ABC Weekend World News Interview – American Idol and the Music Classroom

This past week a crew from ABC weekend world news report visited my classroom to interview me and observe how I infuse the show American Idol in the classroom. It will probably air on ABC around May 21st or 22nd – I’ll post the details when I know them. I posted my response to the National Association of Music Education inquiry about the use of American Idol in the classroom a few months back. It was a great experience to be able to share with the crew and viewers of ABC world news report a couple of ways American Idol can be used in the music classroom. I was also very proud of my students who applied what they have been working on through their responses to questions, their sharing of original compositions and their constructive feedback to each other.

Here are a couple of things I tried to highlight:

– Recently we have been discussing a New York Times article on the “idol effect” which outlines how artists who have their songs sung on American Idol are not only getting exposure but having their album and song sales go up. This discussion led to more general discussion about the music industry and connections between who owns what.

– We have been working on recognizing the importance of being able to articulate the students’ thoughts about music using accurate music vocabulary as they critique the contestants on the show and performers in general. We have also expanded this to help them critique each other when giving feedback on original compositions they work on in class.

– We have been discussing the actual comments of the judges on American Idol. We try to figure out what the judge is actually saying and what details he or she is including or completely leaving out in their comments. We work on questions they can think about whenever a judge gives a comment to engage in the show on a deeper level than watching it passively as entertainment.

– We have been working on ways to give constructive criticism and discussing the ways that the judges on the show say what they say. The students have a lot of interesting perspectives particularly about Simon ranging from disgust at his attitude to the belief that the show could not exist without someone playing the role of “Simon” for the general public to enjoy.

I was also able to discuss the importance of music education, the concern across the country about cutbacks to music programs and the shift of resources away from music programs due to the effects of the Federal no child left behind legislation.

We also discussed the importance of including aspects of the students’ lives and popular culture in the music classroom and providing students with additional ways of looking at and thinking about these aspects of their lives.