Take a Sad Song and Make It Better

Every so often, the future of our youth doesn’t depress me.

Being a teacher in the elementary grades, I see things that would make a lesser person weep. The way adults treat their progeny often is criminal, not to mention the state of education. Why are children being left behind? Because first graders are doing algebra, but can’t do basic addition, 4th grade science lessons on sound is material I learned in a college level physics class, and I, the educator with a Masters Degree, have to go to teachers I know to get assistance with my elementary children’s homework.

But that’s not the point of this post.

Being a music teacher, a lot of what I see is children so burnt out on school by second grade, they can’t concentrate on the music education I’m contracted to deliver to them 30 minutes once a week. So, I somewhat circumvent the system. I teach the standards, but I do it my way. We may be working on beat, but we use Tooty Ta and Cha Cha Slide to do it. Bottom line, I don’t think there’s any reason for the kids to be stressed about music as well as academics in elementary school. But, this, too, is another post.

Last spring, as I got a little bored and ready for summer, I pulled out some of my lighter materials. Amongst and amid was a kids’ arrangement of The Beatles’ I Want to Hold Your Hand. Being a major Beatles fan, I brought out some other things I had, including an old video of Bobby McFerrin doing Blackbird. I also took out one other song for the kids to learn. I wanted something from a different Beatles’ era, but something a little different and something they may not have heard (unless their parents were like me, and listened to Beatles A LOT). I chose Hey, Jude.

All my 2nd through 5th graders loved it. It didn’t matter if they were from upwardly mobile suburbans or subsidized housing apartments, the kids repeatedly asked for Hey Jude long after the lessons were over, and well to the end of school. The favorite part? Where the actual lyrics end and the “Na-Na, Hey, Jude” begins. Good Lord, those kids were loud.

So, now I’ve started a new school year, and on the first week of school, without fail, the song I was most often asked about? You guessed it…Hey, Jude.

Now the key to this story is that I only taught this lesson to the older grades, students in 2nd through 5th grades. At the end of last week, a new 2nd grader (who was in 1st grade last year), asked, "When are we going to 'do the Beatles’."




Long live The Beatles.