Overcoming fear through singing

"Stand By Me" The Lancaster Boys Choir I commented on the BBC network program "The Choir" on this blog on July 31. In the series, Concert Master Gareth Malone who conducts the London Symphony Orchestra Community Choir attempts to create choirs in the most unlikely settings. In the first season he went to Northolt High School a school with no music program and recruited a choir that he took to the World Choir Olympics in China. The project took one year. A year later he went back to see what affect the experience had on the participants. In the second season that is airing now Malone went to Lancaster High School one of the largest boys schools in the United Kingdom an athletic oriented school with no choir singing program and began putting together a boys choir. The goal was to present his choir at a music festival at the prestigious Royal Albert Hall in London. To make it into the festival the choir must be assessed and pass rigid standards.
He has to overcome the boy's perception, shared by many on the staff, that singing is not for boys (men). It is only for sissies, and gays. The boys who do enjoy singing do it in private. A group of rappers do their thing off to the side.
Slowly Malone draws a few boys to the choir and rehearsals begin. He begins a choir among the staff and starts a campaign for the head physical education coach. At first he seems to have one of the rappers interested but the boy, Imran turns against him.
They make it into the festival and rehearsals begin after summer break with only half the choir returning. He begins a phone campaign and gets them all back plus a few more. Finally Malone convinces the rappers to listen to a professional group of musicians who perform much like the boy's own style and draw them in.
The BBC crew does a masterful job of drawing individual boys aside to pull their feelings out as the story develops. We get to see how the choir is affecting them. One boy who does not learn well finally admits he can't read the music and gets help. He realizes he can do it, and stays. The pride on his face is amazing. Other boys begin to exhibit changed behavior as they are drawn into the group experience.
We hear Imran tell about why he has dropped out of the choir in the beginning. It had to do with going to the karaoke with his dad or friend and hearing someone say he wasn't that good. It shut him down. In his group of rappers he is o.k. but not in front of an audience.
After Malone draws his rap group called the Beatboxers into the choir with the introduction of the professional group doing a similar type of  music, Imran begins to get his confidence back. Malone convinces him he could sing a solo in the Royal Albert Hall performance. You see the result at the end of the YouTube video above.
I love the show. I like Glee for the entertainment value and the music the kids perform. But I have to admit when I watched "The Choir" this morning and the kids began to sing, I had a hard time seeing the screen through the tears. Seeing 150 boys and their teachers on the stage in the Royal Albert Hall singing like.
The kids themselves admitted that it had brought them together. The Beatboxers were hugging the timid kids that they intimidated just a year before.
Next Wednesday's show will be about Gareth Malone's reunion with boys and staff one year later. Was there carry over in his absence? Did the experience last? It will be interesting to find out.

Respectfully,
Kenneth Fenter

ForeWord Clarion Review gives The Ruin four Stars

ForeWord Clarion Review
FICTION
The Ruin
Kenneth Fenter
Arborwood Press
978-1-4536-5992-2
Four Stars (out of Five)
Kenneth Fenter’s The Ruin is part coming-of-age novel, part Robinson Crusoe, part history lesson, and wholly deserving of an audience of both adults and teenagers.
The novel follows Clifton Kelly, as an eighth-grade farm boy living in the southwest corner of Colorado in the early 1950’s, as well as an adult celebrating his last day of teaching. Cliff's retirement day turns tragic when a fellow teacher is murdered by her own son, who then goes to Cliff's sister school and kills students there. The boy’s bloody response to bullying triggers Cliff's memories of being bullied during school.
Cliff didn’t shoot his nemesis, Hector Rodriquez, even though he had his rifle in hand after a violent encounter. Instead, he sought refuge in a cave dwelling of ancient Puebloans, the Anasazi. There he learns to survive in the fashion of the First People – making fire from flint, fiber from plants, clothes from pelts, and food from cattails, dandelions, and the game he could bring down with his atlatl, a spear-thrower. From an ancient hunter, who appears in a dream, he learns “Adversity presents unique opportunity, a moment of time in God’s wilderness, use the time wisely.”
The Ruin encompasses ninety-one chapters, most dealing with Cliff’s year in the cave dwelling. Within that narrative there are flashbacks to his school years, his farm life, and to his relationship with his hard-working, highly religious, and overly strict father. Interspersed are short chapters dealing with the adult Cliff’s reactions to the school shooting.
Fenter's research, the breadth of his knowledge about the ancient Puebloans, and his familiarity with farm life are superb. But Fenter’s exposition does slow the story. For example, in his narration of Cliff’s initial explorations of the cave, Fenter uses several hundred words to describe the youngster’s search to find a bee hive. The novel, in fact, is filled with such mini-essays, with Fenter providing lessons about Native American life, bee-keeping, farming, and assorted other subjects. While interesting in its own right, the information sometimes buries the drama of Cliff’s saga, including the most emotionally powerful element, Cliff’s reconciliation with his father: “Dad, when I left, I was very angry at everyone. I had to get away and figure out how to control that. I also needed time to figure out just who I was and how I wanted to live my life.”
The author of the An American Family in Japan series, Fenter is a retired schoolteacher who served in the Springfield, Oregon community, the location of a tragic 1998 school shooting. The Ruin requires patience, but it is both satisfying and interesting, and well worth recommending to a teen reader.
Gary Presley

