Today was our in-school orchestra concert. Two of our elementary schools go on tour for the day and get to play at both our school as well as a second elementary school. We all huddled together on the gym floor, anxious to hear the performance as we currently have a new orchestra teacher who arrived in December as our permanent sub for the Spring. From his interactions with the students, it is easy to see he is dedicated and passionate and loving towards everyone. He has a strong passion to change the world and to change student lives through music. This is abundantly apparent in the spring in his step as he walks down the hallway to his smiles and vibrant voice as he is teaching a lesson in a small group. The students are always engaged asking questions and he very clearly (through my listening) lets them experiment and talk and play and become excited about their instruments as makers of peace. 

The performance began with two beautiful numbers both different from one another. However, I would be remiss if I did not mention how impressed I was when everyone was filing into the auditorium, he had a single student play a warmup and the other students would repeat back like a call and response, mutual understanding. They passed this call and response on from leader to leader until it was time to begin. The students were clearly the leaders from the start. 

As we came close to the end of the performance after a beautiful moving piece and then a jazz tune, he explained to the audience that the best kind of concert/place to be in music is understanding that if the students listen to eachother, they should not need a conductor (and this is the ultimate goal.) The students began a piece entitled "Appalchian Springs" and he very quietly walked off the stage and let them listen and play together. I worked hard to blink away the tears that were welling up for two reasons: 

1. Here was a teacher embarking upon his first orchestra concert ever, and he immedietely trusted the students to follow one another, listen and play how they needed to play. 

2. There was a mutual respect amongst teacher and student I have not seen in a while. A reminder that we are not teachers to be deemed "the most powerful." Students should always be given a voice. For this is the main purpose behind student-centered education. 

I shook his hand after the performance remarking upon his beautiful performance but also his beautiful methodology. And he responded with, "Thank you. Well I just really love it. I love what I do." 

You know sometimes teachers need not have the most superb technique, the most refined approach or even the most "commonplace" methodology. Here is a teacher who taught himself how to play strings while in music school himself. His main instrument is actually guitar. Those who teach, who truly teach, who make a difference, are the ones that place their trust within the student, they do whatever they can do instill dreams and novel pathways and always remember that at the end of the day, we do what we do because we want to build relationships, we want to multiply whimsy within our schools and our programs. We want to build those relationships with our students so that they will trust us and listen to us when we say, "Every dream begins with a small violin, some gumption and the confidence to experiment and try again and listen." Every single one of us, at some point in our lives need to walk off the stage and trust that we have passed on enough whimsy that it will begin multiplying with better approaches and future leaders of tomorrow. 

Sometimes you have to let go every once and a while to stand back and just listen to the whimsy occurring right in front of your very eyes.