While in the shower this morning, I was listening to a playlist I had made of songs from my youth. More specifically, the songs were from the middle to high school phase where I wanted to be a singer. Girl groups were popular at the time and Tiffany and Debbie Gibson made it seem possible that young voices could be heard. I’ve always had a love of music and singing but being painfully shy and self-conscious makes it hard to sing often. I was fortunate to find two friends who not only were okay with my singing voice but thought it was good enough to be in a female trio with them. We were going to be superstars. Cut to fifteen years later: that didn’t happen. And sadly, the friendships were lost along the way. But the music is still there.

As I stood under the warm stream of water from the overhead shower head, the remake of “Keep Me Hangin’ On” came on. Memories came flooding back like the water droplets of the shower. My two friends and I had a karaoke cassette version of that song (i.e. just the music, no vocals) and decided to use it to try out for our high school talent show. We were in the ninth grade. Our high school was full of wildly talented kids; I went to the same school where Patti Lupone went on the north shore of Long Island to give you a taste of the type of talent I’m talking about. (Of course, this was about 10+, maybe even 20+, years after Ms. Lupone had graduated and moved on to her amazing career. I first knew her as Corky’s mom before I learned of her Broadway career.) We were three quiet girls with a dream of stardom and thought our high school auditorium would be a wonderful place to showcase ourselves. So we got to work.

After lots of practice singing together, dividing up parts of the song passed on everyone’s skillset (I can go deep, Julie can hold notes well), and choreographing our moves, it was audition day. Twenty-five years later, I don’t remember much from before our audition or the performance itself but the afterwards conversation is still very clear in my head. According to our judging panel, we needed to do a lot to strengthen the vocals and the dance would bore the audience because all our moves happened in one place instead of making use of the whole stage. We weren’t given any compliments, just criticism. Walking off the stage, we knew we wouldn’t be in the show. For the next three years of high school, we never auditioned again.

It dawned on me how wrong that was. As a teacher, I don’t necessarily subscribe to the idea of participation trophies and letting everyone be winners. But we weren’t auditioning for some major performance, like the school musical or other vocal competitions. It was the school’s talent show, which should have showcased the varying degrees and types of talents of the student body. But it didn’t. It was a place where the popular and pretty kids were allowed to shine and have a spotlight moment. Unfortunately, it was not for those of us who needed it the most. I know our vocals were not American Idol-worthy and the dance would be what you would expect choreographed by three 14 year-olds with no background in dance: cheesy and simple. But that opportunity would’ve meant the world to us. We were never going to be on the dance team (I know, I tried out and didn’t make it) and maybe none of us were destined to become the next Patti Lupone. But to have a chance to put ourselves out there and do something we love, those teachers killed a chunk of our spirits that day. My takeaways were that they, in essence, told us we weren’t good at what we wanted to do and that the others were better; they’re the chosen ones, the winners. Here I am twenty-five years later and that’s what I remember from high school.

The impact a teacher can have on a child, good or bad, is quite impactful. Something to think about as I prepare to return to the classroom next week…