S1: E16 Song Collecting with Becca Buck

Song Collecting with Becca Buck
Season 1: Episode 16

Becca Buck is the K-5 elementary music teacher at M.W. Savage and Gideon Pond Elementary Schools in the Burnsville-Eagan-Savage school district in Minnesota.  She is in her seventh year teaching and just finished her Master's degree this past summer at the University of St. Thomas, which is also where she did her undergrad work.  She recently presented at the Minnesota Music Educator's Association Conference on her Master's Project: "A Culturally Relevant Kodaly-Inspired Classroom" with her friend Qorsho Hassan.  You can read more about her work here:  Songs From Home Article.

Transcript From the Show

Jessica:  Becca, thanks so much for talking with us today.

Becca:  Yeah, absolutely.  I'm happy, happy to be able to share my stuff so...

Jessica:  Yeah, I'm excited.  So how did you become a music educator.

Becca:  Well, I started to play the piano when I was five and I really started to feel that passion for music around third grade so I started to think about if I wanted to be a professional pianist.  Music teacher never even crossed my brain.  I always did want to be a teacher of some sort.  My mom used to make fun of me because I would - well not make fun of me - but she thought it was cute that I would sit on the end of my bed and read picture books to a pretend class.  And I was like sitting on the floor and she used to peek in on me and giggle and I was, like, kind of embarrassed.  So I always felt like I wanted to be a teacher.  Then in high school when I started to figure out my career path, I started to want to be a vet for a while.  Then I just became really sad at the idea of not having music in my life 'cause like in my friends group I was like the music person and then in high school I was known for getting the solos and playing for the choir and stuff.  So I kind of identified myself as a music person.  I enrolled at St. Thomas for the music education program and I've never looked back since.  I wasn't one of those kids who changed majors or doubted it even for a second.  I just woke up every day so excited to go to class and so excited to do my homework and my social life - I just didn't even care that I didn't have a social life during college because I was just so focused on my career path and I was so excited about it.  Yeah, so it was kind of engrained in me.

Jessica:  Yeah.  Did you know right away when you were studying in college that you wanted to do elementary music?  Or were you thinking more secondary?

Becca:  I was really open and passionate about everything and even when I student taught, after I student taught elementary I thought, "Wow I'm really, really loving this," but then I student taught in high school choir classroom and I thought, "Wow I really, really love this for so many other reasons."  So I honestly applied for everything that I could find and I got hired in the elementary and yeah, just it was a perfect fit from the start so... My whole Masters work has been with elementary stuff, Kodaly concentration, yeah - I couldn't imagine not doing elementary now.

Jessica:  Yeah.  That's awesome.  Are you at the same school that you went to after your undergrad?  Or have you been to a couple of different schools?

Becca:  Yeah, I'm actually still at the school I got hired at right out of graduation.  I got hired through a Skype interview.

Jessica:  Oh really?

Becca:  Because I was down in Lousiana and I was getting interview requests, but I said I was going to be in Louisiana for a month so some people still wanted to set up Skype interviews.  So, yeah, he called me back within half an hour and asked if I wanted the job and I've been at that school ever since.  And then three years ago our district, kind of, split teachers between schools so now I started at another school.  So I'm currently split between two schools in my district.  I love both dearly, but one is my home school and then the other one is kind of whatever they need me for to fill in certain classes.

Jessica:  And what grades do you teach?

Becca:  I'm K-5.

Jessica:  How often do you see your students?

Becca:  My schedule's a little goofy.  I see them for one week out of the month and then I don't see them for three weeks because we have four different specialists so they see each specialist for a week.  And the purpose behind that is because we have so many traveling teachers, they wanted it to just be a block of time to be at our schools instead of moving us every day.  So it's kind of a bummer when it's a three day week because I'll see them for three days, but then I won't see them for three and a half weeks.  And especially when you throw in winter vacation and spring break.  The Polar Vortex came through in Minnesota so no one could leave their houses.  So it was four days of just everyone just being stuck inside.  So I saw my kids for one day for like seven weeks essentially.  Yeah.  Kind of a crazy schedule and it's not ideal and it's not a great way to build skill, but it's kind of making do with what we have.

