shannon smith

Over the past weeks Susan Boyle’s Britain’s Got Talent video has gone viral – with millions of viewers (and exponentially growing) watching her sing “I Dreamed a Dream” and blow the judges and audience away with her vocal abilities.  Dozens of blog posts have ruminated on the previously unknown Scottish sensation.  Something about Boyle has captured the global heart.  Following Boyle’s performance, Judge Amanda Holden expresses the sentiment of the (ever growing) crowd that watched:

I am so thrilled because I know that everybody was against you.  I honestly think that we were all being very cynical and I think that’s the biggest wake-up call ever.  I just want to say that it was a complete privilege listening to that.

 

And it was.  I have to admit, I’ve watched the video several times and get a bit teary everytime.  I love listening to Boyle and, apparently, so does the world.  It seems we share in her moment, assuming the collective surprise, then guilt, then jubilation at Boyle’s performance.

the semantic mash-up

While I was trying to figure out what it was about Boyle’s story that drew me in, I was reminded of the dedication by the late Kingston, ON poet Brownwen Wallace in her slim collection of poems Keep That Candle Burning Bright.  Wallace dedicates the book of poems to EmmyLou Harris, and in particular to the song “Burn That Candle”:

A song that reminds me of the kid who wanted to be a singer, who was me.  Who couldn’t believe it when the choir teacher said (the Sunday School choir, where they had to take everybody), when she said, How be you just mouth the words, dear, and put me inthe back row as if it was no big deal.

These poems are for then and for now, too.  All those times when I just can’t help it and a song bursts through and the people around me contort to poses from the Spanish Inquisition screaming Stop! Please stop! - so I don’t even sing in the shower anymore, out of respect for the water’s perfect pitch, how it sings out onto the tiles.

…

They are homely like that and corny and cliched. 

And necessary, yes, as my love for that kid who still embarrasses me, angers, hurts,  the kid who fails

The kid who fails.  That is what gets me.  When I tear up listening to Boyle, the connection I make is to that kid who fails.  In some weird semantic mash up, Boyle, in her underdog that makes it story references the kid who doesn’t make it.  She reminds us of our own unrealized dreams.  And this, for me, is teachable moment #1.  It is a wake-up call for me, as a teacher, to remind myself that I am surrounded by a roomful of dreams.  It is critical that I encourage my students to pursue those dreams and to ignore those voices that tell them to ‘mouth the words’.

a critical reading of the dream

How ‘genuine’ a story Boyle’s will be remains to be unseen.  And, perhaps authenticity isn’t the critical issue, at least in terms of understanding the ‘teachable moments’ of the story.  Dennis Palumbo, in his Huffington Post article asks the question: What if Susan Boyle couldn’t sing?

The unspoken message of this whole episode is that, since Susan Boyle has a wonderful talent, we were wrong to judge her based on her looks and demeanor. Meaning what? That if she couldn’t sing so well, we were correct to judge her on that basis? That demeaning someone whose looks don’t match our impossible, media-reinforced standards of beauty is perfectly okay, unless some mitigating circumstance makes us re-think our opinion?

This is the interesting question.  Ask a class full of students (or teachers) to think about that for a bit.  I would imagine that the conversation could be quite rich.  Ask how many episodes of American Idol and similar reality-based television shows are dedicated to exploiting the failings of the hopeful but not particularly talented contestants who draw the implicit (and sometimes explicit) ridicule of the judges/audience?  

Susan Boyle photo collage “Untitled” by Bert Kommerij