Combating cyber bullying with information an important first step.

Here is a link to a blog with important information on combating cyber bullying that any parent or grandparent should take a look at. cyberbullyinghelp.com 


The Blog is written by Judy H. Wright. Judy is a parent educator, family coach, and personal historian who has written more than 20 books, hundreds of articles and speaks internationally on family issues, including care giving. 


She is trained as a ready to learn consultant, she works with Head Start organizations and child care resource centers. 


I found her blog to be informative and chock full of information. She hits the sensitive issues surrounding bullying middle school and high school years and has suggestions for parents and children alike on how to work through the issues.


A new school year is just around the corner. My wife made her yearly pilgrimage to Freddys this week to buy crayons, notebooks, and folders for our daughter the third grade teacher to use in her class room. Old habits die hard. This will be our eleventh year of retirement and it is still hard to watch the preparations begin for a new year to begin without feeling like we need to rush around and finish the summer jobs because time is running out. Usually my wife buys an extra bag of pencils, crayons, folders, notebooks etc. and drops them off at the neighborhood elementary office to dole out to children who did not have a budget to buy supplies with. 


This year our oldest grand child is a freshman in high school. Next is an eighth grader. There will be two fourth graders and a fifth grader.


I dealt with direct physical bullying from teacher and kids when I was in grade school. It was overt. I could see who was coming at me. I'm afraid that as often as not now days my grandchildren may have to deal with threats from kids they may not see, may not even know, through their cell phones.  


I know the affect it had on me 55-60 years ago, I can't imaging what this additional level of stress is adding to the youngsters today and what their lives will be like 55 years from now as a result.


The best prevention is education. Links like the one above and resources that Judy Wright and other links elsewhere on this blog can point you to can help.


Respectfully submitted,
Kenneth Fenter

Announcing Pee Up A Tree: A Mental Health Memoir by Jim Henson

Pee Up a Tree: A Mental Health Memoir by Jim Henson is in production!
The hard copy proof is en-route as I write this. The Kindle edition is uploaded and will appear in the Kindle store momentarily on Amazon. I'm updating the Arborwood.com website to begin taking orders for this new offering by Arborwood Press. Keep checking. If you are a reviewer and would like to request a review copy, you can contact me immediately by clicking on the comment button at the bottom of this posting. I'll get right back to you.

Why should you read a Memoir? Here is an excerpt from the Forward by Mary Lee Fitzsimmons, PhD, former Executive Director of One World Health Centers.

"Whatever the motivation leading you to pick up this memoir,  you will find a multi-layered commentary on the first few years of someone dedicated to his clients, dedicated to the community, who is not afraid to laugh at himself or at the irony in his environment.

Perhaps you are a student of social work theory and are interested in what University of Chicago was teaching as state of the art social work theory in the late 60’s?  If so, you will not be disappointed. Vignettes illustrating key social work principles abound. Honoring the client’s definition of  the therapeutic agenda, facilitating  a focus on behavior change,  a practical approach to empathy, learning from non-verbal expression, and avoidance of  enmeshment are but a few of the social work concepts illustrated here in humorous and delightful stories. All of us who graduated from that august institution in the 60’s knew we were going to save the world and knew we had the tools we needed to succeed. We did not end up saving the world but the stories here show that the concepts we were taught, when used skillfully,  could help.

I have worked in community-based programming for over thirty years.  It is hard work.  It requires patience, respect for those you are trying to serve, and a clear focus on the community or client’s definition of the problem.  It requires the willingness to spend the time and energy necessary to form quality relationships and it requires a high degree of skilled professionalism.  The stories in this memoir illustrate all of these concepts.  What the stories most illustrate however is that a key requisite is the ability to have fun while valuing the effort required. Whatever your reasons for picking up Jim Henson’s memoir, what you will find most worthwhile is the sense of enjoyment and of fulfillment that comes when community based programming is done well. You can expect to find good humor, good will, a healthy dose of common sense and a very good read."

