To all Teachers and Music Lovers: Music at the Grammy's Provide Teachable Moments

Teachers used to ask me this: How do you know about the music that kids listen to?

The truth is that they are asking the wrong question. The question really should be: What kind of music speaks to the soul of all human beings...not just "kids?"

My former students were not 'kids'--they were beginning their journey and they are looking for answers to life's pressing "storms"--and adolescence is the hurricane that often blew them away. They looked for a foothold, for someone to steady them, someone that they could admire. So at the last evening's Grammy Awards everyone should see two artists who provide shelter to the storm.

At the Grammys, Kacey Musgraves song "Rainbow" is an extended metaphor, and its chorus about the inevitability of "storms" was eloquent and evocative. And it clearly a teachable moment. What are your student's rainbows and how do they face their storms? These two questions can be shaped into an artistic project, with written answers, to the colors of their rainbow.

The Grammy's also displayed the essence of compassion for the marginalized in Brandi Carlile's song "The Joke." Here is what NPR wrote of the song: ""The Joke" exemplifies the album's massive ambition. A country-rock aria dedicated to the delicate boys and striving girls born into — and, Carlile insists, destined to triumph over — this divisive time, "The Joke" offers a stunning vocal performance from Carlile,

"'The Joke'... reflects the compassion she has developed as a seasoned artist, parent and activist." [Carlile explains,] "'There are so many people feeling misrepresented [today],' she said. 'So many people feeling unloved. Boys feeling marginalized and forced into these kind of awkward shapes of masculinity that they do or don't belong in... so many men and boys are trans or disabled or shy. Little girls who got so excited for the last election, and are dealing with the fallout. The song is just for people that feel under-represented, unloved or illegal.'"

Naturally, their are other wonderful songs that the Grammy's featured, but for my energy, these two were music to my ears.