Jessica:  Making it work.  Yeah.  As most teachers do.  You know, you take what you're given and make the best out of whatever that schedule looks like.

Becca:  Exactly.

Jessica:  And how do you do programs then?

Becca:  We've had to cut a lot, like I had to cut my choir program because I was being split between schools and it was like an extra-curricular thing.  I know a lot of music teachers will collaborate with other specialists and ask if they can combine all of like the art, music, phy. ed class for the day in the gym to practice their programs.  I do a sing-a-long in the winter and then I do an international night in the spring. International night I just have to plan a couple of months out and then practice that song with the kids every single day that I have them leading up to it and then hoping for the best, pretty much.

Jessica:  And do a lot of your students show up to the programs?  Are they able to come?

Becca:  Well, the sing-a-long is during the day so that's everyone.  Then the International Night is more of whoever wants to show up because in the public school it's hard to get families to commit to being able to drive, and taking off work, and all that stuff.  So, for me, I make it so that whoever shows up can be successful, essentially, so we usually do, just like a large group song and...

Jessica:  Yeah

Becca:  Yeah

Jessica:  Is your population of your school pretty diverse?

Becca:  Yeah, it's, depending on the school.  My home school has a lot more Hispanic families than my other school.  Then my other school, Gideon Pond, has a way higher Somali population than my home school.  So between the two of them, the reason behind the song collection, is because I have such large populations of so many, I really wanted to be able to get at all of my kids and not just my white kids or just my Spanish speakers or whatever songs I have that week.  So it's pretty diverse.

Jessica:  You saw the need to get other resources and other songs that would reach your students.

Becca:  Yeah, yeah.  So especially because of my high Somali population, I was noticing that I'm able to supplement my repertoire with Spanish songs for my Spanish speakers and English songs for my English speakers and like a song from Liberia because I know I have a couple Liberian students.  And there's just, there's no Somali songs that have been notated that I would put into my curriculum that would be good for elementary voices.  So there's this common misconception from several years ago when we started to have a lot more Somali kids in our classrooms.  They would tell us that music wasn't allowed in their homes and we're like, okay - music is taboo in the Somali culture, but as time goes on and families are beginning to talk to each other about how the public school system works, like it's okay to go to music class and Qorsho does a really great job about sharing why there is that misconception and misunderstanding in the Somali community has to do with the diversity of the culture and how families are interpreting the Quran, the teachings of the Quran around music.

So I was like, I see these kids making music and I see them playing games, I know that it exists.  I need to find it so that I can represent those kids in my classroom and let share about their culture and let them have that ownership in music class because they just, they haven't and that's like heartbreaking to me because I try to be as culturally relevant as possible and so it stemmed out of that need for Somali songs and the fact that I just couldn't find any.  So I was like, "Okay, well I'm going to my primary source and I'm going to be like Zoltan Kodaly and Bela Bartok and Cecil Sharp and I'm going to go to families and collect these songs and share them with everyone else in a safe and contained environment.

Jessica:  And did you start with older grades or did it just come out naturally and you just started asking students for pieces?  Or where did you - where did you begin?

Becca:  Well, I started by drafting a letter for the families and I was gonna give that to all of my families and ask them to go home and teach their kids songs and blah blah blah, but I didn't want them to be teaching them songs.  I wanted songs to be songs that the kids grew up with.  Like that they would just know more internally than if they just came to me and said, "Oh my mom taught this song to me last week... ugh I can't remember the words…ugh."  That's not what I wanted.  I wanted something that was so ingrained like them, in them like the alphabet song might be for an English speaker or like Zapatito Blanco is used in the Spanish speaking as like an elimination game.  I wanted those specifically.  So I talked to every single class and I explained that I'm working on my Master's Degree at St. Thomas, we talked about what that means as an adult and that I wanted to do this project of collecting these songs from them and how cool it was that they could speak all these different languages because it's so lame that I can only speak one language and I don't get to know all these songs.  And they were so excited.  Because then I started naming all these examples of songs in different languages that they knew and so...

