When You Can't Just Let it Go

Today I was teaching some grade twos my usual arts ed. The kids were copying some stuff off the board. Most were done actually, and I was impatiently waiting for the last few stragglers to finish up. Not wanting to waste time doing nothing, I asked the students to sing me a song. Two of the girls then began singing shyly but sweetly. Some of the other girls in class then joined in. I asked what they were singing. They said it was a song from the movie Frozen. Being curious, I quickly loaded up the song on youtube and we watched the scene from the movie that they were singing. This youtube version also had the lyrics on the bottom so that kids can sing along. And so, I turned on the song "Let it Go."

It was a rousing rendition. Though some of the boys sang along, it was the girls who gave everything they had. They were flapping their arms dramatically, singing with proper dynamics and tempo. Everything they had went into that song. I just sat and took it all in. The song started off as a typical modern day kid's movie song. There's a girl. She's fed up with the status quo. She wants to break free. Get away from what people say she must be. Be her own person. Blah blah blah.

Then some words in the song jumped out at me:

It's time to see what I can do

To test the limits and break through

No right, no wrong, no rules for me

I'm free

When the song finished the girls glowed with joy and fulfillment. I told them they sang beautifully. They beamed back. I then suggested to them that maybe not everything they were singing in the song was good. Oh their faces dropped! They looked like I had just kicked their little puppies. These girls love their little puppies.

That's it, puppies! I wrote the above lyrics on the board. Then I told the girls that I was going to go and kick all of their puppies. They looked at me in shock and protested loudly. "What? Why!" Nevertheless, I insisted! I told them that they just told me there were no rules for me. That there was no right and wrong. That I was truly free! And by golly I want to go kick their dumb little puppies! Kick them far! More loud protests ensued. Then I broke in with my point. I explained the importance of realizing what we are singing about. Are there rules for a good reason? Is there right and wrong? If you say there is no right, then how can that very statement be right? Are we free when we run around fearing what will happen because there are no rules? Basic basic stuff. And you know what? The girls understood what I was saying. I just fear that up until that point they believed those lyrics, in a childish dreamy sort of way, and that nobody had told them otherwise. Up until today. Clearly to be a parent nowadays you have to be ever vigilant. I shudder thinking about raising Joseph and John Paul in these morally deprived days.

Sometimes you can't just let things go.

"The truth will set you free."