Music Monday

Recently I heard a news report about a local city council in Western Australia implementing a program to teach and encourage teenagers to put aside their mobile phones and devices and relate to each other person to person. The program so far has had an enthusiastic response from the trial study participants who are now talking to friends in their school break periods rather than sitting together texting each other or others.

It is a sad downside of our modern tech-driven world that skills like these need to be taught; however it did set me thinking about the importance of the Arts – and music in particular – in engaging young people person to person.

At one of my teaching campuses the high school students are music theatre specialist kids. In rehearsal there is enormous connection with each other and the director, choreographer and music director. Phones are used for recording difficult musical phrases or videoing sections of tricky choreography but relationships are based on shared hard fun – person to person.

Arts teaching at its best is hard fun. It is a people activity and practice. And nowadays more than ever it is so fundamentally important to children’s education!