Yeah, I started to talk with all my classes about it and it was very overwhelming at first because every single class wanted to share right away.  So then I had to lay out some ground rules.  I said, "Okay, so my prep is right at the beginning of the day so come in right after you eat breakfast and I will give you the iPad and you can record it.  Or go home and think about it and if you would like to share with the class, we could that a little bit each day.  So a lot of kids really wanted to share with their classmates and they would share the song and the game that would accompany.

It was really incredible to watch some of my kids who would just blend into the background because they weren't confident about their English-speaking skills and they would teach this entire game in a different language, in their native tongue.  And just watching them flourish and take my microphone and they were like commanding in the class.  I have my little Spanish speaker Ricardo - he taught us this song called Lobo Lo Bifo and it's like this game with this wolf chasing the other animals around.  And he did the whole thing in Spanish and explained the whole song and I've never heard him talk that much.  It was so incredible.  I was like in the corner just wanting to cry just watching him take over.  And then I would just use my expertise and knowing how to scaffold things if I knew that the students was kind of struggling to get the class to do a certain thing, I would assess the situation and then step in where I needed to, but for the majority those kids were the teacher for that five or ten minutes; however they wanted to take.  It was incredible.

Jessica:  Yeah, that's amazing.  I love that they just started leading and you mentioned the one student, who hadn't maybe said as much for a while, just took control and was really confident about leading and sharing what they know and their culture and the songs, a song that's meaningful to them.  What types of songs have students shared?

Becca:  A lot of songs that accompany games and that just kind of speaks to the folk tradition in any culture that music just kind of accompanies games in childhood.  But a lot of alphabet songs in different languages.  A lot of Happy Birthdays in different languages.  So I just kind of grouped birthday songs and anything that went with any sort of celebration and called them Celebration Songs.  And then a large amount of lullabies.  And I mean, it seems kind of obvious, but I'm assuming that's what the kids are most familiar with in their childhood, just from their moms and dads singing to them as they're going to sleep.  I'm just thinking about when you dramatic play and when you're playing with a doll, you're going to start singing a lullaby naturally to it.  So I got a lot of lullabies in different languages and that was a trend in the Somali collection.  There was so many lullabies that I got to collect and yeah, they learn them from their moms.  Their moms and their Aunts are like the two most common sources for those.  And I asked if their dads ever sang to them and they gave me a look like, "no."  So I, you know, I don't want to make that generalization, but you know, family to family.  But I, yeah, none of the Somali kiddos learned from their fathers.  I kind of made that connection that it seems to be like a motherly duty and when I asked Qorsho about that she said that the Mothers take it on as their duties to be singing during any type of transition throughout the day - so calling them off the playground or waking them up or helping them go to sleep.  The Somali mothers do a lot of singing to their kiddos in that way.

Jessica:  What has been the connection then between the students as a result of them sharing their personal music pieces and part of their culture in your classroom?  How has that affected, basically how has it affected your classroom but the student relationships too?

Becca:  Yeah, the relationships between me and the student have grown enormously because I was able to, like the kiddos who did choose to share their songs, I was able to spend ten or fifteen minutes with each of those kids, which is huge for a specialist who sees 600 kids.  You can never really build those relationships so you can see it just in the connection between me and the kid.  We'll just like look at each other and give each other like a nod or a hug or a smile and you just have a strong relationship with that kid.

