Seeing Old Friends

Author: Amanda Goodwin

I am in my third year of instructing general music and violin at Quality Education Institute (a preschool) through ArtistCorps. This year, we've added on an integration program at Quality Education Academy (grades K-12). I was so excited about this because I knew that I would be seeing familiar faces from the previous year and possibly from two years ago. We started with math integration in the kindergarten classrooms, so their faces and names were pretty fresh in my mind. As I was calling out the names of the kids that I knew, one of the teachers seemed impressed that I had remembered and said "wow".

Recently, we began to teach the 1st grade classes. I wasn't certain I would remember any of them since more time had passed. The first class I went to, I didn't see any faces I recognized. But as we were sitting down on the carpet, one of the teachers called out the name of a student that I had definitely taught. I found the student's familiar face and we remembered each other from two years ago! Again, I got a "wow" from one of the teachers in the room.

We moved to the next class and this time there were several faces that I knew. I called on one boy with a raised hand who looked familiar, and he confirmed I had taught him! This prompted a few other students to say that they had taken violin lessons from me as well. I had them remind me of their names and I was so excited they had remembered me.

In the final class, a few of the kids gasped as soon as I came into the room. There were several familiar faces in this classroom too and they were eager to tell me what they remembered. Before we could begin the lesson, the former students gathered around and filled me in on where the other students from two years ago were now. This greeting was almost overwhelming. It's so wonderful that I have the opportunity to see how these kids are doing after not seeing them for a couple years. I'm so glad to continue giving them music lessons!