We did it to ourselves.  Years ago, elementary music teachers made themselves relevant, not because of what they taught but because they presented themselves as a way for classroom teachers to get their plan time.  It was survival in a time when school music programs were being eliminated. However, in the process, we also made ourselves irrelevant because now most just see us as – well – plan time for classroom teachers.

In some states, middle and high school music is considered an activity under the auspices of the state activities association.  It makes it difficult for those outside of music to take us seriously as an academic subject.  And yet, we have music educators who, for some reason, have no issue with remaining labeled an activity.

Recently I heard of specialists being labeled as “support staff”.  Supporting whom or what?  Are specialists supporting other subjects or teachers or are they a subject unto themselves?

I recently had a long term sub come to me who had a student who had been misbehaving in her class and she wanted to give him a consequence by taking him out of my class.  Can you even imagine if I suggested that same scenario to a reading or math teacher in my building?  First of all, I would never consider it as I would be perceived as not taking their class or subject matter seriously, and I absolutely do.  However, in the many years I have been teaching, I have had teachers who had no problem keeping or pulling a student out of my class to work on something they didn’t get finished or as a consequence of some kind, completely forgetting that I too have essential learning outcomes to cover and assessments to give during my class time.

Several years ago, I did some math to demonstrate just how much time I really have to get everything taught for retention and assessment for a single year.  A classroom teacher may have a two hour block every day to teach a particular subject.  In a particular year, say 176 days for students, that means 352 hours which is the equivalent of 50.3 days of school (based on a 7 hour day) spent just on that one subject.  Let’s say I’m on a 4 day rotation where I see a particular class for 50 minutes every 4 days.  So, I’m seeing them for 50 minutes for 44 days of the 176 days available.  This means I have roughly the equivalent of 5 school days to get an entire years worth of content in them, assess them and hopefully retain things from year to year in order to build upon what we’ve learned previously.

I must be one hell of a teacher, because somehow, I can make it work.  Most of my students can retain things well enough that it only takes a little bit of review to get them back on track, adding to the knowledge and skills they have learned previously.  The very thought of having them for the same amount of time that say, a reading teacher would have them is mind boggling.

The truth is, what I do with kids in my music class is not unusual as I know many, many music teachers do the same thing, some with even less time, dealing with 5 and 6 day rotations.  And within those 50 minutes periods within the subject of music, we teach science through acoustics, charts, graphs, frequencies, intensities, and volume changes.  We teach math when we subdivide rhythms into fractions to fit within beats as they move through time.  We speak in foreign languages and learn about those countries, their histories, and cultures using the songs we sing, the pieces we play and the instruments we use.  We teach large and small motor skills, working the coordination of fingers, hands, arms, lips, cheeks, facial muscles, together with diaphragmatic, back, stomach and chest muscles, all responding instantly to the sound the ear hears and mind interprets.

Today in my classes, we are learning about music during the turbulent history of the 1960’s, some that reflected the times, some that attempted to change the times.  We studied Rondo form in music and students then created their own original pieces  and performed them for the class.  We played recorder, working on finding patterns in the music to help them in the learning process.  Our little ones are working on motor skills, dancing to folk music, learning of the history behind it and how to work with a partner and group cooperatively.  And still others were working on moving their arms in tandem to play specific bars at specific times to add music to a story.

What we do is academic, it is physical, it is cognitive and it is an art form.  And while my schedule may work well to help classroom teachers have their plan time, the truth is that they also provide a daily plan time for me.  While we may do activities to teach a concept,  we are NOT an extracurricular activity and should not be labeled as such.  Lastly, as music teachers, we are certainly not support staff as what we do prepares students to not only be well rounded individuals but also cooperative, collaborative, creative, critical thinkers and problem solvers.  Exactly what we need in our society.  Music is essential and I will continue to preach that message for the sake of our students.