August 6, is the 65 anniversary of the A-bombing of Hiroshima, Sunday the 9th, Nagasaki

For the past week I have been editing my 1985 book Gaijin! Gaijin! for re-issue. The chapter I began working on a few minutes ago was "Enrollment in Schools, Chapter 11. In that chapter we formally enrolled Philip and Janelle into the public schools of Isahaya, Japan about 15 miles away from Nagasaki. I came to the following passage where we were on the way to our son Philip's Junior High School Kita Isahaya Chu gakku, North Isahaya Junior High School. Walking with us and to do the introduction was Miss Ueda. As we walked, the elderly matron told us about herself and why her legs were bad. You will see in a moment why it suddenly hit me what day it is and the irony that out of a 365 page book this passage would come along today.

As we walked, Miss Ueda told us more about herself. 
      “I was born and spent my first years as a child in Arizona. My parents wanted me to be fluent in English so I learned to speak English before Japanese. That was very convenient for me when I returned to Japan. It was very easy for me to become an English teacher at Kwassui women’s school in Nagasaki.
      “During the war, English was discontinued for a few years, so I taught other subjects. I was teaching at Kwassui the morning the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Many of our students were working at the factories near the harbor. It was required of all students, you see. They had to help the war effort.
      “I heard the air raid sirens and rushed into the hallway with some of the students. I saw the flash of the bomb on the wall and could hear it. It was as if the end of the world had come. I was fortunate to be protected by the hallway, but one of my colleagues who was still in her classroom died a few months later from the burns.”
     The children, Lora and I were quiet. She spoke matter of fact, seeming without bitterness.
     “Chinzei you know, was near the center of the blast. Most of its teachers, and students died instantly. We were told that it was some kind of new bomb, and none of the officials of town knew that it was radioactive. For days, I would walk down to Urakami to look for the students who had been working there. But, while I walked down there among the buildings looking for my students, I became poisoned by this radiation disease. At first, my hair fell out, and my gums bled. Also, I suffered from diarrhea for the first two months. Now I look big and fat and heavy, but after a few months then, I was only skin and bones. The doctors treated me and other victims, and after a few years some of the symptoms went away. But, even today, I tire easily, and since then, I can only work for one day and must take a rest the next day.
     “About twenty years ago, everyone had to submit to an extensive physical examination. During that examination the doctor discovered my liver had been badly damaged by the radiation disease. So, even today, I must take some medication. It has helped over the years, but I am still under the doctor’s care and must rest several hours each day,” Miss Ueda said quietly.
     Before that conversation, we had not really thought about the after effects of the bomb. The immediate death and short range death had been well publicized. I wondered how many thousands or hundreds of thousands were still disabled or suffering after 35 years. When she stopped talking, we walked in silence until we reached the school.


Respectfully submitted,Publish Post
Kenneth Fenter

“Pee up a Tree is authentically Jim Henson..." Jane Kirkpatrick bestselling award-winning author of All Together in One Place

“Pee up a Tree is authentically Jim Henson -- my former boss.  It’s inventive, irreverent  and therapeutically wise.  The characters of Jim’s early life in rural community mental health in Oregon  are singular and memorable; the trials and triumphs worthy of cheering.  This is one man’s  journey of service through parenting, teaching and healing, acts the world needs more of.  Enjoy!”  Jane Kirkpatrick, bestselling award-winning author of the non fiction, Homestead:  Modern Pioneers Pursuing the Edge of Possibility, and novels A Tendering in the Storm and A Flickering Light.


Jim Henson and Arborwood Press thank Jane Kirkpatrick, author of 19 books to date. Jane Kirkpatrick's A Tendering in the Storm won the 2007 WILLA Literary Award for Best Original Paperback and A Flickering Light, a story based on her grandmother’s life as a turn of the century photographer, was named to Library Journal’s Best Books of 2009. Her just released book An Absence So Great, is the sequel to A Flickering Light.


Jane's endorsement of Jim's work is huge coming from an author who is so successful. My wife and I read her works as they come out. We attended her "book talks" when she visits the High Desert Museum periodically and come away, enlightened, and entertained. 

We are about a day away from the final piece on Jim's book and announcing the availability of it.
 We have review copies available now. If your hometown newspaper has a book section and you can help us connect with it for a review, how about contacting us.

Jim's book will available soon on the Arborwoodpress.com website and in short order on Amazon.com.