Last semester my older students did a study on music and how it affects politics and social change. (That may or may not be normal for middle school choir to discuss, I'm not sure. Seeing as I have never had any training on being a middle school music teacher, sometimes I kind of wing it. Like most things in life). Out of all of things we studied, one of them was a video that will.i.am made* to (what I consider) one of the most inspiring speeches ever. If you haven't seen it, check it out here.
This semester, while discussing the scholar's choice for the African American History Concert, they came to the consensus that they wanted to perform the speech from the video. Someday I'm going to tell my kids that their ideas are impossible, but apparently that day has yet to come. They wanted to figure out how to do it, and I decided to support them. (Because next to impossible tasks are my favorite ones!) This quickly went from a class idea to a whole school project. I was able to recruit another teacher who works part time as a videographer to shoot and edit it during our combined office hours, got all of the teachers to agree to let their kids be a part of it, and another colleague to give up her office for us to use. We all worked together to make this crazy video that my kids wanted to make!
The following is the video that will close our school program on Thursday, it will accompanied by my choir singing their own melody beneath it. I am so proud of the final product, and thankful to Vegan Lady for shooting/editing and J Jantz for recording the piano for us! I've worked really hard on this- I hope you like it!
http://vimeo.com/60775005
My kids are so awesome, I'm so proud!!!
*Because I love will.i.am. A lot. He's one of the most artistic main stream artists out there.
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