One teacher’s moving account of the power of song in the classroom,
BKA Newsletter, Winter 2003

As a year one class-room teacher I have recently had a close encounter with the power of singing with small children. A five year old girl in my class who has been deeply saddened and disturbed by events in her young life had broken down one day. I had the feeling that things had simply become overwhelming. The rest of the class went off to lunch and Anna sat on the floor with her head in her hands weeping. I remembered reading in Vivian Gussin Paley’s The boy who would be a helicopter (1990) about a time when she had sung a lullaby to a desperate child. I felt this memory whispering to me to encourage me to meet Anna’s needs. She came and sat on my lap and I sang “Go tell Aunt Sally.” She closed her eyes and for a moment her tense body let go a bit. I repeated the song several times, just as I would with a small baby. Then she uncurled and went off to lunch. I was left wondering if that had been the right response or not.

A few weeks later I decided to teach the lullaby to the rest of the class. At the end of the lesson every one lay down and I invited someone to sing to the class. Anna stood up and putting her head on one side and rocking from one foot to the other she sang “Go tell Aunt Sally,” she had us all captivated and it was very moving. I have no idea if she remembered the feeling from the previous time I had sung it to her, I suspect not consciously.

There is something about these songs and rhymes that have a very special quality. Similar to Fairy stories and dreams they seem to come from the unconscious and speak to the unconscious. As we sing these songs to small children and babies we must surely be furnishing their minds with the emotional language of music, just as fairy tales furnish their minds with the emotional language of stories from the collective unconscious (Bruno Bettleheim, The Uses of Enchantment: 1976.)

In a Quaker meeting recently I had going through my mind the song:

Mr Rabbit Mr Rabbit, your ears are mighty long/ Yes in deed they’re put on wrong/ Every little soul must shine shine shine,/
Every little soul must shine shine shine.

The words and tune of the song seemed to be “speaking to my condition” and rather like a dream it felt like it had a message for me and perhaps the meeting too. In a moment of madness I stood up and found myself singing this song into the silence of the meeting. A bit shocked I then found the meaning of the words speak to me. It seemed to be saying that the bits of us that seem to be “put on wrong” are perhaps the bits that make our little souls “shine shine shine”. A web literate Friend then found the rest of the song on the web and e-mailed it to me: so for Mr Rabbit fans, here it is:

Mr. Rabbit, Mr. Rabbit
Traditional

Mr. Rabbit, Mr. Rabbit, your tail is mighty white.
Yes, my lord, I’ve been gettin out of sight,
Every little soul’s gonna shine, shine,
Every little soul’s gonna shine, shine.

Mr. Rabbit, Mr. Rabbit, your coat is mighty grey.
Yes, my lord, it was made that way
Every little soul’s gonna shine, shine,
Every little soul’s gonna shine, shine.

Mr. Rabbit, Mr. Rabbit, your ears are mighty long.
Yes, my lord, they were put on wrong,
Every little soul’s gonna shine, shine,
Every little soul’s gonna shine, shine.

Mr. Rabbit, Mr. Rabbit, your ears are mighty thin.
Yes, my lord, they’re a-splittin’ in the wind,
Every little soul’s gonna shine, shine,
Every little soul’s gonna shine, shine.

Mr Rabbit, Mr. Rabbit, I’ll bid you good day.
Yes, my lord, and I’ll be on my way,
Every little soul’s gonna shine, shine,
Every little soul’s gonna shine, shine.

These moments of connection with children or with ourselves seem to be possible with music, and in our over stuffed classroom life I feel that these moments need to be used wherever they can be found.