This blog was going to be a lightweight affair about how from 8 until 10 this morning,  I was busy giving the six-page final exam for my Vocal Diction & Literature course at Carthage, which included listening as each student, one by one, pronounced words like schiavo (Italian), plötzlich (German), and printemp (French) and posing questions like “outline the major characteristics of Stile Rappresentativo”  or “compare the art songs of Schubert and Schumann” . . .  and by 12 noon I was unexpectedly playing “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” for some adorable first graders at Kathy’s school. As I looked out at those cute faces during our impromptu Christmas sing along,  I was just marveling how I could enjoy the company of both college students and first graders in the course of a single day.   I was also going to say a word about the boys in that class who were singing so fervently – and who did the hand motions of the “snow pants song” so energetically.  I hoped that none of them would fall out of love with singing the way too many boys do as they get older and become so self-conscious about such things.  I hoped that every one of these boys would keep singing through adolescence and on into adulthood, resisting the pressures from peers that shuts up way too many boys when it comes to singing.  (A few girls fall away from singing as well, of course, but not in the numbers that  boys do- and as someone who derives such great pleasure in working with young male singers, this is something I care passionately about.)

That was going to be the focus of this blog.  It seemed fairly important at the time.

But then I walked out of Schulte Elementary School, got into my car,  and was confronted by the awful news out of Connecticut and the school shooting in which twenty innocent children had their young lives senselessly and savagely cut short.   Suddenly,  comparing the songs of Schubert to “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” didn’t seem to matter quite so much.   It still doesn’t.

But I’m also in no position to say anything meaningful about the mind-curdling, heart-crushing loss suffered by those twenty families today.  I think only a parent can even try to understand the uniquely brutal loss that comes in losing one’s own child.  I leave that central sorrow of this event to others, not to minimize it but because it leaves me dumbfounded.

But I do feel moved to talk for a moment about teachers, and how today’s event was not just about terrible violence- but also about the devotion of teachers to their students, a  bond unlike any other.  All day long, amidst an amazing, eloquent outpouring of sorrow and concern,  I found myself utterly captivated by the comments of my many Facebook friends who are public school teachers- for whom today’s tragedy was a very direct, personal blow.  Again and again, I was moved to tears as I read of teachers hugging their students today and feeling an even deeper sense of love and concern for them – mixed with rage at today’s senseless tragedy.  (One of my wife’s colleagues- and a close friend as well- wrote something about having to smile on the outside while screaming inside her head.  Imagine teaching under such circumstances.  It brought back vivid memories of 9-11 and how teachers across the country taught their students that day knowing at least something about the crisis at hand- and of course not being able to reveal their own fears or sorrows to the children.  I know my wife will never forget how hard that day was for her and her colleagues-   and today was a similar day.)

And then tonight,  I watched with many of you as Diane Sawyer interviewed one of the teachers at the school where today’s shooting occurred.  The moment she heard shots from down the hall,  Kaitlin Roig had the presence of mind to hustle her students into the small bathroom inside her classroom (after barricading the door to the hallway with a bookcase) and then keeping those youngsters remarkably calm and quiet,  telling them that there were bad guys in the school and that they had to remain in that small, incredibly crowded restroom until the good guys got there.   And when the police finally did come,  she would not open the door to them because she couldn’t be absolutely certain that the soothing reassuring voice she heard through the door wasn’t the gunman trying to trick her.  She never did let them in, even after they slipped police badges under the door,  and they only gained entrance when they were able to unlock the restroom door.    A mother bear protecting her cubs could not have demonstrated more ferocious devotion and courage than Kaitlin Roig did today.

But what I found even more compelling and moving was when she talked about telling her students “I love you very much.”   As she explained to Diane Sawyer,  Katiln Roig had no way of knowing if they were going to survive,  and she did not want these youngsters’ lives to end without hearing one more time that they were loved.  It’s not something that is normally said by a teacher to their students… but I am sure and it was completely evident in how she spoke of that moment that Kaitlin Roig was not just saying those words for the sake of saying them, for the sake of the comfort that they might bring.  She really loved her students-  and on some very real level, she loved them even before this inexplicable evil entered their school and engulfed their lives.  .  . and not just in the heart of this horror.  And it helped me realize that the eloquent words of teacher after teacher on Facebook today were saying, one way or another, that they love the students they teach . . .  including the ones they scarcely like!  It is part of what it means to be a devoted teacher.

When I began teaching at Carthage 21 years ago, I was not very demonstratively affectionate with my students; they were lucky to get a handshake!  (Amy Haines, with whom I shared a studio back then,  was much freer with such gestures of affection than I was- to the point where it became a source of amusement.)  But there were those moments when the walls of caution came down… most notably the day when a student came into my studio to tell me that her acid reflux issues had caused a nodule to form on one of her vocal folds (one of the scariest things a singer can be told) and in that moment we embraced and cried together without hesitation.  (By the way, she made a fine recovery.)  I think that moment was an important breakthrough for me, when I first became conscious of the wall of reserve which I was  inclined to erect between myself and nearly all of my voice students, as though in defiance of the powerful emotional connection which I suddenly realized was in fact there.   That wall of reserve slowly began to crumble from that point on,  and by now I am not inclined to let important things go unsaid . . . including the occasional “I love you” to a student.  It maybe comes from passing the age of 50 and knowing better and better just how fragile life is and how love matters more than anything.

That’s another essential lesson of which we have all been reminded on this extraordinarily difficult day.

pictured above:   I asked Kathy to snap this picture of me as I was leading some of her first graders in several Christmas songs.  I had come to Schulte to rehearse with her fourth and fifth grade choir for their upcoming concert, and had gone back with her to her room for a quick chat before heading back to Carthage.  Just as I was about to leave, her next class came in… and I just couldn’t leave without saying hi.  At that point, Kathy introduced me to the kids and then announced rather dramatically:  “My husband can play ANY Christmas song on the piano!” (The kids’ eyes got wide at that point,  as though she had just told them that I was a Sword Swallower!)   And with that,  I did my Human Juke Box routine for a few minutes, playing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,”  “Jingle Bells” and “Up on the Housetop” by request.  And boy did they sing!   (By the way,  Kathy took pains to make sure that this photo was taken in such a way that the faces of the students were not visible.)