Wednesday evening, after sending off the inevitable email canceling school for Thursday as the snowstorm descended upon us, our home settled into watching the American Idol "Top 30" selection show.

Poke fun at me if you like. Guilty pleasure or not, there's something about the nationwide auditions and obscurity-to-fame journeys that I find exciting and moving. It feels like I am sharing with a diverse group of people the defining moments of their lives.

At the risk of sounding like a commercial (I hereby am not officially or otherwise recommending that anyone watch the show), this year's Top 30 group is so talented and so utterly diverse. There are the down-to-earth contestants, the divas, the outgoing, the shy, the gay, the straight, the gender-bending...the differences could go on and on, but they are all united by their courage, determination and passion. One interesting example is the pair of male country singers who happen to live less than an hour from each other. One is white, the other black. One sings a more blues-inflected country style, the other more country-rock. They are fast becoming best friends, in spite of the fact that at some point one could effectively knock out the other from the competition.

What really engages and is familiar to me in these aspiring Idols is the courage, the risks, the triumphs and failures, and the emergence of confidence -- even redemption -- whether they win or not that we witness. The competition affirms the contestants for their talents but, even more important, for who they are! (Which, by the way, sometimes, is not a singer!) The barrel-chested farmer who happens to be a crooner and sees a different future from one he once felt 'assigned'; the lesbian young woman who for the first time feels broadly accepted; the young tuba player in the marching band, suddenly the diva, on national television! I think of these as 'Idol transformations.'

For me, these are analagous to school transformations. The Idol transformations I observe are some of the best theater in the world, but no more dramatic than what I have been fortunate enough to observe happening within children in effective schools in my 26 years as an educator. Good schools and parents, as partners, can free and facilitate children to become who they are meant to be. This is rarely the 'forced march' of our parents' and some of our own generations' coming of age. It is a more sympathetic, developmental, nurturing process (with the strong pushes where needed) that allows time for talents and confidence to develop and provides scaffolding around strengths and challenges.

To succeed in any walk of life requires courage, and involves risks, triumphs and failures, through which great schools and parents facilitate and offer support for their children, helping them to build the confidence to follow the paths that are right for them. It's a privilege to be part of that process at Burgundy, to participate in individual student's journeys and to see diverse groups of families and students, much like the Idol Top 30, unite and support one another's children (and one another) through these incredible journeys.