Why Do Kids Show Up?

Why do kids show up every day at school?
 
Kid show up at school for several reasons.

Their parents make them.

There are laws that require that they go to school.

But I've always been of a belief that the real reason why kids go to school is that they want to be with their friends. They want to be away from their family for a while and get a breather. They want to be somewhere safe where there's food, and they can play outside.

They want to do fun stuff.

These are all valid motivators.

Kids are not there to see the teachers, the secretary, the custodians, or the principal. They are there to see their friends.

There is the exception to the vast majority of kids, though.

Sometimes an adult is the reason a child wants to be in school. They want to be in the presence of someone who isn’t obsessed with curriculum or progress charts. Those children are looking for adults who aren’t swimming in a sea of confusion, who see them as they are, where they are, strengths and weaknesses, assets and liabilities, gifts and foibles.

They want to be around a dependable authority figure.
These special kids want to go to school for respite. To get away from something. Those are the kids with haunted eyes who never seem to light. They perch, as if flight is eminent and necessary. For these children, that is how they see the world.

These children aren’t looking for “fun” but will gladly embrace it should it be available at school. They are in search of a breather.

We can’t do enough for these kids.

Unfortunately, some teachers teach and approach kids as more friends than the juvenile charges they are. That often creates an dysfunctional dynamic in their relationships that the child carries more than the adult.

I was careful never to foster friendship with students.  I always worked to be the adult, the teacher, the mentor.

If kids come to school to have fun, what are they doing in music class?

I hope they're having a lot of fun. I hope they're playing instruments, and not just shakers, rattles, rhythm sticks, or tambourines but polyphonic  instruments like pianos and guitars that require fine motor acquisition.

I hope that when someone speaks in the elementary music room that the majority of the time it's a kid and not the teacher because no matter how good the teacher thinks they are, when the teacher speaks the majority of kids hear Charlie Brown's trombone-sounding teacher.

Thankfully, playing music together fosters social growth.

Kids need to learn how to get along with one another, how to socialize, and how to work with one another – and the music room is just the right place to do it.

The earlier that kids learn how to collaborate, the better off they will be as young adults as well as old adults.

One of the best opportunities for kids to work with one another in the music room is “pilot and co-pilots”.

if there was anything of my work that I wanted my students to emulate, it was my ability to spontaneously make music on pianos and guitars as well as everything else it could make a sound.

I didn’t want to cultivate   potential music educators.

I wanted to encourage once and future musicians.

I engineered opportunities for kids to find, develop, and value a culture of leadership.

That's why having a chorus structured around leadership and job attainment is a plus that will add value to their lives.

Give kids the opportunity to have fun making music with one another.

Find the leader that's within each of them, and literally help the get a job in chorus.

Take it from somebody who's been there and back: you won't be their friend in the moment.

You'll be their mentor.

But I can promise you twenty years down the road, you will be a friend to them.

And they will be a friend to you.