Three years ago, Todd Stoll, president of the Jazz Educators Network, wrote a piece on “Teaching Music in the 21st Century,” which was picked up by TIME Magazine. Encouraging music educators to reach deeper into the subject they teach, he re-ran the article in the current JEN newsletter because of its appropriateness in 2019. We run it here because it has become part of the national debate around music education.
As test scores and international metrics became ubiquitous in everything from local school board debates to political campaigns to television commercials, music education became the convenient subject to reduce, cut, or relegate to “after school.” The national percentage of high school students participating in music classes has been dropping precipitously while, nationally, audiences for “art” music have been at historic lows. How do we use this moment in education reform to our advantage, to better educate our kids, and build our future audiences?
I’m suggesting a national conversation to redefine the depth and quality of the content we teach in our music classes. We need a paradigm shift in how we define outcomes in our music students; a re-imagining of the phrase “to learn” for all our performing ensembles, vocal and instrumental. Let’s go beyond the right notes, precise rhythms, clear diction, and unified phrasing that have set the standard for
