The Music Advocates of Carroll County (website) have named Brian Drake, a music teacher and band director at Westminster High School, the Carroll County Music Educator of the Year, according to a report in the Carroll County Times.
“Mr Drake stands out as dedicated, thorough, and patient, while at the same time insisting on rigor and asking for the same dedication from his students that he gives to them,” the paper quoted Angelina Kline Burgess, a parent of music students at the school, as saying.
The advocacy organization was formed in the fall of 2010 by a small group of Carroll County residents who believe in the value of music education, the group’s president, Maggie Fischer, said. Now the group has 200 registered members who continue to work to raise the profile of music education in county schools.
That can be a difficult thing to do in schools today, says one op-ed piece in the Chicago Tribune:
It takes a courageous administrator to fund music education in schools when there is so much pressure to improve math and science test scores, and so little emphasis on the arts. Cash-strapped school districts are dropping serious music instruction, as though it is merely expensive play time and not essential to the development of successful, high-achieving students. The remaining general music programs are often executed with poor resources and even lower expectations.
Our view
More than math or science teachers, referenced in the above-cited op-ed, music teachers inspire those who strive to reach levels of excellence that really can’t be attained from high school math teachers or science teachers. That is because music teachers are more likely to be musicians than math teachers are to be mathematicians or science teachers are to have ever worked in a research lab. Kids can sense that truth a mile away from any classroom.
Furthermore, the lessons learned in working up a musical performance are more easily related to life skills than knowledge of science or some branch of mathematics can ever be. For example, the communication between a singer and his accompanist is often subtle and finely tuned. This helps with the life skill of interpersonal communication. They rely on and count on each other, building the life skill of teamwork.
Music teachers are more likely than those in other subjects to create lasting memories in their students, memories that can come only from students giving their dedication to produce something beautiful that is applauded by the important people in those students’ lives. Those positive experiences lead to the enhanced development of those students as young adults in life long after high school.
Or, as Mr Drake himself put it: “I think on some level it doesn’t serve [the students] or me well as a teacher to only think that I’m teaching music. Most of the students who are in the music program won’t go on to be professional musicians or teachers. We’re just hoping that we cultivate a lifetime of musical interest, but more importantly, it’s our job to teach them skills that transfer to their future careers.”
