Ive been thinking about the passionate discussion on this page this week about the cancellation of Christmas/Winter Concerts and festivals. The discussion posts had more comments than any other topic since the strike ended and I wonder if that amount of energy is signalling a deeper truth for us to consider. Have you been following the latest Massey Lecture series, the one on citizenship/belonging by Adrienne Clarkson? In her first lecture she talked about the fact that we humans are biologically wired to belong; that our very sense of self is biologically dependent on our presence amongst other people. Aboriginal cultures all around the world have always known this hence the concept of ubuntu in Africa and variations on that in other places. I wonder if our Winter/Christmas concerts are so loved because they provide a space for an expression of our belonging to our school communities? That the pride that parents/teachers feel when they see their child/students up on the stage is fuelled by the warmth of the entire community joining in that moment with the parent/teacher. That the concert creates a sense of we that we humans need as much as we need to experience any other basic need. And perhaps the loss of that experience is disconcerting because its so important to us on a basic, biological level. In many discussions about schools and education, discussion about the community created in schools is not central and yet to many of the people who share space and time in a school building, its their experiences within the school community, including and beyond learning, that is most important. Many students prioritize the social aspect of school above anything else for many years after graduation. They do not remember so much the details of daily lessons, but they remember for a lifetime experiences like concerts. Perhaps the Christmas/Winter concerts are about more than the singing of a few songs and the acting out of a few scenes. Perhaps the concerts are one of the few fragments still left in our modern society that have ties back to an ancient time when we spent more time together as communities, in celebration of our belonging.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 18:09:41 +0000
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