All About TCAP

About a month or so ago, Justice was eating breakfast, and started switching some words around in a current popular song called "All About That Bass".  His own version was about the state standardized test called the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, or TCAP for short.  He does that quite often, changes words around while he's singing a song.  Usually they are funny and he does it for a laugh.  If I'm hollering at him about something he will start singing back at me with some random new song lyrics to make me laugh.  It usually works.  Justice really does have a good sense of humor, but few people really see that side of him.

Anyway, he wrote down the words of the song in hopes that he could possibly put together a choir piece to perform at the TCAP Pep Rally.   He said, and I quote…

"Wouldn't be awesome to have some sort of diversion for the stress of TCAP?   To do a song that would lighten it up a little so it wouldn't seem like such a bad thing."

Well sure, Justice.  That sounds like a great idea.  He parents himself most days, I don't need to put a whole lot of effort into him, I swear I don't.  He's a great kid, and is a forward thinker.  Forward thinking at 13 isn't an easy thing to do, but he is pretty great at it.

His choir teacher LOVED his idea, and they put together a really cute skit to go along with it to perform at the school pep rally.  Justice takes voice lessons from the high school choir director, and the week before he was set to perform at the pep rally, he took the song to her to make sure he was singing it to the best of his abilities.  She also LOVED it, and recorded it for him.  She also asked another high school student to make a video for him, and the very next day the video was shot at his school and on YouTube shortly thereafter.  

And suddenly, it picked up quite a bit of momentum.  It had 3,000 views on YouTube in the first day, and has over 8,000 today.  The state board of education forwarded it out to schools, and suddenly every school was playing it for their students.  A Memphis news station did an article about it, the SCORE folks tweeted it out, the local newspaper did a piece on it, it was played every morning on a local radio station and Justice was interviewed on a local radio station this morning.  How cool is that?

http://wreg.com/2015/04/24/local-student-hopes-to-inspire-with-all-about-that-tcap-song/

While most of the comments on the news page were positive, there were a few ugly comments made.  Believe it or not, only two… I was expecting worse, there are some mean folks out there in the world.    Rather than shield him from these comments, I went ahead and let him read them.  To be honest, we don't raise our kids in a "everybody gets a trophy and everybody is a winner" household.  You can't win them all, and you can't make everybody happy.  You also can't protect your kids forever, they have to learn to deal with issues themselves from an early age so they can cope later.  He took everything in stride, just like we knew he would.  He said "I can't please everybody, I'm not a pizza", and laughed.  

The best thing about it is that he says he accomplished what he set out to do.  To lighten up the TCAP mood a little bit.  And it worked!  One of his teachers contacted me to tell me that the halls of the elementary school were filled with kids singing his song, and dancing his "dance moves".  (He can't dance, that's the best part of it).

I had so many people reach out to me and tell me how much they appreciated and loved it.  While I picked him up from school one day last week, the kids at the playground were singing it.  The teachers in the pick up line were singing it.  The parents were singing it.  

So yes, I would say he definitely accomplished his goal.  He is incredibly humble, he always has been that way.  He never once got a "big head", or took it out to be more than it ever was.  He wrote a song to help kids get through TCAP, and TCAP is over, and he's ready to move on.

"I did it Mom.  I can't believe it.  I feel so honored I could do something to help make TCAP not seem so bad." 

And he means it.  Not "I have 8,000 hits on a YouTube video", or "I was on the radio this morning", or "I had to shut my phone off because girls were suddenly All About That Justice".  (Hahahaha, you see what I did there?)   He was just happy he did what he set out to do.  

I don't use the P word often, but I'm really proud of my boy.  I'm proud of why he chose to do it, I'm proud of the way he did it, I'm proud of the way he carried himself this week, and I'm proud of the way he conducted himself on the radio this morning.  He was mature and respectful.  He's a good boy.

And here is the video.