And then I also just see it in their daily participation and engagement in music.  They seem a lot more; it seems like they feel like they belong there.  Like music class is for them now and not just a class that they go to.  A lot of kids have shared out more and are more willing to share and they get really excited if I start to bring up anything in their language whether it's in Somali or Spanish or of course English, but I feel like English-speakers get it all day so it's not as, it doesn't seem as valuable to them.  It's not perceived as special to them.  Whereas I start to speak in Spanish for my little Spanish speakers and they light up and they start to speak back to me and I'm like, "Woh- un poco, un poco.  I can't speak that much!"

And then a lot of times my kids aren't expecting me to speak Somali or to be singing in Somali.  I can't speak Somali.  I can sing the song that I know, but so a lot of times I'll turn out the lights and I'll say, "Alright, I'm going to sing you a song that some of you might know."  You can tell some kids are like, "Oooh, what is it? What is it?  What is it?"   And then they shut their eyes.  I have them shut their eyes and like we're actually going to sleep.  And then I start to sing like the (Somali song lyrics) and all of my Somali kids are go, "Ah!!"   And they just light up and all of my English speakers are like, "I don't know what she's singing, like."  And just the changing of the roles in that, it's so refreshing to see them being able to own that and being able to share.

'Cause then I'll stop and I'll sing it a couple times through and I'm like, "Okay say Hooyo - what does that mean in Somali?"  It means mother.  Okay- raise your hand when you hear the word hooyo or how many times do I say seyho?  That means - it means sleep!"  I ask them different context questions for the songs so they can start to connect with it a little bit, but then I stop and I ask any kiddo who wants to share who connects with that song, "Oh where did you learn that?  Like who taught it to you?  When did your mom or your auntie or whoever sang it to you, when did they sing it to you?  Do you know it?  Do you know a different version of it?"  And then if they want to share that stuff, I'm very, very inviting with it.  I'm never going to force them.  I'm never going to label the kid and say, "Oh hey - you look Somali.  Do you know this song?"  Like that'd be incredibly inappropriate so I just allow them to share if they want to and just some kids don't want to share and that's totally fine, but giving them that invitation, it's really opened up so many lines of communication and just watching them feel like it belongs to them.  Like finally it belongs to them.  Something in music class belongs to them and it's not a language struggle and it's not something that doesn't make sense to them.

Jessica:  That's probably really special for them.

Becca:  Yeah, I hope so.  I hope so.

Jessica:  I think so.  Are there any songs that you can share or sing?

Becca:  Yeah, so I'll say this song a couple of times through just so people can hear it - the pronunciation - if you're interested.  Just go ahead and include the whole master copy and notes if you'd like because I kind of have the instructions on the bottom along with a note about the Somali 'x' and how that's pronounced.  I'm being careful not to appropriate anything and so my fear with sharing songs is people not receiving the context behind it.

Jessica:  That makes sense though.  Making sure it's authentic.

Becca:  I'm afraid of taking it and like this doesn't belong to me.  You know, I don't want people to take it just as like a token Somali song without having the respect and honoring the culture behind it.  That's my biggest fear of it just because it's all so new.  I'm just like taking baby steps with how I bring it out to the public.  Like I shared it with the people who came to my session because they were able to hear Qorsho's part of the presentation which is all about Somali culture and history and Somalia's relationship with music.  And at every song, I asked her to share the context behind the song.  So they were able to receive all of the context and hold the space for the culture and also walk away with the notation with it so they could also share that with their students.

Jessica:  Yes.

Becca:  That seems like very important to me.  Just as a collector to make sure you know...the culture is... I don't know what I'm trying to say.

Jessica:  It's not just a song.  It's not just, "Oh hey - we're learning Somali song and here's the song and here's the game."  There's more depth and understanding of what that song means to their culture and why they sing it or who is singing it to them or kind of that background information so that it's relevant and not just, what you said, a token song.  Like well, you know. throw it into some international program where it's like, "Oh we need a Somali song!  Oh this one works."  But actually having meaning behind it.

