My Yankee Doodle Dandy Kids

I recently conducted the annual Veterans Day program at my elementary school. For about two months, I prepped my students. I taught patriotic song after patriotic song, trying to feign pride in a country with which, frankly, I have become more and more disillusioned, especially in regards to the wars America has "mongered" in recent years.

"Actually, the day is about the need for peace in our world and about those individuals who have made it possible for us to have a measure of peace, however imperfect it might be. Veterans Day is about honoring those who have expended themselves in time, energy, and blood for us," my father so eloquently wrote in an e-mail a few weeks ago.

So, I focused on the individuals, rather than on our government's foreign policy. And I discovered that Veterans Day hits very close to home with my students these days. Many of my students have family members - fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles - who have just returned from or are currently fighting overseas. In our audience alone on 11/11/11, we had veterans in attendance who had fought in World War II, Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

My 3rd and 4th grade performers hailed from all over the globe as well - India, Africa, the Middle East, Myanmar, Thailand.

"That is a good song!" one of my little girls from Africa exclaimed after singing "This Land is Your Land" one morning.

I found it prophetic that she would choose a song (that began as a slightly socialist anthem) that talked about providing a place for all people to live in equality as her favorite.

"My favorite is 'I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy,'" I overheard one of my little boys from India tell his ELL teacher. And then he started to sing, "When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again . . ."

"When I watch my class sing, I keep wondering 'Which one of you is the Yankee Doodle Dandy?'" one of the third grade teachers told me, referring to the number of refugees and English-As-A-Second-Language students in her class. "And that's their favorite song!"

Though many of the 180 kids in my Veterans program were not "Yankees" by birth, by the end of that afternoon, they had truly become proud Americans, "however imperfect" they might later discover America to be. They filed onto the risers, clad in red, white, and blue, and sang their hearts out. They watched in reverence as the veterans stood and accepted thank you notes from one of the fourth grade helpers. They saluted the audience with gusto during the final song. Wasn't this the definition of "Yankee-hood," the essence of "The New Colossus?"

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

"All those kids, they sang to us," one of the World War II veterans said to me afterward, tears in his eyes. "It was beautiful."

And it was. It was yet again a case of the students teaching the (jaded, cynical, disillusioned) music teacher.

Or, as I like to say to my kiddos from time to time, "The student has now become the master!"

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