I’d return and I loved that one of them sang the songs with her family. 

 

Every single letter was worthy of being treasured, but I’ll just share seven here. The best performance review one could ever hope for, coming from children who were briefly given what they needed and deserved, as I hope they get every day from all the adults in their lives.