Becca:  Beautifully said.  That.  Yes, you just read my mind.

Jessica:  Okay!  Can you share the background of this song with us?

Becca:  Oh yes, yes.  So this is a game that I want to say 90% of my Somali kids that I've done this with and will say - "Oh I know this one!" - but they have a million different variants of it.  So this is just one variant that I picked because it was nice and clean.  It didn't have too much text and then just to keep it consistent through all my classes.  So this is just one variant that I chose.  And when doing a song collection project, just be advised that there are so many different variants and I would love to notate them all someday, but for my song collection project for my Master's, I did just choose one just to include it in my scope and sequence.

So this is "Kuu Kuun Lamina."  And this is an elimination game where all of the kids will sit in a circle with their feet in the middle of the circle.  And then you say the poem while tapping each foot to the beat.  So I use this a lot of time in kindergarten with beat keeping. And on the last three words, the 'waxaya, laxaya, baxaya,' that's one foot per word and on the last word, whichever foot has been tapped on that word, that foot goes out, just like in any elimination game BUT the person who loses both feet first is actually not the loser, they are actually the winner.  So it's a lot easier to eliminate than the last person standing.

Jessica:  That's a nice twist!

Becca:  Yeah.  I do it in my kindergarten all the time.  I did it at my conference presentation and it took two minutes tops to get a winner.  It's really nice to just throw in there.  I mean you could do as a part of your lesson plan or you could throw it in there to choose a leader or choose someone for a different game.  Okay so here's how you say it:




Becca: And then those are mostly made-up Somali words, but there are a couple Somali words that Qorsho told me. She told me the 'baraka' means, is actually a Somali word and I think that's it. Yeah. So here it is again. (Speaks the poem again) Jessica: Nice. And they're tapping on the beat except for the 'waxaya, laxaya, baxaya?' Those are just three students, right? Becca: Yup, that would be one foot, two foot, third foot. Jessica: When the students' foot is out, do they just cross it toward their body? Becca: Yeah, however they choose to do it. Jessica: That's so fun! And then do you only play it as a game or do you ever have them dictate and find 'ta - ta - ti-ti - ta?' Or do you just simply keep it as a game? Becca: Well, yeah - I mean, initially when I first heard this I was like, "Oh my Gosh! That's  'ta - ta - ti-ti - ta.' I could literally extract that for first grade. That is so exciting! So there are some clean, some clean patterns that you can extract. For sure I could use this in first grade because, you know, they get to hear Apple Tree or Snail, Snail. To be able to use a Somali song in the context of a Kodaly classroom, that's incredibly exciting to me. I would for sure use this for 'ta - ta - ti-ti - ta.' Jessica: So simple. And it's nice too when you find something you probably weren't looking for specific songs going, "Oh I need a song for eighth notes' or I need...you know." Taking that link so they can see - here are some of the English songs that have these rhythms, but then, you know, here is a Somalian song that has these rhythms and kind of just tying them together. That's really cool. Becca: Yeah, like listening to similar intervals or rhythms. Like I was so excited to hear different Somali songs, to hear what their patterns of intervals might be and what, if their rhythms are different and then I heard this. I heard someone say like, "Aren't Somali songs too complex for kids because they were thinking of like, I think they were thinking more like micro-tonal things." I was like, "No. Literally listen to the kids singing. Their voices develop the same as ours. They're using similar enough patterns of intervals and rhythms. Every time I would hear it, my Kodaly brain was like, "Oh my gosh - that's perfect for first grade and I could use it for Kindergarten for steady beat." Jessica: I would love to know more about the Somali culture. Becca: Yeah, that was Qorsho's part of the thing, but I can pull it up and kind of try to do her justice. She's so articulate and does such a great job and she prefaces it as - "Just because I'm Somali, doesn't mean I know everything." LIke just like if someone asked us - "Just because I'm white doesn't mean I know everything about white culture." And I would never want to, you know, label someone or try to label what their identity is because then you're putting them in a box. Another part of this project was instead of labeling my kids, going to them and getting their stories instead of just taking the easy way out and saying, "Oh I've got this many Somali kids, this many kids from Ghana, this many..." like trying to force feed them songs from their culture, but who knows if they even know that, you know. Like if my one kid from Ghana doesn't know Che Che Koolay, I'm not going to say, "This is from your country!" Because they have no context or connection with that song. I mean it'd be cool for them to learn it, for me to teach them, but I don't know. That seems, that seems like you're putting them on the spot and coercing them into talking about their experience when they might not even have anything to share and you just make everyone uncomfortable. Okay so I'll just kind of summarize what Qorsho was saying. Yeah, and I wouldn't ever want to take her words and make them mine. And like I said, she does such a great job talking about how she is Somali-American and could in no way represent everyone who is labeled as Somali or Somali-American. But just some bullet points that she created in our presentation is: 1. Diversity in Culture She really wanted to talk about the diversity in culture because a lot of times white educators will assume that one culture, like, they're all the same. So she wanted to talk about diversity in culture and that white educators do need to be comfortable with the idea of duality and the fact that some families believe one thing while other families believe others. 2. Music She talked a lot about how the different interpretations in the Quran about music where a lot of times the parents won't listen to music at home; yet they understand that in school it's different or allow their kids to listen to music. So that was really interesting for music teachers to hear. I just, I told her a couple of the misconceptions that music teachers were holding and asked her to speak on that if she could so that was a huge thing. 3. Value of Education She also talked about how education is highly valued and the teachers are regarded as the second parents. They'll always say that the teacher is the parent when I am not around and you need to be listening to them. Parents just see education as a great way to come out of poverty or just rising above the turmoil that they had gone through. One of our big things was this incredible quote that Qorsho had found that we just kind of live by now. It's "If the curriculum does not respond to the culture, the culture will not respond to the curriculum." And so it really makes you think about how your curriculum can be personalized for your specific demographic so that you can help them to see themselves in the curriculum. And in music, I feel like it's fairly simple to do that because, because we can represent so many different cultures and ethnicities in our classrooms with the songs that we sing. It might be more difficult in other subject areas, but I think it just such a great advantage that us as music teachers have and why would we not want to take advantage of that? Being able to help our kiddos feel like they belong in the music classroom. A couple of the ideas and solutions that we had: One thing that we had at Gideon Pond is a parent affinity group for Somali parents, specifically ones that might have misunderstandings or if they're new to the district or they aren't quite sure about a family fun night that's coming out. It's like a chance for them to come out and talk about with other people from, that speak the same language. You know, they meet with our principal. I think our liaison is there and just to like, smooth over any misunderstandings that they might have so they feel like a part of the community and they aren't being alienated by the fact that may not speak English fluently or they might not understand something