Tralala and Holy feedback, Batman!

[ciroccoj]

• Yesterday was the fifth annual Home-Based Learning Network Artsfest, and also the final concert for the HBLN Choir. The Artsfest itself was good. There were children's projects set up all over the gym and a bunch of performances, including our choir. Some kids were amazingly good; some were less so. But they all got a chance to get up and do their stuff in front of an audience, which is overall a good thing.
  
  The choir part was less good. Our director, Mike, had an emergency and couldn't be there, and he asked a friend of his to fill in for us. She was amazing and wonderful but we still ended up singing our pieces far slower and sloppier than normal, and we didn't sing one of our 5 songs at all, because we just couldn't get it together. So that part wasn't great.
  
  The other part that wasn't so good was Daniel's performance. At our Christmas concert, he just sort of stood there for most of the songs, even though he knew the lyrics and could sing them during practice. So I worked on him this term, making sure that he was actually singing, and he improved dramatically.
  
  Then a couple of weeks ago he started spacing out again, and I had a few talks with him about it. For our performance at the senior's home a few weeks ago, I put him on a chair next to me, so I could poke him if he stopped singing, and he sang all the way through, to my great joy. Was going to do the same last night with the chair, but forgot. He ended up standing in front of me and though I could see him moving his lips every so often when he turned a bit, I could also see him just staring off into the distance every so often too.
  
  Chris filmed the whole thing, and said Daniel hardly sang at all. Damn.
  
  Daniel and I are going to watch the film, and learn from it. Bigtime.
  
  
• Re feedback: whoa!
  
  Holy moly. Posting something that you don't expect to get any feedback and getting a bunch of comments, including nitpicks and suggestions and a couple of links - wow! That was way cool!

Comments

[tudorlady.livejournal.com]

Just curious - why doesn't he sing? He seems like he'd like to.

Very truly yours,
Puzzled CF buddy

[ciroccoj.livejournal.com]

Yeah, he does, but for one thing he's not as big a choir nut as I am, and for another, he's a very spacey kid. His mind is often off in a world of dragons and ninjas and lightsabers and elves, to the detriment of the real world around him. Yes, choir is fun. But if he's tired or thinking about a game or something like that, he'll tune out choir, pardon the pun.

One of the things we'll be working on next year is self-discipline. Regular school doesn't give him much of a challenge academically, and a little too much of a challenge socially. So he spaces out when he's supposed to be learning/working, and freaks out when he's supposed to be Working And Playing Well With Others.

We hope to buck both trends next year ;)