Confidence-building Performances

"Every time I set out with a carload of students, I heard the same thing," laughs Nancy Barkhouse, describing her weekly trips to a local radio station for an airing of Surf's Up, the weekly hour-long radio show her Grade 4 students at Atlantic View Elementary School in Lawrencetown, Nova Scotia, wrote and produced one year. "They were so nervous, they felt sick. They wanted to go home and they weren't sure if they could go through with the show."

But as soon as they walked through the studio door they became little professionals, she says. Good preparation, plenty of practice and team spirit helped them focus on the job at hand. Each and every performance was flawless, and the students' pride in their success lasted for the rest of the school year.

The success-building effect of Surf's Up extended to the rest of the school when taping took place there, Barkhouse recounts. The whole school gained knowledge and skill about radio technology and public performance. In one especially memorable incident, while taping a primary class interview about snow, an autistic boy who had never spoken in class before when she was there volunteered, "I like to build snowmen."

Carl Goulding, whose award-winning choirs hail from Mount Pearl Intermediate School and Mount Pearl Senior High School in Mount Pearl, Newfoundland and Labrador, remembers similar progress among his choristers. "From the shy girl who had no friends to the boy who wasn't sure if dancing was cool, I saw the same development of confidence." Choir members choose the music, create their own choreography and run their own rehearsals, developing strong and permanent confidence in themselves because they see how to learn and earn respect, says Goulding. "They gain personal confidence through gaining confidence as a group."