NEO Literacy Corps

Let Them Sing

My great story this month has less to do directly with literacy, and more to do with feeling lucky to spend a big part of my holiday season in the neighborhood centers. If kids can’t get you out of a Grinchy, holiday funk, then I’m not really sure what can. Aside from just the holidays, December housed a tragedy that shook the entire country—even the entire world. I remember making holiday-shaped sugar cookies with a group of first and second graders the day of the news. I left the center in the evening covered in flour, almost in tears, and found myself turning on holiday music for the first time of the year when I got into my car. I was so thankful for Goodrich-Gannett Neighborhood Center that day.

A week later, it was the student’s last day of classes before their anticipated two week break. Each of the centers prepared their own array of holiday programming that would be performed for their family and friends. I watched and helped as tiny students tried to pin down the words to “Little Drummer Boy,” as a group of fourth graders prepared a holiday, hip hop dance routine, and as another group memorized the lines of festive poetry to be recited. What I didn’t see, for reasons I could later explain, was one young man practicing his rendition of a well-known Christmas gospel.

Lexington-Bell Community Center’s Annual Christmas Program was the last holiday spectacular I would view before heading home to begin my holiday vacation. The program was great. The costumes were creative, cute, and some were just awkward enough to cause a bit of comedic relief (i.e. the three year old group who had been dressed up in wrapping paper covered boxes to each look like a walking, talking gift).

Just as everyone prepared to get up, give hugs and head out into the blizzard, one of the after-school staffers announced that there would be an unplanned performance. A high school student wanted to sing a song for everyone. As the room grew quiet again, we watched as a young man walked to the front and grabbed the microphone in a perfectly confident way. I had met this student the first day I started this year. He is extremely kind, light-hearted, and had been diagnosed as developmentally delayed from a young age. To me, he is the student who helped turn around one of my most difficult days of service early in the year by saying, “I’m really glad you’re here today.”

He began belting out the lyrics of a Christmas gospel—one I had never heard— but one that many around me seemed to know quite well. Soon, the whole room was clapping along. I was clapping, too. The smiles in the room were huge. It was the best energy you could imagine being surrounded by. The song continued for five minutes or so. I knew I loved that moment, but it took me til the next day to put it even more into perspective.

This is just one reason, but one of the best reasons, that moment was so great: I have become a part of a place where students feel comfortable enough to be themselves.

Valuable lesson learned:

If a student wants to sing, let them sing. It will likely help them grow in more ways than you can even see.

Thanks for that, Lexington-Bell.

- Written by Ellyn