Life After Kodaly

Unless you have been through the intense two week music training called Kodaly you will have a hard time understanding where I'm coming from.  I feel like I am now a member of a family I will know for the rest of my life.  As one of the girls in my class put it: "Do you remember how on the first day we timidly walked in to class and was pumped if we saw on person we knew?  And now here we are a big family?!"  So true.  By the last day we were laughing, and singing, and just being a family.  Because when you go through two weeks, 9 hours a day with people, and when every single one of you is mentally, physically, and emotionally stretched to the max....you become a family for life.  I went into this class excepting to learn a music method of teaching.  I left with not only music knowledge....but life knowledge. 

My methodology teacher, Jo Kirk, is one of the most inspirational people I have ever met.  After pulling long nights of grading our papers, she would come in each morning on 3 hours of sleep and have more energy then the 23 people in our class put together.  Do you know why?  Because she loves what she does.  If there is one thing I learned this week, it is to have JOY in whatever I do.  Mrs. Jo told us on day one "I don't teach music.  I teach life, and music is my tool."  I want that to be me.  I want to have so much joy that I teach life through music. 

It may sound nerdy, but on the last day when Mrs. Jo showed us how to connect teaching rhythm and teaching melody together, water works started when she told us this is the first time children will "see" real music.  And that is why we do what we do.  We couldn't stop crying as she read Eric Carle's "A Very Hungry Caterpillar" and gave us each a butterfly, telling us she was releasing us after 2 weeks in our "cocoon" where it hurt, and we wanted to quit.  And now "I am releasing you beautiful butterflies into the world, to go spread the joy you have found in music."  Just thinking about it makes me cry again....

And now...I'm back to life.  How does one come back to life after an experience like what I just went through?  I have been changed in so many ways.  To know that I have all this joy and love and want to share it with students in my own classroom next year...and to know I don't have a classroom...that's hard.  It makes me wonder too many things.  All the questions of who am I, why am I here, and what is my purpose arise.  My purpose is in Christ, and to spread His love with the world.  I don't know why I am here on this earth.  I don't know what God has in store for me.  I do know that I want to do it to the best of my ability no matter what the cost.  I sacrificed everything for two weeks to gain knowledge, but He sacrificed everything to draw me to Him. 

And knowing that gives me joy.  The joy of knowing Christ loves me, and the joy of loving music.  The joy of spreading Christ's love, and the joy of spreading music.  There is nothing better in life.

Joyfully in His love,

Susanna