Weren't You My Music Teacher?

It happened again the other day. I was tuning violins in an empty school auditorium in preparing for a large 4th grade string class, and a young woman came in and asked me my name. "Are you Miss Betty?" was how she asked, and I said "No, I'm Mrs. McLean." Her face fell, as she said she thought I looked like her old music teacher and then when I told her I used to be Miss Crocker (get it? Betty Crocker!), her face lit up with recognition. "Yes, that's it!" she exclaimed. "You were my music teacher!" I asked her name, and, indeed I remembered her. She had been a viola student of mine in 4th and 5th grade and then went on to middle and high school where she played in the orchestras, as well as in the local youth symphony. She still has her viola, she told me, and "really ought to get it out and play it one of these days". She is now the parent of a kindergartener. The elementary group that started with her that year, way back when, was a small, really enthusiatic group. I only taught at that school for two years, and lost track of those fun kids. But it made me happy to know that she had played all the way through school.

This is not the first time this has happened, and every time it does, I have to stop and wonder where all those years went. How did these kids change so much, while I stayed the same (What!!!? I've changed too???)? The time I have been working as a public school music teacher has gone by in a blink of an eye, but constitutes a significant chunk of the life of a young twenty-something. It has not yet happened that I am teaching the child of a former student, but that day is coming.

Some of the young adults who stop me to recall our shared past are parents of elementary students now themselves, or they are working in our schools or elsewhere in town here. Some have gone on to college, others have not, but no matter what the level of their higher education, these kids all graduated from high school at least. They are members of our greater community, and, it seems, stable, healthy and productive. Maybe this is the best reason for keeping active music classes in all school levels. Kids stay in school if it's fun and there is some part of the school day that feels like it is just for them. They are part of a community within their school that has shared interests and goals and which, over the course of the four years of high school, at least, builds a shared history of events and memories. Music allows kids of different ages, classes, and peer groups to interact. Girls and boys participate together. Together they do what no one of them can do alone. Each has a part, and each part is necessary for the finished product. Individual effort pays off, as well as cooperation. There is nothing else in school, except for team sports, that can do this.

And just as with sports, in order to have satisfying high school music experiences, it is best if the students begin learning their instruments early on, say, in elementary school. Most fourth graders don't really know this, and they sign up for music class because it looks like something fun, and/or they can get out of class for a half hour a couple times a week. More and more, I am trying to paint this picture for them, of what they can expect if they stay with it. My mantra: Just keep 'em playing, no matter what. Then, some day down the road, I will be sitting in a restaurant or getting my hair done, or walking across a school campus and a young person will say: "Hey weren't you my music teacher?"