On top of everything else, music classes are an essential release valve for over-pressured kids.
Now, it’s not on the top of my priority list for my students. I want them to grow and learn and achieve and find joy in music and build lifelong connections and make recordings and give compelling performances and consider art and so much more.
But in 2024, virtually every kid I know is in a pressure cooker. A pressure cooker of AP Classes, standardized tests, impossible standards on social media, a looming climate crisis, fear of school violence, and about a dozen other things.
(Not to mention, you know, the usual hormonal challenges, the yearning for independence, the questions about what I’m going to do with my life. You know, teenager stuff.)
In short, they have a lot that’s pressurizing them. Music class is often a safe place for students to safely vent some of that pressure without causing a problem. Part of that is because so many music teachers work so hard to make their classrooms safe, and part of it is because music primes us to feel and express things.
The difficulty is that relieving that pressure often looks like chaos. It looks like regression to a less mature version of themselves, it looks like a lack of focus, it might look like disrespect or disaster.
It’s not disrespect, it’s not disaster. It’s students relieving pressure, and on top of everything else we do, we need to be a place where they can do so.
In fact, it’s a true honor that our rehearsals are where students feel safe enough to vent the pressure.
Next time you’re working to bring your students back to the task at hand, remember why they’re so easily distracted. It’s because they feel safe around you.