"Our vision is to create inquisitive and passionate problem solvers by teaching the whole child to become positive contributors to our community."
Like many elementary music teachers in my district, I have an extra-curricular choir that meets before school. Unlike many elementary music teachers in my district, I have close to 90% of the 5th grade class involved in choir.
That means I have 112 kiddos on my roster who show up before school and figure out transportation just so they can hang with each other (and do a wee bit of singing, because let's be real...they come to be with each other!).
As I told their parents at the Winter Concert last week, the high percentage of participation is a true reflection that when their children come home and say, "I want to sign up to do this extra thing at school," that they will help them figure out the logistics that make their wish a reality.
As part of our Winter choir activities, I take the choir on a field trip around our community and then we go about 30 minutes out of town to a fabulous place called The Brookwood Community. Brookwood is self-describes as this: Through the Grace of God, The Brookwood Community provides and educational environment that creates meaningful jobs, builds a sense of belonging, and provides meaning and purpose for adults with disabilities.
In other words, BROOKWOOD IS A WAY COOL PLACE!
I find that our choir's shared experience at Brookwood is the ultimate way that I can truly put an experience to the word "community" in our vision statement.
In talking with our students after the field trip, I always ask them what I could do to make it better for the next year's 5th grade choir. Hands down, many of them said that they'd like to spend more time at Brookwood. Unforunately, due to our schedule on the day of the field trip and their busy programming schedule, we spend just the right amount of time at Brookwood and won't really be able to increase our time; fortunately, the experience that my students had at Brookwood will never seem like it's long enough, because it's just such an incredibly magical place.