For Mr. L

A funny thing happens as we get older…we suddenly find ourselves appreciating all those things we were once told we’d appreciate…yup…when we get older.

For me, three things stick out in my mind in particular:

1) Fighting with my dad constantly as a teenager over practicing my trumpet. I was told repeatedly that one day I’d thank him for it…and I do.

2) Nonstop complaining at the health food my mom used to force us to eat. I was told repeatedly that one day I would appreciate it…and I do.

3) Finding a mentor in my 8th grade band director. This one I did appreciate back then…but didn’t fully understand the extent to which it would influence the person I would become until…here I am…older.

So what’s bringing on this trip down memory lane? Perhaps it’s the rapidly approaching big 3-0. I’m about to embark on the last year of my 20′s (yowza that feels weird to say!) and I’m sure it’s bringing up some soul-searching. More than that, however, is a lot of time spent recently thinking about the power of music, the power of what we’re doing with Music Crossing Borders and the power of influence we as individuals, and adults, hold over the next generation.

If you read the past What Made You Get Started in Music blog, you know that in eighth grade I was ready to quit music. It was the arrival of Mr. L, our new band teacher, which would not only convince me to stay in band but would change the course of my life.

To read Mr. L’s bio is…confusing. With careers ranging from owning a bagel shop and  real estate company to being President of the International Make-A-Wish Foundation to his current job as Vice President of the Performing Arts at a very prestigious chain of private schools, Mr. L has-quite literally-done it all.

But what is a bagel-making-real-estate-dealing-nonprofit-running businessman doing in education?

The answer is simple: Changing Lives

Mr. L knew-and still knows-that the same skills it takes to get a room full of millionaires to open their checkbooks to a worthy cause are the same ones that will motivate a bratty 8th grader (I’m allowed to describe them as bratty, as that was me during this hot/cold/love/hate time) to think bigger than the classroom they are in for 45 minutes a day.

Let me give you an example…

While most middle school band students are thrilled at the idea of a class trip to Hershey Park, our trip entailed taking a group of 40-50 middle school students (seriously, picture this) to Europe for a ten-day tour of performances ranging from outdoor parks to castles to children’s cancer hospitals.

Talk about life changing.

While I’m sure there were mundane days in band class, I don’t remember them. I don’t remember ever being told that if I don’t practice my grade will be lowered. I do, however, remember being handed the Holst Eb Suite (a piece most often performed by college and professional orchestras) in eighth grade and told if we wanted to challenge ourselves and blow everyone away, let’s do it. If we didn’t want to take it seriously, we’d play out of our method books like every other middle school band. The thought of ever being like ‘every other middle school band’ became our motivation to work harder than any of us had ever worked up until then.

I don’t remember being lectured for not practicing enough. I do, however, remember making a $50 bet with Mr. L over a very difficult measure in a piece of music. $50 to an eighth grader?! Talk about motivation to practice!

And I don’t remember getting lectured day in and day out about the need to act responsibly with high school rapidly approaching, as is so often the case in middle school classrooms. Instead, I remember being pulled aside by a tearful Mr. L staring at me in astonishment and asking me, ‘You just spent the last hour of your life performing for children with terminal diseases and you still don’t get it? You’re acting like this <insert stupid middle school behavior>…you don’t get it, do you?’ Ouch. There’s a life lesson.

As I get older, I find myself thinking about Mr. L’s methods more and more. Unconventional is an understatement…but powerful is even more so.

Mr. L has a slogan that’s stuck with me and has become an underlying force behind MCB:

It’s Not Just About the Music

When you’re thirteen and performing for a group of terminally ill children half your age in front of a band director with tears streaming down his face, you learn very quickly what is truly meant by the power of music. That’s a lesson I’ve always kept with me and is a founding principle of MCB.

I was very fortunate to learn at a very young age that there’s a very definitive power to music. It can heal, it can change lives, it can bring people together.

So, here’s to you Mr. L…you absolutely taught me that It’s Not Just About the Music. I hope you don’t mind that we’ve put this into our own words:

6.8 Billion People * One Language * One World

Forget Baby Steps

Some of the best personal advice I’ve ever received was from a close friend who told me that it would be beneficial for me to ‘learn to be gray’.

No, this wasn’t code for trying to blend in or calm down some personality bubbliness (have we met?), it was a suggestion of a change in mindset. See, I tend (hopefully ‘tended’ would be the appropriate term by now) to think very black and white. While sometimes a good quality for TCOBing (Taking Care of Business), black and white thinking can also box one in in the broader scheme of life.

So, for the past three years, I’ve made a conscience effort to broaden my mindset and learn to live in the gray area.

That being said, there are certain areas of life where I cannot (refuse?) to think in the gray. Certain topics, to me, can and should live in the more absolute world of black and white. Some of these topics include:

1. Nutrition in modern society (that’s a whooooole other blog)
2. My hatred of the Yankees
3. The revolution of education that needs to begin, first and foremost, in our public school system

While I’m happy to sit down and have a long drawn out discussion about the first two, let’s focus on the third for the purpose of this blog…

I recently attended a gala at the Waldorf Astoria for Teach for America. It was a beautiful evening with some very wealthy people all gathered to write giant checks to what I consider a fantastic cause. One speech from that night stood out in particular to me. To give a broad overview, the focus was about the 2-4% increases here and there that were popping up in public school standardized test scores and the slightly increased literacy rates that have occurred over the past five years. After a few minutes of patting the public school system on the back for their steady, if miniscule, positive growth, the speech got around to its point: this is not enough.

What we need is a revolution.

We don’t need baby steps that will focus on how well a student takes a test while continuing to focus on the tiny percentage increases each year, we need a system that focuses on what students are actually learning.

We don’t need a system that pushes students through so they can boast about graduation rates though kids are leaving school unprepared, we need a system that focuses individual attention on each and every individual child and ensures they are receiving the help and support they, as an individual, need.

And we certainly don’t need a system where the curriculum is based around making sure students can regurgitate facts they’ve memorized to meet standardized criteria, with little or no focus on bigger life lessons and values. We need a system that truly prepares students for life—a revolution that is helping to mold wonderful human beings, not just book smart graduates.

This revolution is not going to happen through 2-4% increases here and there. It’s going to happen by individuals and groups of leaders standing together and declaring what they consider to be acceptable and unacceptable standards of education. It’s starting to happen at some wonderful charter schools around the country and can continue as more and more people get on board.

These are the people who refuse to think in the gray about how our education system should be run. It’s their way and their way only: individualized attention and a nurturing environment.

This is the mindset, this is the black and white way of thinking, which will cause the education revolution we need.

This is the mindset, this is the revolution, on which MCB was founded. We’re not a school responsible for the graduation rates of our students. We are, however, doing our part to positively influence each and every student with whom we come in contact. We’re not taking baby steps to slowly introduce these kids with little to no musical experience to other cultures, we’re preaching our message of the Universal Language of Music loud and proud. We’re not tiptoeing our first five years in existence to slowly build our organization from the ground up. We’re jumping in head first, bringing our programs to every school and orphanage all over the world that will have us. And we’re just getting started: our goal is to double our schools in the coming year. We plan to grow exponentially as the years progress for no other reason than that of our belief in the importance of our mission.

Call it black and white thinking. Call it stubborn. Call it impractical.

We say forget baby steps…

Call it a revolution.