To foster life-long learning and active music making….promoting the understanding and making of music by all.  If you ask any music teacher what the ultimate goal is for their students, I think it would look something similar to these mission statements.  Oh, maybe not in such flowery language, but our hope is that students will make music a part of their lives in some way, whether they grow up to support the arts with their attendance, through their service or philanthropy, or decide to continue music making themselves by participating in a community or worship ensemble or playing in a cover band.  Something as organic as music should just be a part of who we are for our lifetimes.

As a teacher of elementary students, many times there’s this hope that what I’ve taught them has made some kind of an impact, but it’s really hard to know.  But every once in a while, something happens that reinforces the reason I do what I do, despite that “not knowing” and today was one of those times.  As I was working on my computer this afternoon, a message popped up from a Facebook friend.  But not just any Facebook friend, this was a former student, a young woman I had taught during her late elementary/early middle schools years in a K-8 school.  And she had a question for me.  Still referring to me as “Mrs. Bush” 20 years after I left that school, her first sentence was “I’m facing my first audition for a choir…and thought you would be the best person to ask for advice on an audition song.”  She’s trying out for a choir!  How cool!  I remember her having a beautiful voice as she sang in my choir and in our musicals.  So, I referred her to some art song collections I thought would help, wishing we lived closer so I could just let her borrow some of mine.

The conversation continued for a little bit longer, but what brought me to tears was her last sentence.  “In need of more music in my life.”  What an awareness.  We ALL need more music in our lives because we are musical beings.  For so many of us, being without music is like being without food or water – it feeds our souls.  And while I won’t take all the credit for her love of music, it does my heart good that perhaps I planted a little seed there.  Music is not a talent that some people have, it is literally a part of everyone and is something that can enhanced and improved through education.  The seed is already there, the teacher is there to hopefully bring the sunshine and water that that seed needs to grow.

As I get mentally prepared to begin meetings for school next week, this is a good reminder of why I do this.  As I work with my student teacher this fall, I need to remind her that in the course of her teaching young students, planting the seed is enough.  And unlike high schools teachers who often see their students go off to become musicians themselves, we have to know that perhaps what we do in the elementary general music classroom may encourage that student to voluntarily join other music ensembles or classes throughout their school careers.

So, just a little encouragement to all of my fellow music teachers as we begin another school year.  You are enough.  The seeds you plant are enough.  Our job is to teach students to use what they already have inside of them so that one day, in the busy-ness of life and working and raising a family,  former students may realize, I need more music in my life.