Teachers: The Soundtrack of Your Students’ Souls

What you can learn from their songs

This week the passing of my math colleague, Joe McEachron made me revisit our poignant conversations about reaching all students—framed in our lexicon this way: “We’re in the Kid Business.” Joe was a master, and his sudden passing has reminded me of a debate we had many moons ago about music and how to relate to the 35 or so pupils we faced five times a day.

“Bob,” Joe said, “their music sucks!” Joe had a delicate way with words.

“Joe,” I said, “we can’t think like that. We sound like grumpy, old men.”

He looked at me and didn’t need to say what he was thinking, even though we were in our mid-forties. It was true then that some ‘modern’ music had made a turn for the worst. I mean “Me So Horny” was a song one of my students identified with in a speech he made to the class. I quizzed him regarding the deeper significance of this choice, much to his chagrin. He was speechless and embarrassed; he came up with another song within the week. But the point I was making, and a lesson it taught me and my students, was that music was the one thing this baby-boomer teacher and his teenage students have in common. It is something we can talk about.

I told Joe that I could prove him wrong; that not all their songs suck. So one assignment I created was

called “Your American Identity.”  I asked each student to present a song that spoke to whom they are, wished to be, or perhaps how they saw their world. I required a power point slide with the lyrics. (Yes, I insisted that songs have meaning beyond “I can grind with my dance partner.”)

What the students in my American literature classes produced would have made Joe proud. Of the hundreds of presentations I watched, several remain ingrained in my memory. One was a girl named Lauren, who was generally quiet, but as she pushed play, I smiled at the lush melody of “What the World Needs Now (Is Love Sweet Love).” Jackie DeShannon, the singer, was part of my generation. That mattered not. What mattered was the timelessness of that song’s theme to a generation at least twenty years removed.

Naturally, most songs I heard that were new to me. However, another ‘ah ha moment’ came when another red haired young girl named Brandi cued up Jewel’s song “You Were Meant for Me.” It is a sad, perhaps to some, melodramatic ballad of a couple breaking apart, with the woman wishing it did not have to be. Notably, a young boy in class named Ryan asked her, “Do you think the girl in the song ever got over him?” There was a hush in the room. Brandi’s eyes watered as she faced the class, “I don’t know. What do you think, Mr. Pacilio?”

What I thought was this: it “meant” something to all of them. It touched a nerve. Heartbreak. Something everyone feared.  

One student seated in the farthest seat from me named Chris was often aloof in class. Perhaps he felt that he may not have the confidence to chime in to a conversation about Twain or Fitzgerald, and maybe he felt like some of the music I played in class was so “old school.” It didn’t resonate with him—Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, TLC, Don McLean, etc., it just wasn’t his kinda jam. So when he got up to address the class he softly admitted: “You know, I don’t really like some of Mr. Pacilio’s songs, and I looked and looked for a song that was more…me. And I just couldn’t find anything. So I went to my dad’s albums. I found this one song that just hit me.” He proceeded to play Joni Mitchell’s long ago indie hit “The Circle Game.” Its theme: “…we can only look beyond from where we came and go round and round and round in the circle game.”  To say I was surprised at the irony was an understatement. 

Oh, how I wish my dear friend Joe had been in my classroom that moment.

So the teacher learns from the students and the students get their chance to embrace the opportunity to express their view of life with all its twists and turns. It was the soundtrack of their lives.

Oh, Joe, I miss you, brother, and so do your former students. If I could choose a song to play for you, it would be James Taylor’s refrain: “Just yesterday morning, they let me know you were gone….” 

Goodbye, Joe. God Bless.