Page 50 - CJOct24

CHORAL CONVERSATIONS
CHORAL CON VERSA TION S

Middle School in Tallahassee. When you get a lot of overwhelmingly liked each other.
middle school kids excited to sing with college stu- When we first began this partnership, I paired my
dents, the nonsense that comes out of their mouths university students with their senior singer buddies. I
is often hysterical. And there were wonderful things was working on a paper at the time, so I was collect-
about Middle School Memphis. But if I had to choose ing data hoping to show the world that music could
only one partnership, I think I would say the MTC change ideas and opinions. I had been reading about
Glee Club, involving women in prison singing with how older people really get sick and tired of adoles-
buddies from the Florida State University choir (Photo cents and college-aged folks. And college students get
1). I believe it is fair to say that every single FSU stu- really impatient with older people, so I planned a pre/
dent experienced at least one epiphany while working posttest to measure changes in attitudes. I passed out
with individual buddies in the prison choir. We always pre-surveys and asked the seniors to rate their feelings
included time in the middle of rehearsal for collective on a continuum between two adjectives (thoughtful/
activities with students and their buddies that did not selfish, etc.) about adolescents and university students.
involve singing. I focused on an ABA rehearsal format Conversely, I asked the university buddies to rate the
(the B section was a communication circle for discus- same scale but responding about their attitudes toward
sions). It was truly life changing in many different ways senior citizens. I was a bit surprised by responses (much
for all of us. more negative than expected for both groups).
Early in this partnership, it hit me so deeply when Across the semester of rehearsal during the B of the
one woman in the prison choir walked up to me and ABA format, each pair discussed assigned topics and
said, “Dr. Bowers, I just wanna tell you I didn’t want then analyzed together how old and young might view
to come to choir today. You know, I wanted to sing, things differently and perhaps some reasons why. Dur-
but I just felt I’ve had the worst day of my life. But ing the connection time (the B portion of rehearsal),
I feel much better now. Our songs saved me today.” these barriers started to break down. After the post-
That day opened my eyes to the experience of these test, the attitude scores were a bit higher, though not
women and what music and this collaboration meant by much. However, most of the seniors wrote notes on
to them. We learn (and teach) so much the back of their score sheets explaining to me that they
empathy through partnerships like this answered honestly about people in general, but their
one. Watch a video about this partnership that college buddies were clearly not the ones honking at
was put together by the Gadsden Correctional them when the stoplight turned green. They assured
Facility. Either scan the QR code or visit me that the FSU students were far superior than other
https://tinyurl.com/5n7xr63c. young people in the world. (Of course they were not.
There are good people everywhere!) These college stu-
That sounds tremendously rewarding. How dents weren’t the ones revving their engines loudly or
did that empathy impact other collaborations speeding around them on the local roads. They had
for you and your students? genuinely made some true connections through their
stories and sharing of life experiences.
Helping others provides reinforcement all on its I will not forget the day a senior buddy responded to
own. However, not only is contributing to others ben- a discussion prompt about some memorable moment
eficial, it’s the insight that occurs from having multi- involving music that was personally important. He was
ple people know something about others, even when British and spoke of being in London during World
people are simply able to accept the differences. This War II and enduring the heavy bombing. The power
was particularly apparent to me in the Adopt-a-Choir was out, there was no food or water, and he sat through
with the Senior Singers (a county funded group of se- either stone silence or extremely loud bomb explosions.
nior citizens who sang in a partnership choir with FSU Police sent everyone into the underground train sta-
singers). Ultimately, when they knew each other, they tions and told them to silently stay there or risk injury

48 CHORAL JOURNAL October 2024 Volume 65 Number 3