When I was a special education teacher back in the 1970’s and 1980’s, I used to compose songs for my students and sing them accompanied by guitar. One child’s parents were going through a divorce, so I wrote a song called ”Mommy and Daddy Are Separating,” I noticed how much my 3rd to 5th grade students enjoyed talking about their dirt bikes, so I wrote a song called ”My Bike and Me.” I wanted to try to teach the concept of feedback to my students, so I wrote ”The Feedback Song.” After I’d retired from special education teaching, I had time to put together a curriculum of these songs. Each one came with a story to illustrate a key social and/or emotional theme and a list of activities to do.
The reason I’m bringing this memory up is that a few weeks ago, I got an email from a guy named James Duchesneau, who had discovered Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences and a mental health system called Internal Family Systems by Dr. Richard Schwartz. He’s a seasoned musician (see bio here), and told me he’d written songs about different social, emotional, and mental health issues to help him cope with a severe depressive episode in his life. He sent me one of the songs focused on multiple intelligences called ”Everybody’s Smart,” and I was really impressed with his musical skill (he’s a two-time Juno Award nominee, that’s Canada’s version of the Grammys). So far he’s got 34 songs on his Journeying Toward Hope site, and I’m assuming he’ll be adding to that list in the future. For each song he has a free mp3 recording, an mp3 Karoake version (without the voice so you can sing along to his musical accompaniment), the complete printed lyrics, a few quotations, and finally a list of 20 questions to consider when thinking about the songs’ meanings, questions that can help you process the issue in your own life. Soon, he reports that he’s going to add videos of the songs. It reminds me of my own project as a special education teacher, way back when, but with much much better singing, musicianship, and production value! This is a wonderful self-help curriculum for your own self-healing (and I suspect also for friends, relatives, and even kids who I think would get a whole lot out of it). Here’s the link to his site! Enjoy!