completely. And if there are misunderstandings about what music class are, that would be a great place for them to talk to other families and get their take on it and maybe one parent went and observed the classroom and maybe they could share that with other families. So that's something that we do. We also do all-school celebrations and gatherings to make sure that no cultures are feeling alienated. So like for example, I do a Sing-a-long, but I make sure that...I do it for the celebrations. I make sure that is Eid included in there. And Kwanzaa is included in there and Christmas is included in there. And Hanukkah is included in there. I try to, I try to touch on as many cultures that are, if not all, that are in my school to make sure that they all feel involved in one way or another. And it's so neat when they can learn about other culture celebrations as well, especially from those culture barriers that are like, sharing with the class. I think more schools should have it. I couldn't believe when I heard, "Wow - that is such a good idea. And I would have not thought of that." Like, good for you guys! Jessica: Is there anything you would say to teachers who want to collect songs from their community? Is there anything you would say to them about what they should think about in regards to their cultures and asking students to share? Becca: Ok so when I first started to look at my school's demographic to be able to be as culturally relevant, I worked really closely with my ESL teachers to get the list of ethnicities and cultures and home languages. And it ended up being like thirteen or fourteen different home languages. And it's cool because the document that I had had the exact number of the school who spoke that language. Like, the Russian language had five kids and if I wanted to look even further, I could click on it and see which of my students spoke those languages at home. Depending on the relationship that you have with your kids, I felt like I could ask a fifth grader who spoke a different language if they'd be willing to share. And completely keeping it open and being very at ease about it and giving no pressure, just saying, "Do you speak this language at home? That's so cool. Do you know any songs that you want to share? No pressure. If you do, think about that. I would love to share. I would love to learn it and be able to share it with other classes." And a lot of them were like, really into that idea, but I wouldn't go and corner a second grader who speaks Russian and say, "Hey, can you sing me a Russian song?" because that poor kid would be like, 'well, this is an adult and I have to listen,' you know. Like there's a lot of just boundaries that you want to keep and not make those students feel pressure to do it. And then that goes back to labeling them. I would never want to label them as, 'Ooh, you're Russian. You're Russian American. You must know all of these songs that I don't know.' So instead of just going over to them and asking them their stories and sitting down with them and asking if they'd be willing to share, that was the approach that I used. And I got a lot of really positive feedback about that. So as soon as I was able to get a list of the different ethnicities, just so I was aware of what I should be looking for, I sat down and I told every class about it and I named specific examples. I'm pretty vulnerable with my classes. I just told them that I was really hoping that they would share with me and how special that would be for not just me, but for the other classes would get to benefit from their sharing. And then they chose to share - whether it was one-on-one with me during my prep or my lunch break or if they wanted to share with the class. Then I would send home a letter that kind of explained the project for the parents. You know, if they spoke Somali at home, then I would give them a Somali copy. If they spoke Spanish, Spanish. English, English. Then I would ask permission to include the child's name for the project and it was just the first name. And it didn't even list the school. School 1 or School 2. I got permission from everyone. Then I collected those and then I would just bring them home. I was bringing home maybe ten songs a night for a while. I was just trying my hardest to notate them. I felt like I was in my Kodaly levels again. I would get home and I would sit down because I was so excited to just start. I would work until like 11 and I would just look up and like, 'Oh my gosh. My dogs haven't eaten. I forget to eat myself like...' because you get into the flow and you get into the zone and you're really passionate about it. And there were some recordings that I would just listen to over and over because they were so beautiful and inspiring. I would ask some kids, 'Can I record you teaching the class the game?' Like I was saying my little Ricardo, when he just took control of the mike and he was just so confident speaking in Spanish. He could finally flourish because he was comfortable speaking that language and he knew his classmates well enough. And I'd just watch that recording and like I can't tell you what it did to my heart. It just swelled. It made me remember why I do it every single day. I've never had more energy at work than while I was doing this project even though I was exhausted and stressed out beyond belief because it was just so inspiring. Jessica: I would think that a big part of it too is just being very respectful of, I guess you'd say, representing the families and the cultures well. Does that make sense? So I like that you got permission from the families. I would think that would be a definite step in beginning to collect songs from students. And like you said, in keeping it low pressure with encouragement, but kind of - I'll say the word authentic again. I don't know what other way, what other word to use, but just for . You're not going 'Okay, I need four Russian songs. We have five Russian students. Let's get five Russian songs, you know. We have two Hispanic students - let's get two Hispanic songs.' It was more just, it sounds just very natural and very kind of outspringing of what already happens inside of their homes that they share with you and the students and build your community. Becca: Yeah. And so many of those kids, I'm not going to say all, but so many of them would love to share that. They just aren't given the appropriate venue to do it. This was important for their hearts and their souls and just whole child learning. And to just to give them the space to do that. I mean when else in their day is the teacher going to put the lesson on hold and ask them to sing a song for the class? You know, just giving them that space. And yet I'm going back to the fact