Some of the things you teach today are important for tomorrow. Some are important for the next generation.
Most of our time in school – choir and elsewhere – is spent planting annuals. Annual flowers are ready to bloom pretty much when you plant them, and they die with the first hard frost. In school, we repeatedly teach lessons that pay off on tests, or teach music for the goal of being ready for the next concert.
But it’s equally important to plant shade trees. As the proverb goes, “The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago.” So we need to plan twenty years in advance for certain lessons to pay off.
And I fear that in our effort to get the most bloom in our choral gardens, we risk neglecting the opportunity to plant a few oak trees and let them grow.
We can’t plant only oaks – the garden will be bare for years (and our concerts won’t be prepared). But if we only plant impatiens and wildflowers, our students won’t ever benefit from the peace and protection those oaks could offer.