Thoughts about General Music in Elementary Classes

Music should be taught to all Elementary students on a weekly basis in whole-class groups. Classes should be taught by music specialists, standards-based and sequential. They should be at least one time per week, but twice a week would be even better.

Here are the reasons I say this.

1. Music as pullout only in 4th a 5th grade has many inherent problems. Students can only succeed if they actually go to the music classes with their instruments. They are, by design, torn away from their academic classroom. They miss direct instruction which causes students and classroom teachers much stress, and leads, very often, to students quitting music, as failing their academics is not an option parents or teachers will choose.
2. Students also quit music in 4th a 5th grade because they find out it wasn’t really something they cared much about after all. When presented in the fall with the option of taking music classes many students enroll just out of curiosity. They get swept up in the excitement of doing something outside the classroom, on their own, with their friends. Everyone is signing up, so they do too. Only it turns out, they find in a few weeks, that they don’t have the passion or desire to pursue it, and facing the struggle of keeping up in academic classes, opt out of further music study.
3. Because of the first two reasons, and also because the procurement of an instrument is sometimes out of reach for some students (and there are many reasons for this), music education under this model is not equitable.
4. Many of the VAPA standards for Music assume a General Music focus, and cannot be fully implemented in half-hour, twice-weekly instrumental music classes. Music History, cultural context, general Music literacy and creative, critical thinking are not easily addressed in such classes.

This is not to say that Instrumental Music should not be offered in the upper grades of Elementary School.  If General Music was still taught through Fourth and Fifth grade, even with a pull-out program for the Instrumental part (Which might now more appropriate to offer after school), students would know by this point whether Music is something they are interested to pursue further by focusing on one instrument for a whole year. Instrumental Music would be an enrichment supplement to the core subject of General Music. 

Currently PUSD has whole-class instruction for Third Grade Violin is, in my opinion, good, but would be better if it was cemented in the background of three years of General Music and a continuation of General Music even with the Violin instruction (one day a week violin, one day General Music)

Music is mandated to be taught at all elementary grade levels, while Instrumental Music is not. Instrumental Music instruction is, perhaps, not appropriate for every student. We music teachers can see within a few months which students are going to "get it" and which are not. There are exceptions always. There are students who hang in and struggle for the whole first year, and who suddenly seem to have light bulbs coming on all over in the second year. The secret to their success, in my opinion, is not that some kind of talent kicked in, but that they liked it and persevered. It's the liking that is more important than any congenital talent that makes instrumental music instruction meaningful for them.

In the General Music setting, Music understanding and appreciation can grow, even if students don't achieve any big success on a given instrument. They are learning, like in Math and English Language Arts, and Science and Social Studies, things that we believe all educated people should know.