TRANSCRIPT

I taught the Ward method of singing for twenty minutes each day, and the pupils really looked forward to these short sessions. Whenever I entered the classroom, I'd greet everyone by singing, 'Good morning, children.' And my pupils would sing back on the same note, 'Good morning, Sister Léola.' Even today, if I chance to meet any of them, some invariably ask, 'Sister, do you remember the little chimney that went hummmmm?' We used to make this sound as a way of preparing for the class. The Ward method was quite demanding and since it had to be applied every day for twenty minutes, it required a lot of perseverance. We had to interrupt our activities to offer these twenty-minute sessions to children in the first, second, third and fourth grades.
It's obvious that in a class of twenty-five, thirty, even thirty-two pupils, not everyone will be interested in music. I had to classify their voices. There were three categories: nightingales, canaries and sparrows. The children with the clearest, best-pitched voices were nightingales. Canaries were the middle category. They couldn't reach the high notes, but they could sing in tune. Sparrows sang pretty much out of tune. Finally, those who couldn't sing at all pointed to the music staffs on the diagrams to help their classmates sing.

Sister Léola Brisebois
Retired teacher of CMI