Before life became our teacher, somebody had probably already tried to teach us.
Advice → Choices → Lived Experience → Understanding → Wisdom → Passing It Forward
Parents. Grandparents. Teachers. Elders. Mentors. Friends. People who had lived enough life to recognize roads we had not traveled yet. “Sit down somewhere.” “You need a plan.” “Finish what you start.” “Know when it is time to let something go.” The advice often arrived before we had enough experience to understand why it mattered.
Sometimes we listened. Sometimes we thought we knew better. Sometimes we understood the words and chose another direction anyway. Sometimes we had to fall, begin again, and learn through the consequence.
“I was taught the lesson before I lived the experience. Now I’m telling the story because I finally understand the lesson.”
Gloria D. Cassell
When advice becomes experience
Eventually, advice becomes experience. Experience becomes understanding. Understanding can become wisdom. A person may then have a story to share, not because she knows everything, but because she has lived something and can tell that story honestly.
“Somebody tried to tell me, too.”
That is the posture of Class Is in Session™. Gloria received lessons, did not always follow them, made decisions, experienced consequences, got back up, learned, changed, and continued living. Now she tells those lived stories through original music.
Four academic years. One lifetime of lessons.
Winter Freshman, Spring Sophomore, Summer Junior, and Fall Senior form one continuous musical curriculum. Each academic year carries the story forward as lessons first heard become lessons lived, understood, and eventually passed forward.
What is learned, and what is passed on
The four seasons move from rest and renewal, to preparation and beginning, to tending and sustaining, and finally to harvest and stewardship. At the table, the student becomes someone with lived experience to share: a parent, teacher, mentor, friend, elder, or simply someone able to pull out a chair for the person coming behind them.
“We were given the lessons. We didn’t always follow them. Life taught us why they mattered. Now we have lessons of our own to pass forward.”
I tell the stories of my life through music.