At Chabot Elementary, we teach children to be kind and inclusive, to stand up to hate and bullying, celebrate diversity, take risks, and to do their part to make the world a better place. Today, our children are exposed to a world in which these values are often at odds with what they see and hear in the news and on social media. As a teacher I've struggled a lot with these discordant realities.
I wrote the song Focused and Fearless for our students. As advocacy month at Chabot approached in January, I approached Mrs. Cannon about doing a school-wide video project. From the get go, Mrs. Cannon was fully supportive and enthusiastic. I reached out to Mrs. Reese who was excited to collaborate through media. As it turned out, 5th graders were already researching activists in media class. We decided that fourth graders would research protest art. Third graders learned about two well known protest songs: "Imagine" by John Lennon and "This Land Is Your Land" by Woody Guthrie. We focused on the latter in music class and learned how to play it on recorders and xylophones.
I introduced the song using the book "I Am love, A Book Of Compassion" by Susan Verde as a discussion prompt.
During the months of January and February we learned, sang and choreographed the chorus to Focused and Fearless. During that time we also learned about about the history of social change movements in America. 3rd, 4th and 5th grade students saw a slide show of iconic images from protests throughout American history which inspired some of their ideas for the video.
Students in Mrs. Diamond's 3rd grade class were inspired by this image of a Vietnam war protest. We quickly decided to take out the guns and focus on the flowers. The students then decided that instead of flowers, we ought to "make it rain oragami". And so we did.
4th graders researched protest signs such as this one from a recent youth climate strike to create their own art about issues that mattered to them. The signs that Ms. Rychel's class are holding up on stage in the video and below were student-created in media class.
This image of solidarity from the March on Washington during the Civil Rights Movement inspired part of the choreography for the chorus.
In addition to the slide show, students saw a video of current youth climate activists (that video is at the end of this post) and used it as a spring board to discuss what it takes to organize a music advocacy video. Students noted the spirited energy, focus and dedication and the fact that some words in the song were represented visually with letters. This inspired students to bring the same attentive energy to rehearsals and the video shoot and to create letters to spell out the words "love" and "dedication" and the phrase "yes we can!".
I was amazed at the level of creativity and dedication that the students brought to this project.
One day Robbie and Aya from Mrs. Diamond's class showed up, unprompted, with a large box full of oragami that they had made for the class to use. Several of Mrs. Diamond's students joined me over a couple of recess periods to create the original art that they hold up during their part of the video which represents leaving an angry world full of wilted flowers for a blossoming new spring.
After the students came up with the idea of spelling out words in the song, I asked Ms. Shield and Ms. Rychel's classes to sign up to create the letters. Almost all of them came with their letters the next week without a reminder. Using the art created in media, students decided that the signs would lower from hidden faces to show that "fear is only the unknown". What a powerful image.
Flora from Ms. Romo's class noted about the creative process that "It was really cool how we had one idea then we switched it and switched it again". It was this sort of back and forth that resulted in the image below with streamers that "make change with new vibrations" in the middle.
5th graders decided to create tableaus to show bullying with onlookers who were either dismayed or indifferent. I thought this idea really captured the crux of the mixed messaging young people are getting from adults in positions of power.
Ms. Johnson's class decided to do a step dance to introduce the video and Ms. Johnson herself stepped up (pun intended) to lead it. What a fantastic introduction they created. Students Enzo and Bedilu described frame by frame how they imagined the credits at the beginning. I think we got close to their vision. We were going to have students all wear the same thing. Otto suggested that it might take away from students individuality or "just showing that we're kids". I'm glad that we decided to go with his idea.
Mr. Wong and Mr. Agajan's classes creatively choreographed their own sections and all the K-2 classes gave focus and dedication to make the choruses come to life.
It was amazing timing that the large group choir section was slated to be filmed on Friday, March 13th in the last hour of the day. This was the last day that we were on the campus for the school year. It was originally intended to be the whole school during an assembly but due to restrictions art that time. we were only allowed to gather 100 students. Mrs. Ettinger, Shaugnessy, Todaro and Johnson's classes all stepped up to participate and gave 45 minutes of fantastic focus and dedication as we recorded vocals, claps and then video for both. (I later realized that it would have never worked in an all school assembly).
Many students were inspired by an aerial photograph of a human peace sign and wanted to do the same with the whole school creating a heart on the kickball field to end the video. Unfortunately, this was slated for the following week and didn't get filmed. Fortunately, Ms. Margaret won a few giant bags of paper flowers in the online auction and generously donated them to our cause. These are the flowers that students are throwing into the air at the end of the video.
We had twelve 5th graders slated to record vocals for the verses the Tuesday after school closed. They were all invited to submit virtually but understandably only a few of them could. Celia, Katherine, Elliot H and his brother Nicholas sound much larger than four people and it feels like the classes are all singing in the video. Their parents helped to make this happen.
Parent and producer Ben Bernstein (Dhalia, first grade) generously donated his time to mix and master the audio which sounds amazing. Mrs. Ettinger's husband Jon runs a video editing company and had one of his very talented editors Cameron organize and edit together all of the video. Thanks to Ben and Cameron, the result is a very polished production. Additionally, parent Roger Cox (Niema, 4th and Imani, Kinder) lent his incredible saxophone skills to the recording. Parent Paul Erskine (Juliette, 4th and Nicholas, 2nd ) lent me his camera for the whole shoot and parent Danny Pestal (Finn, 1st grade) took the footage of the large choir group. Parent Briana Owens (Bear, 1st grade) donated all the professionally printed signs such as "Stay Loud" and "Rise Up". Parents Isabella and Roger Gardner (Hazel, 3rd grade) lent us a professional tripod to capture moving shots. Mrs. McCarthy helped me in working with the 4th graders and along with Andre and the 5th grade team (Ms. Battiest, Ms. Asklar and Ms. Warda) generously gave up some instructional time so that I could work with the entire 5th grade. So many people gave time and energy to supporting the project. It was truly a community effort!
Please feel free to share the video with anyone who you think might enjoy it. In these challenging times this video offers us all hope and inspiration. As Emilina, a 4th grader noted, "It was great to have our friends together in the video before we left school". We will get back there again. I hope this video brought you as much joy as we had in making it.
In Community,
Mr. Schraft
P.S. Here is the video of current youth climate activists that we referenced earlier in the post.
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