Proud of you :I

I just had a performance day for one of my quieter classes. The kids are from 5th to 7th grade, nice but just quiet. They asked if they could sing this song, "Proud of You." I was like, sure, whatever makes you happy.


http://www.petalia.org/Songs/proudofyou.htm

You have to click on that link and install the activex control. Just so you can know my pain. This song is what happens when music dies and starts to decompose.

In addition to being insipid, it's really hard to sing- the notes are just too high. But these poor kids just sang their hearts out.

And then, two girls said they could play it on their recorders. And they played very accurately, but you know what recorders sound like. And I have something wrong with me that I don't like high pitches- like violins played less than absolutely perfectly just send chills down my spine.

In order to save them from learning dance moves, we had them hold a candle and dimmed the lights. A couple of full-time CTs came to watch us practice and one got tears in her eye, she thought it was so beautiful.

But all the kids loved it. The parents seemed to love it. So it goes.

I remember in 4th grade we learned to play the flutophone- the short cheap cousin of the recorder- and played it to the tune of "Somewhere Out There" from a movie about Feival (sp?) the Mouse. I reminded myself of that- things worse than my students singing "I'm proud that I can fly/ until the end of time/ the heaven in the sky" have been inflicted on humanity.