Days before Johnson Elementary School in Natick shut its doors, the Peacemakers chorus, a Johnson staple, held its final concert. Peacemakers, a third- and fourth-grade choral group that performs “music with a message,” had been part of Johnson students’ experience for 27 years, and alumni from across the decades regrouped at Natick High School on June 5 to watch the last show (see video).
The whole of Johnson performed in the final Peacemakers concert. This year’s theme was “Roots and Wings, Watch Us Grow.”
When Peacemakers was founded in 1997 by guidance counselor Jenn D’Antonio and then-fourth-grade teacher Rhonda Garvin Conaway, it was not intended to last. Rather, D’Antonio and Conaway, who have continued to lead the group, started the chorus in response to a particularly difficult school year. Their cohort of fourth graders was having trouble getting along—they were arguing, teasing, and generally not treating each other well.
“We wanted to find a way to help them value one another, learn to treat each other with respect [and understand] that every voice counts [and] everybody matters,” D’Antonio said.
D’Antonio and Conaway wanted to be proactive in solving the problem—so they tasked the students with working together to put on a musical performance. The two staff members had participated in musical activities in the past, and believed that the teamwork involved in music could bring the students together. The venture worked so well that it expanded to include third-graders (and second-graders this year) and has continued ever since.
“Music is the vehicle to get us where we want to go,” Conaway said, adding that Peacemakers allows students to practice the idea that each of them is important and that they can create important things together.
With that in mind, Peacemakers’ guiding principles of “music with a message” and “every voice counts” were born. Each year’s Peacemakers performances have a different theme (chosen by D’Antonio and Conaway) and title (chosen by the students), but these themes and titles are always inspired by the guiding principles.
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In service of the message of their music, D’Antonio and Conaway ensure that Peacemakers is connected to the Natick community. The group has performed at Veterans Day events, senior centers and nursing homes, preschools, and even the Natick Mall.
Peacemakers also has a once-a-year stop to eat lunch and serenade staff at McDonald’s on their tour day, which is a fan favorite with the students. Over Peacemakers’ 27-year run, McDonald’s has started to anticipate tour day—to the point where one custodian requests to be scheduled on the day Peacemakers show up, and the owner invites his family in on that day.
“We’ve developed relationships in ways that we never thought that we would,” D’Antonio reflected.
In addition to developing relationships with the community, Peacemakers develops students’ sense of agency in projects. Students select songs to fit the year’s theme and choose the role that they will have in the performance. These roles include featured singers, choreographers, dancers, and backstage helpers. This year, the show kicked off with an original rap written by two students.
D’Antonio and Conaway see this student-centered approach as a microcosm of the Johnson community.
“I think we’re symbolic of what happens there on a daily basis,” Conaway said. “We’re representative of the ingenuity [there, and of] valuing kids on a very personal level.”
Other schools absolutely do these things too, Conaway continued, but “there’s something special and intangible about it [at Johnson].”
More on Johnson: Johnson students and staff document their school’s legacy
