What Are You Preparing Students To Do?

College is overwhelmingly thought of as universal trade school now: get the training you need to succeed in a specific job.

Actually, high school is increasingly thought of as a trade school, too. What curriculum should I take to get into the right degree program at the right school?

In light of that, every course is scrutinized with the question: what does this prepare them for?

Math classes prepare students to be engineers or work for Google.

Science classes prepare students to be physicians and STEM careers.

English classes prepare students for communications degrees.

Language classes prepare students for global careers.

Everything seems to need a career outcome to justify its continued value.

So, what are music classes good for? What are you preparing students to do? It might be easy to fall in the trap of thinking music classes are there to shape and hone future musicians and music educators. That’s admirable, but that’s not what music classes are good for.

You are making your students more human. More interconnected, more grounded, more emotionally mature, more worldly, more sophisticated, more empathetic, more collaborative. More human.

That’s what music classes are good for.