The Transformative Power of Arts and Music Education

So I got busy learning, which meant practicing. And with practice comes discipline—the discipline to quiet the rest of the world (TV, playing ball, girls)—and focus on what needs to be done. 

Sooner than later, I was singing. Now, I wasn’t exactly Stevie Wonder but I wasn’t exactly the same Fedrick either. My voice soared past my stutter and brought me out of my shell. I learned the value of hard work and what it means to create something that was uniquely my own. 

I was in middle school when my mom took me to see Kenny G, which inspired me to pick up my first instrument, a tenor saxophone and then the clarinet. I was in love with music. And that love would see me join the band through middle and high school. And as graduation loomed, it was my high school band director—Mr. William McKenzie—who pointed me toward higher education, a first in my family. Thanks to Mr. McKenzie, I enrolled at Bethune-Cookman University as a music major. It was under the tutelage of B-CU band directors like Dr. Donavan Wells, Dr. Harold Bray and Dr. James Poitier that I was inspired to not just become a better musician but also to teach that love to other kids.

My personal testimony set my destiny: I know the man I am today is here because the child I once was gained the benefit of an arts education. It was the caring hands and hearts of Black teachers, who saw me as a fully dimensional person in need, that pushed me to become who I am; and I cannot credit them enough. 

I say that not as a world-renowned musician (though I’m no slouch on the saxophone), but as an educator and a leader who learned some of the life-saving skills that brought me to where I am today. 

And I don’t use the term “life-saving skills” lightly.

As a young person, especially one coming from my background, you often bear the weight of the world on your narrow shoulders. Whether that’s because you are the one hope for your family’s future or because of a society that expects you to fail, you worry about more than cartoons and candy. For me and for millions of others, music education helps with social emotional conditioning—allowing the student to create something new (a song, a riff, a beat) that lets them see there’s more to life than the four corners they are used to. 

I mentioned earlier the power of practice and discipline. I learned early that if I wanted to become a master musician, it meant honing my craft day and night. That meant I had to create a new goal for myself as well as the plan to reach it. Specifically, it meant I had to learn how to prioritize my time and efforts—a valuable skill I use to this day. 

Music education also taught me empathy through teamwork. A band may be playing one song, but that is only through the will of many focused on the beauty of the singular. It’s easy to believe that you sound great, but when you are performing for an audience, when you are working to bring wonder and joy to those in the crowd, you have to think about your bandmates and your relationship to them. How can I sound better so we all sound good? 

If there is one skill music education taught that I find most valuable for myself and students everywhere, is learning how to fail, and fail again. You will not be Wynton Marsalis the first time you pick up a trumpet. You will not be Endea Owens when you pluck your first bass. So you must become familiar with failure—repeated failure—and understand that it is a virtue. Failure teaches you how to succeed and will only break you if you let it.

Just ask Isiah.

The first time I met Isiah, he was sitting in in-school detention—a norm for this high schooler with a long rap sheet of petty crimes. All I knew about him was that he was a troublemaker who experienced real loss for someone so young—mother was murdered, an imprisoned father he never met. And despite a knack for music thanks to some piano his mom taught him, I knew no one was giving this kid a chance.

He and I were not the same, but as a man I recognized something in him. And as a newly minted music teacher I saw that there was raw talent buried under the trauma. I knew that the discipline, empathy and social emotional learning that transformed me from a wallflower to an accomplished educator could do the same for him.

So I worked with Isiah for three years until he was lead piano for the jazz band. He ended up graduating from high school, because of what we did in class and is now a fully ordained minister of music in one of the biggest megachurches in Miami.

And he is not alone. Research shows that students who receive an arts education are 10 percentage points more likely to find gainful employment, 17 percentage points more likely to earn an associate degree, and 20 percentage points more likely to earn a bachelor’s degree.

Sadly, the benefit of this education has not stopped those trying to eliminate arts and music education for our kids. Studies show that the percentage of students who received an arts education fell from 50 percent to under 30 percent in the years between 1982 and 2008. It’s a depressing statistic made worse when you consider that white students, often getting a better education thanks to decades-old zoning policies, saw their rates continue to hover at or around 60 percent.

I remember what it was like to teach music with old, often damaged instruments, which is why last year I approved a $10,000 grant to Hungry for Music, an incredible organization that collects and distributes musical instruments to children.

It’s also why I write this blog so that anyone reading it can fully understand the transformative power of music and arts education in our classrooms. Although it may not seem as crucial as math or history, creating art can be just as important, just as instrumental in saving the lives of our most vulnerable students. Beauty is worth fighting for, even when the fight is hard.