A Minor Frustration

I understand the importance of connecting curriculum to "real life".  I understand how essential it is that students become immersed and engaged in what you need them to do, and that if they are engaged they will be more successful in your class.  I get that, and I work really hard to make sure I have really amazing, varied ideas for curriculum, and I am always looking for ways to make what I do better. 

Here's what I am frustrated about.  I sang an old American folk song with the students last week, and we talked about the meaning of the song.  It is about two people who are somehow separated for whatever reason and can't be together anymore.  The person singing the song is really sad about the person who has left.  What I have them do is write a letter to a person that they have known that is no longer here, or that they rarely see, or who has died, or who they argued with and no longer talk to.

It seems to me that this is an organic, hands-on, life-affirming, real life assignment that will teach students how to communicate their feelings about one another.  All of a sudden, I have had several students ask me "Why are we doing this?"  I thought this was a music class?  Why are we writing in music class?  I am sorry, but it seems to me, you need to talk about music and write about music, and figure out how music relates to the outside world so that you can be a kinder, gentler, more compassionate, sensitive, strong, thoughtful person.  I am tired of swimming upstream in this particular case, and I am sick of being questioned at every turn.  I will leave you to think on this and to think about what Plate said about music:

Teach children music, physics, and philosophy; but most importantly, music, for the patterns and all the arts are the keys to learning. Plato.

I rest my case.