Connecting through the soundtrack of Gordon

As we approach the second month of school, I have been struck by the enthusiasm and optimism with which our community has begun the year. Nowhere is this positive energy more evident than at morning dropoff.

When Gordon reopened in the fall of 2020 after lockdown, we knew we would be returning to a Gordon like none we had known before. In the midst of all of the meticulous planning to keep our students, families, faculty and staff safe, the Leadership Team knew it would also be important to find opportunities to inspire joy and a sense of fun.

Our thoughts quickly and pretty easily landed on an idea: let’s play music as our community arrives for the first day of school. So, on an overcast September morning, as kiddos large and small made their way to their classrooms via a new Gator Path, they were encouraged by Cece Peniston to “Keep on Walkin’,” by Johnny Cash to “Walk the Line,” and by Diana Ross and Michael Jackson to “Ease on Down the Road.” 

In 2021, the emergence of the Delta variant meant coming back to school with some disappointment that things would not be able to change as much as we had hoped they would. So, we decided to play music every morning at dropoff. By that following June, the Gordon Morning Playlist grew to almost two hundred and seventy songs, and you’d be hard pressed to find a theme. Sure, the Cure and Johnny Kemp may have made an appearance on some Fridays and the Bangles on a Monday (and, yes, the playlist is unapologetically 80s heavy), but if you hung out at the flagpole loop from 7:55 to 8:20am, you were just as likely to hear Jackie Wilson as you were Deee-lite. The Muppets held their own with the Hollies, Beyoncé and Bowie coexisted, and then there was the morning when a parent asked, “Is that ‘Spanish Flea’??”
 

With hindsight, I am surprised 2021 was the first year Gordon brought music to morning dropoff, given how important it is to our community. It’s the rare Gordon meeting that begins without music. Our hearts grow a few sizes when the first graders encourage us to “sing out if we want to sing out.” The energy in our building changes when the G-Notes begin rehearsals, and we can all look forward to the first performance of “White Winter Hymnal.”

During the height of the pandemic, when we could not sing or play music together, it felt like the heart of our school had been torn out. Perhaps that is one of the reasons the Morning Playlist has brought such joy. Music has the power to heal, to release, to lift, to bind. If Gordon has a superpower, it’s our community. And music is the fuel that so often powers us up.

In our opening faculty and staff meetings of the year, Rodney López asked, “If Gordon had a theme song, what would it be?" What emerged was a playlist that will serve as an unofficial soundtrack for our year together. We shared it with all of you on Gordon's blog, and we plan to share it with prospective families looking to get to know our community: our values, our joys, our love for one another, and our commitment to making the world a better place for all people.

As this year rolls out, we'll all be curating our personal playlists for the year, adding new sounds, swapping out old favorites, and borrowing songs we learn from each other. I hope that you find the courage to share your own music out loud, and the compassion that is sometimes necessary to listen carefully to someone else's. And with a wink, a snap of the fingers or the wiggle of a hip, I hope that the music helps you connect with one another.

If you have a request for the morning playlist, shoot an email to Dr. Thomas López at nthomaslopez@gordonschool.org and perhaps one morning you’ll hear your song at dropoff!