Ambition, Dream, Goal or Challenge?

While enjoying my Christmas vacations, I couldn’t avoid thinking about the new semester at school as a music teacher and some questions come to my mind: What am I doing as part of the school community for the general growth of the students? What can be changed and what can I change? Which one will be the social impact of my music program? Will my music class be interesting for “all attending students”, for those leaders and inactive ones, as well?
Against bored traditional music classes, conscious of students´ feelings about music, aware of the school needs and looking for an innovation in the art department this coming year, I’m interested in how music can be used in the classroom as a wonderful therapeutic medium of learning and communication, especially for those ADD, hyper, low achievers, leaders and/or “regular” students. From this perspective, the music teacher faces two dilemmas: the educational and the health issue, without mentioning the behavioral aspects of these students in the classroom. Specialists in this area, claim that specific music experiences with marked changes of pitch, duration or mood, need to be clear, precise and scientifically design as a medical form of treatment,. In addition, I would say and pedagogically speaking, these experiences need to fulfill some requirements, such as pitch = limited vocal range, content = message, lenght, texture, student’s age, group interest, etc. However, it’s necessary to examine the content of the programmed activities in order to determine which ones can be considered “diversionary “and which ones can be considered “therapeutic”.
Reading about music therapy, which is my needed topic of research and my challenge this year, I found that many articles have attempted to justify the use of music or other creative art therapies with people from different needs by stressing the therapeutic benefits contained by the art form itself. Surprise! This conception is different from a recreational music program where the primary emphasis is on providing enjoyment and musical learning to the participants. On the other hand, many health care experts have been working for years in measuring aspects of the human psyche such as self-esteem, emotions and motivation, and their relationship with any type of art therapy.
It’s really interesting to see how students respond in different ways to music activities according to their background, needs or sensibility. I picture now how amazing it would be to see at school students responding to therapeutic programmed activities! I strongly believe that students’ life can be affected through music, that student’s behavior can be modified, that students’ focus in their regular classes can improve. In a long term our students’ quality of life can improve! People, parents, teachers and/or school administrators might think that for regular students the results of this new type of music therapy in the classroom are non-significant, but here, the teacher needs to determine who the regular student is and who the student with “special needs” in the classroom is (I’m not talking about physical disabilities). Unlike the cognitive connotation of most subjects in the school curriculum, music has the added advantage of being affective too, by training the artistic expressivity of the student's individuality.
Some of the music students at school have different genuine reasons to be there rather in a dance or art course. It is, again, an opportunity for music (therapy) to offer such a student a unique opportunity to interact with music education (music therapy track) and feel comfortable, under control and stimulated at the same time. Besides, these well programmed activities directed to student’s self-discipline management will avoid my music classes to be chaotic.
At this point, three more questions arose: Would I be able to integrate effectively three worlds: education, music and psychology in my music classes? What’s the therapeutic value of my actual music program? Do I have, as a music teacher, enough music therapy training to live up to this new challenge? Well, I only pray God to find the time, the right program and the financial funds to continue my research and start my training in the area of Music Therapy in the Classroom, in pro of my student’s expectations accomplishment.