Help
me out here, teachers. When you're weary and feeling small and so on--where do
you turn for musical inspiration? What songs and artists ring your good-teacher
chimes? If you never use music in this way, preferring chocolate, text-messaging
in the lounge, or watching "Freedom Writers" on HBO again, I'd like
to suggest that music has tremendous power to leverage personal and systemic change.
What music is your personal door to hope and sunshine?

I
have painted this verbal picture to my students many times:

Imagine
a well-dressed, prosperous man and woman from an earlier generation, he in topcoat
and fedora, she in leather gloves and a coat with a fur collar. In this black
and white film, they are looking almost rapturously off into the distance.
Between them is a little girl, holding their hands, her sweet face framed by a hat,
tied with a big bow under her chin. They all appear to be speaking, looking
excitedly at something far away. As the camera moves back, we begin to hear the
soundtrack. The family of three is singing--and soon we see and hear that they
are part of a large throng of people, all of whom are singing with great fervor
and pride. The perspective widens; the crowd is massive, and they are all
focused on a single man standing on a balcony. 

The
man is Adolph Hitler. The song they are singing is Deustschland Uber Alles ("Germany Above All").  Songs are powerful, I tell my students. Songs
can unify nations (or 100,000 Michigan fans in the Big House, something that
many of them have personally experienced)--or send men willingly into battle. A
good song can bring tears to our eyes, stir jubilant memories --or make us get
up and dance. Hitler, using cheap crystal radios, effectively turned patriotic
music into a terrible and authoritarian social movement. I saw the film clip
described above at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.

How
about a more benign and progressive movement: music to honor and inspire the
work of teachers? Music
to lift their spirits and help them find their common joys? I will be meeting
with a few educators next week to work on a teacher leadership project, and I
want to bring them a mix CD of songs for teacher leaders.

Songs
that I have considered: If I Were Brave,
Have a Little Faith, and One Love (from
the Playing for Change CD--where all
the songs could be considered germane to teaching, learning, believing in the
power of the human spirit to educate). My friend and fellow traveler Mary
Tedrow sent a link to Born Again American,
a rallying cry if there ever was one. I wonder: is it too political to be
included in a CD of songs for teacher leadership? Then I decide that teacher
leadership is all about politics.

Help
me out here. Please send suggestions for the very best music--a little jazz, a
little country, a little rock and roll--for teachers.

Thanks to my
friend Rosemary Woods for the wonderful image, shot a couple days ago in Tucson.