Pursuing excellence and musicality should be paramount, of course. That’s the ultimate job of a music educator.
But more and more, I’m convinced that music classes must be a respite for our students. Our students are subject to time-consuming demands well beyond what I experienced in high school twenty-five years ago, and I truly believe significantly more than even five or ten years ago.
When our students then escape from under these mountainous expectations, they are working to save for a college tuition that is increasingly unattainable. (Consider Community College, dear students!)
And when all that is done? They are subjected to utterly unattainable standards of success, confidence, beauty, and and happiness – in the form of traditional media, streaming media, and social media.
Music-making can’t solve all of the problems teenagers face in 2018. But at the very least, we can offer a respite: a safe space for students to be human, make art, and reconnect to their core selves.