Straight Talk—with a Song

Need I report that I had another marvelous day of classes with children? This really doesn’t count as news anymore— it’s the expected norm. But one class with 1^st graders was particularly memorable. I started with a favorite little game I made up where I say something and they have to fill in the opposite and if I say four things in a row, they all have to rhyme. As in:

 

“I say high and you say low, I say stop and you say go,

I say yes and you say no, I say fast and you say slow.”

 

This can go on for some 10 or more groupings, mostly improvised. 

 

“I say square and you say round, I say lost and you say found,

I say sky and you say ground, I say sight and you say sound.”

 

I was preparing them for a song by Reggie and Kim Harris called One Little Step Toward Freedom. The title line is sung three times and concludes with “And we’re marching the rest of the way!” Then comes the next section and here’s where they rhymes come in handy: 

 

“Freedom all night and freedom all day. 

Freedom when you work and freedom when you play.

Freedom all day and freedom all night.

Freedom if you’re black and freedom if you’re white.”

 

To make the song come fully alive, they have to take two strong shapes as they sing “Free-dom!” and then act out the rhymed opposites above in movement. But besides the musical, kinisthetic and linguistic skills, I always want to give a greater context to the song. So I talked to them a bit about Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement. How he tried to talk to the leaders to remind them to give all people the rights that the Consitution promised, but the leaders wouldn’t listen. So he had to gather people out in the streets to protest against this unfair treatment by walking peacefully and holding signs and singing songs. How one day, the children decided to leave school to join the protests and were harassed and hurt by the police, the very people who were paid to protect them. And then we returned to the song, standing up to sing it and dance it.

 

These first graders sang well and did the activity okay, but after about five minutes, their little 1^st-grade minds were churning and burning with questions and they kept raising their hands. They were working me hard to come up with on-the-spot answers! (In italics)

 

“What happened to the kids? Did they lose the battle?”

 

Some did get hurt and some put in jail, but when the TV cameras showed the whole country what was happening, it helped change things. So in the long run, they kind of won the battle. But not all the way. We’re still having to fight for those rights!!

 

“ Did any of the police try to protect them?”

 

I might be wrong, but I don’t think a single one did. It would take a great courage to go against what all the other police were doing and even though they should have known it was wrong, they all grew up with terrible stories that told them it was all right to do what they did.”

 

“Did Martin Luther King become the President?”

 

I wish! He actually was going to run for President (true story! With Dr. Spock as his running mate) but something happened and he couldn’t. (I didn’t tell them what.)

 

“How come America always helps out people in other countries but doesn’t help the people in their own country?”

 

How old are you?!! That is such an amazing question! If you find out the answer, let me know!”

 

They were on fire with curiosity and indignation! If I had another class with them, I might have shown a few of these photos and if they were a bit older, shared this link from the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C. (worth your time to check out “children’s crusade” at: https://nmaahc.si.edu/ )

In another class, I sang the song John Henry to 5-year-olds and they got so quiet, as they always do, when I sang the phrase “he laid down his hammer and he died.” I then told them how he won the contest against the machine trying to get his job. How he beat the boss who was trying to replace him with something that wouldn’t complain or take lunch breaks or question the boss’s decision and would make him more money. But in another way, John Henry also lost, because “he drove so hard that he broke his heart.” But then again, he also won because we are remembering him in this song and people who are remembered are kept alive. No one is singing a song honoring that stupid steam drill. 

 

One of the observing teachers noted that many schools had discouraged her from singing to the children about death and insisted on only happy, positive songs. Part of this false modern idea that children need to be protected from life’s harsh realities, be it a protest or Aunt Rhody’s goose dying. What they really need to be protected from, and what we fail so miserably at, is the NRA’s assault rifles, the hateful speech of ex-Presidents, the Wall Street moguls who purposefully addict them to fast food and sensational violent video games, the boldface lies of Presidential candidates who claim that “American never was a racist country.” All of that is okay, but God forbid they hear about John Henry or Aunt Rhody.

 

I think kids need to know about life’s joys and sorrows and of course, they already do and certainly will continue to do so. They don’t need to feel that discussing these things is some weird forbidden fruit. What they actually need is the sense the adults understand how to bear up under life’s travails and can give them some tools to do the same. They need to be gifted with the container of art to hold all their strong feelings, be they happy or sad. So that when their pet hamster dies, they know how to give it a ritual farewell with poetry, artwork, songs, and heartfelt speech. When politicians fail to uphold the promises of Democracy, the children need to know how to speak out against it and even take to the streets, armed with powerful protest songs. 

 

My two takeaways from today:

 

• Kids are so capable of a beautiful outrage.

 

• They’re so starved for some real talk. 

 

It’s time to tell them the truth. Gently and with force. And with a song at our side.