How Has Education Changed?

The COVID-19 Pandemic Supposedly Changed Education...Except it Didn't

In March of 2022, I attended the SXSW EDU conference in Austin, Texas. Back then, this was exciting because I’d spent the last two years teaching music through a global pandemic and used this experience — as well as my previous teaching experience and research — to start my own education non-profit. I was looking forward to immersing myself in the world of education and education reform for the next few days.

I felt that it was an exciting time. At the conference, you could feel the optimism as we were all beginning to emerge from the long, dark COVID tunnel. The pandemic had lifted the veil on a lot of elements around education that many had not been forced to examine or think about, and my eyes were opened to new perspectives throughout this time.

During the height of lockdowns, it felt like many of us were contemplating things we’d never been asked to before. It was a pretty heavy time and things like lifespan, public health, the functionality of humans in the world, and illness were thrust to the forefront of all of our lives. The pandemic was a game changer in so many ways. But it was the social aspects where everyone seemed to feel it the most. As a teacher, I could sense this in my students even through the screens we were seeing each other through on a daily basis.

In the evenings, my wife and I would walk our dog and, more often than not, I was stopped on the street by neighbors (many of whom I only knew casually) who (while keeping socially distant) felt compelled to say things to me like I never knew how important the arts were to education or You know what my daughter misses most about school? BAND! People seemed to have different and eye opening perspectives on what “mattered” in their child’s education.

Now, with the pandemic beginning to fade, I’d be going to Austin to see how the education community was responding to what had just transpired. I was also given the opportunity to speak directly with people as I was invited to be an Education Mentor at the conference.

One of the things that surprised me during COVID was how people were suddenly forced to realize the dynamic roles our schools play not only in the lives of our kids, but our communities as well. When schools shuttered, it became very apparent that, for many kids, school is more than “school”. These buildings are not just the places where our children go to learn reading, writing, and arithmetic. They’re also where kids make lifelong friends, and also where parents make new friends. It’s where kids fall in love for the first time and, for many, it’s the only place they can go during the week to express themselves albeit through music, writing, drawing, acting class, or all of those. For many kids, it’s the only place they go and receive love, structure and discipline. For others, it’s the place where they get breakfast and lunch. During COVID it became glaringly obvious that our schools serve an extraordinary number of dynamic purposes in our communities lives — and, for many of us, the pandemic created that realization for the first time.

Arriving in Austin that spring, there were clear elements of the pandemic at play. We were still required to show vaccine information and masks were in abundance. COVID was still on everyone’s mind but so was a sense of renewal. One of the talks I was excited to attend was the keynote address given by the US Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. In his address I remember being struck by one thing he said: “Everything has changed”. That statement seemed to match the tone many of us at the conference were feeling: Everything had changed.

Nearly three years on from that moment I often find myself asking What has changed about education in America? Seriously….what? Aside from books being banned and controversies involving “woke” ideologies…what has changed? During COVID, the ideas of what education was and what schools are in our communities were collectively blown out of the water. Yes, everything has changed…but no changes have been made.

Well, there are a few things. First off, there is an epidemic of loneliness amongst young teens. Mental health diagnoses like anxiety, depression, ADHD, and behavioral classifications are impacting student learning as well as the dynamic in teacher’s classrooms. The US Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, released three reports regarding these matters. The first, in 2021, was an advisory titled Protecting Youth Mental Health where Murthy points out how “…in 2019, one in three high school students and half of female students reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, an overall increase of 40% from 2009.” The second, released in 2023, was titled Youth And Social Media Advisory which states “Up to 95% of youth ages 13–17 report using a social media platform, with more than a third saying they use social media ‘almost constantly.’” The report later goes on to discuss how between the ages of 10 and 19, crucial and important brain development is occurring and that social media is having some kind of an impact on that. The third report, also issued in 2023, was an advisory on loneliness and is titled Surgeon General Social Connection Advisory. In that report, Dr. Murthy states how Americans were reporting feelings of loneliness and isolation six years before the COVID-19 pandemic, and that these feelings not only affect us mentally but physically as well.

The point is that kids are walking into school and, before they even sit down at a desk, their abilities to learn, develop and grow are already affected. Right now, the National Center for Educational Statistics reports that “…the number of students ages 3–21 who received special education and/or related services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was 7.5 million, or the equivalent of 15 percent of all public school students.” Our school student populations are now more developmentally, socially, and emotionally diverse. Students, teachers, therapists, and school leadership are craving more in-school support. I believe the ways that we teach as well as support our students is in need of change. And the level of support that teachers and therapists receive needs to be more dynamic.

At SXSW EDU in 2022, I met with a few school leaders (principals, superintendents) who told me how their student populations had changed over the years — even before the pandemic. They told me similar stories about how teachers and even school therapists were feeling overwhelmed. I listened to their anecdotes and shared my ideas and research with them regarding how music could be further leveraged in their schools to support students and staff. Many had never thought of music in the capacities I was introducing. Many of the people I met with seemed almost puzzled at the thought of “expanding” the use of music in school. As the days went on it was becoming more clear to me that despite the shared experiences of teaching and working with students through a global health crisis, many of the people I met were stuck inside a mindset that was now going to have to change.

That’s easier said than done.

In the book Are The Arts Essential, the writer and thinker Alberta Arthurs wrote : “But when we need to address ideas, consider change, challenge systems, size ourselves up, all too often we simply leave the arts behind.” She is right. When it is clear that the way things are being done needs to change — regardless of field or profession — rarely do you hear someone suggest consulting with people in the arts, and education is not immune from this. Arthurs also wrote: “We seem to think of [the arts] primarily as ‘entertainment’ or ‘leisure’. We call on them to show us ‘beauty’. We are often awed, it seems, but seldom activated by the arts.”

