Tonight, I had the pleasure of attending the Primary Choir Concert at our school. Under the wonderful direction of Stefanie Ledroit and Paul Mitchison, the Primary Choir won the gold medal at our Board’s Choirfest this year, and listening to the students tonight, I definitely understand why. What got me most of all though, and actually inspired this post tonight, was how the concert began. Instead of having the students standing up and singing to start, the students sat in the audience with their parents. Then, as a group of parents, grandparents, siblings, staff members, and choir members, we all sang together. Wow!

Earlier this week, I blogged about the importance of the home/school connection, and how we can truly work on parent engagement. Then, days after my blog post, Aaron Puley, the educator that inspired my initial post, reposted what I wrote and contributed some fantastic additions. As always, Aaron got me thinking again about other ways to engage parents, and tonight I saw a fantastic example of a new way: engage them through music.

Maybe, instead of just being spectators at the many school concerts we have throughout the year, we need to have families and the community get involved, just like Stefanie and Paul did tonight. What a wonderful way for family members to not just “see” what happens at school, but “live” what happens too.

How have you used the Arts to connect the home and school? Thanks Stefanie and Paul for a terrific evening and for giving me so much to think about!

Aviva