Today I was a teaching God! I was actually more like the Wizard of Oz: seeming and feeling so fucking rad, but just hiding behind the curtain. The curtain was “Father and Son” by Cat Stevens, the Tin Man was the teacher, Dorothy, was um, the kids, and The Wicked Witch was, the uh, Principal…, and the uh, Cowardly Lion, was, well, um…

I don’t know where I was going with this Wizard of Oz thing, maybe I was trying to get to the part about the Cowardly Lion because lions are just big cats. Although that’s a terribly weak segueway so that couldn’t have been it…
but the point is I came home from teaching today and I was totally hyped because I spent all morning singing with these kids. The same song. Over and over. But it’s a good song. Not only that, I didn’t have to force them (seriously). They wanted to sing!! We sang so much Father and Son, so many times that we really sounded out our pronunciation and internalized the generational difficulties the song speaks to. It reminds me of another Cat Stevens song: “If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out.” And we did.


Here’s the real Cat. Groovy. Very Groovy.