Looking back. Looking ahead.

My writing is seriously out of shape. Please excuse.

Today is Labor Day. The last day of summer.

Tomorrow I go back to work. I'm a teacher. I have the summers off.

This summer I logged serious hours with my daughter, who started the summer at 8 months old and couldn't crawl. She ended the summer at 10 months old not only crawling, but she can say "hi" and "head." She says head because of the song Little Bunny Frou Frou, who scooped up all the field mice and bopped them on the head. Head.



















Tomorrow I start my third year as a high school music teacher. I'm tired of giving grades to young people for musical development, so I'm not going to do it anymore. This book helped me devise a way to pull this off. My administration is on board so far. Grades are pointless and don't communicate anything of meaning to parent or student. I'm done with them. I'm aware this may fail, especially at my school which is SO grade-centric, but I have to try, otherwise I'm not being true to myself.

I need to write much more. So out of shape. Fire bad. Ug.

Nerds at the show

I took my band students to Lincoln Center last month to hear a Young People's Concert by the New York Philharmonic.

I recieved a surprising amount of pushback from a small minority of students. They didn't want to miss their "core classes." Physics, Geometry, etc. They asked if this concert attendance was mandatory. It was. 

Aside from the fact that according to federal law, music is a core subject, there is a deeper point here. As educators we are supposed to be getting our students "college and career ready." But the world is changing so fast that in fact we are training them for jobs that do not yet exist. 

Young people have no idea what kind of jobs will be available when they enter the work force in a few years, and neither do we. 

But we do know that whatever the job, it will require skills like an ability to collaborate, a creative sense of innovation, and the ability to make decisions quickly, among others. These are all qualities intrinsically developed by the study of music. 

So, in fact, I believe music to be not just equally important to my students' "core classes" but actually more important. 

So yes, nerds, we're all going to the show. Missing one day of math class isn't going to kill you, and you'll still get that good grade and get into that good college to train for the job that doesn't yet exist. We're going to hear something beautiful and important.