Arthurs’ comments on how we view the arts solely in the context of “entertainment” and “leisure” couldn’t be more true. With regard to education, we view the arts solely in the context of “extra curricular”. They don’t really matter. But in the context of today’s students, this mindset has allowed us to completely overlook the arts in school as a way to activate us towards more dynamic student, teacher, and therapist support, as well as for broader change and reform.

I believe music is the most underused resource in every school building in America. Falling in line with what Arthurs wrote, most of us view the role of music in school solely in the context of band, chorus, orchestra, or general music class. That’s it. We don’t see it beyond any of those applications — and this is pretty much exactly how music has been viewed in school almost since the creation of the American public education system. In essence, this mindset has been in place since the nineteenth century, and has translated over to public charter schools as well as private and parochial schools.¹

This mindset exists despite the fact that over the course of the last twenty years, rafts of scientific as well as academic scholarship have emerged showing how music affects the brain as well as human physiology. We are also beginning to discover music affects our social and emotional states much deeper than we anticipated. Music stimulates humans (children and adults) through every neural system: cognitive (memory), limbic (emotional), and our motor systems. We are also beginning to understand that we emerge from the womb with a built in sense of music. Infants can process musical elements in ways that we never imagined. Beginning on the first day out of its mother’s womb, an infant can move rhythmically to music. Between two and five months, babies can tell two rhythms apart. If you ask an average three year old child to sing a melody back to you, they will be able to do it — albeit not perfectly, but they will have the contour and shape correct. It turns out we humans have an innate sense of music. I like to say that music comes preloaded in the human operating system. We respond, relate to, embrace, and enjoy it beginning on day one of our existence.

Yet, by the time most kids are twelve years old, they will have been led to believe that, within the context of their education, music is valueless. Sure, sticking with an instrument or singing in chorus, throughout your entire education may bolster a college application, but outside of that, it means nothing. It’s not going to get you a job! And this mindset is instilled in our kids by their parents, teachers, school counselors, and boards of education — and that’s because most of them believe this to be true. After all, what’s first to be cut from a school budget: the thing every student in the school has a natural affinity for, appreciation of, immediate social, emotional response to, and innate understanding of…or math?

Please don’t think I’m slagging the importance of math (I’m not), nor diminishing its value. How ever, I am bringing to light that we humans emerge from the womb with a built in sense and early understanding of music — and music is rooted in an extraordinary number (no pun intended) of math concepts. For example, nothing is more joyous than watching a two year old dance to music. Let’s say she or he are moving to the Bee Gees’ “Stayn’ Alive”. The child’s parents clap along and smile as do the grandparents, aunts, and uncles. It’s exciting to see an early form of expression and enjoyment and the child’s movements and joy transfer out across the room. But what no one ever thinks about is that the child is also reacting to a complex algorithmic formula that is subdividing beats rooted in the number four, and that she is also processing a patterned speech algorithm that, itself, is also rooted in the number four. Oh yeah, and she is also making social and emotional connections with everyone in the room while outwardly expressing herself.

I believe it’s time to harness that appreciation and understanding and utilize it within the whole of learning. In essence, use music to activate our student’s understanding of other things as well as their social and emotional development. This, by the way, is not a new concept. The ancient Greeks taught music in two contexts: music theory (sharps, flats, chords, the scale) was taught as a part of math class². The emotional and aesthetic aspects of music were taught as a part of drama and/or art classes. In addition , the ancient Greeks also utilized music as an emotional healing tool. They saw music as a dynamic form and used it in its fullest capacities.

In addition to these applications, music can (and should be) made available to classroom teachers as well as school therapists to enhance their protocols. Imagine being a new fourth grade teacher struggling with classroom management. It’s not only weighing on you emotionally but begins undermining your confidence. But one day your supervisor tells you there’s a music educator available to come to your room and implement creative music and movement interventions that build a group dynamic, help with self-regulation and can ultimately improve learning as well as your abilities in the classroom. Would you say “Yes” to that? Or imagine being a school speech therapist and you’ve hit a roadblock with a fourth-grade student struggling with apraxia. The student’s teacher tells you her speech delay is also affecting her in-class behaviors. But you are informed there’s a music educator available to come and provide music based protocols that could enhance your work. Would you say “Yes” to that?

But we don’t see music’s role in school in those capacities. We do not view it outside of its traditional applications — and why would we? This mindset has permeated for decades. And, I know, there might be music educators and/or supervisors reading this thinking “So I have to go back to school and become a Board Certified Music Therapist?” No. I’m not saying that at all. Music educators graduate from college with a lot of this knowledge and these skills already in place. They just haven’t been taught to utilize them, nor see their work this way. It, too, is part of the aforementioned mindset that affects how music is viewed in school.

I believe changing this mindset can be the catalyst for more aesthetic and creative education reforms. Again, today’s students are more developmentally, socially, and emotionally diverse. The job of teaching — which has always creative and dynamic — now needs to be more creative and more dynamic. A renewed view of how music is used in school can be the force behind those changes.

1. In fact, some private and/or parochial schools don’t even bother offering any music classes at all. This is because they market themselves to potential families as “college prep schools”.

2. This, by the way, makes perfect sense when you consider that Pythagorus developed the concepts that the major scale are based on. He, in addition to being the Father of Math is also the Father of Music Theory.