A surprise at Highland Park High School’s Focus on the Arts
Whenever we show “For the Left Hand” in the Chicago area, there’s always at least one person in the audience who rises up after the screening to announce that Norman Malone was their music teacher. Never fails.
But what happened on April 20 during Highland Park High School’s Focus on the Arts – a biennial event featuring writers, musicians, filmmakers and other artists – came as a surprise.
At the start of the session, Howard briefly told a class about Norman’s story, as a setup for screening several film excerpts. While Howard spoke, longtime HPHS social studies teacher Chris Kean cued up the film clips on a laptop wired to a large screen.
But when Howard said “go,” Kean did not press the “play” button.
Instead, Kean turned around to face the class and offered a few unsolicited words of his own.
“I taught with Norman for nine years at Lincoln Park High School,” Kean told the students, catching everyone by surprise and attesting to the breadth of Norman’s influence as teacher.
“He was beloved.”
Howard immediately began interviewing Kean, so that what was to have been simply a screening of clips turned into a Q-and-A with an educator who had spent nearly a decade in Norman’s orbit.
“There was something about him that calmed and centered his students,” Kean told everyone.
“You know what it’s like to be an adolescent – you have all this energy and raging hormones. Norman had this calming force. It was uncanny. The kids would do anything for him. Some of the toughest kids in the school were transformed by him.”
After the students watched several film clips, they were eager to learn more about Norman.
“You can see his passion in the film,” Kean told the students. “He clearly does all this for the love of music.”
This was Kean’s way of making a larger point that had direct bearing on these students’ lives.
“We’re all so wrapped up in ourselves, our devices, our messages, our Facebook ‘likes,’” said Kean.
“Norman would give students a chance to be a part of something bigger than themselves. Norman gave students a chance to lose their ego. To redeem themselves from that endless loop of ego, which will never be satisfied.”
That’s what making music with friends can do. And that stands as one of the central messages of “For the Left Hand”: For regardless of whether you’re going to be a professional artist, music can enrich a student’s life in uncounted and unexpected ways.
Thus Norman’s former students often tell Howard that although they cut various classes, no one wanted to miss Norman’s choir rehearsals.
Something magical happened in Norman’s classrooms, just as it did on this day at Highland Park High School.
