MUSIC EDUCATION AND OUR COAT OF MANY COLORS
(I normally don't include images in this newsletter to ensure copyright compliance,
but I am making an exception for this newsletter. All photos are considered public domain)
When I first heard of Dolly Parton's passing, I knew I wanted to write about her. It was Tuesday night a week ago, and I had already written, edited, formatted, and loaded that week's edition into my system. So, I decided to hold for a week.
I'm glad I did.
Plenty has been written about Dolly Parton, and plenty will continue to be. Far more talented writers than me will regale you with tales of the superstar, songwriter, entertainer, businesswoman, and philanthropist. Deservedly so; however, there is one little piece of her story that I think those of us in music education should hold especially close.
Before Jolene, Dollywood, 9 to 5, the Imagination Library, and I Will Always Love You, Dolly Parton was something much simpler. At Sevier County High School, she was a music kid. She played drums in her high school marching band and sang in the choir. Maybe, in a life that ultimately became a beautiful Coat of Many Colors, school music was one of the early patches.
I would love to know more about that band kid. Was she ever late to rehearsal? Did she lose her music? Did she ever get in trouble for talking during class (like every other drummer)?
In other words, was she a typical student, or did she show early signs of the superstar she would become?
Did her director ever look at her and think, "This kid is going somewhere"? Or was she simply another student in the room? That's the wonderful mystery of teaching:
We have absolutely no idea who is sitting in front of us.
Dolly's first and perhaps most iconic hit, Coat of Many Colors, tells the story of her impoverished upbringing. I didn't know the story behind the song, but my wife, who LOVED that song as a young girl, told me all about it upon hearing of her passing.
Dolly's mother took scraps of fabric given to the family and lovingly stitched them together into a coat for her daughter. Dolly proudly wore it to school, only to be ridiculed by classmates because her beautiful coat was made from rags.
What other people saw as evidence that Dolly had very little, Dolly saw as evidence that she was rich in abundance. The coat wasn't valuable because of what it cost. It was valuable because of what went into it. That little coat would eventually become one of the defining stories of her life.
The third-chair clarinet might someday cure cancer. The trumpet player who won't stop talking might become a senator. The quiet cellist could start a company. And that percussionist in the back? Well, she might become the next Dolly Parton. I am always wondering in what classroom (or workshop) the next Tim Cook, Jennifer Garner, or Jimmy Fallon is- all of whom were in music. Just the thought of that reminds me that our job isn't to predict a child's destination. Our job is to help them get there, wherever it is.
We are a part of the fabric of their lives.
I think music teachers make coats like that every day. Not with fabric and thread, but with experiences. One rehearsal. One concert. One bus ride. One solo. One failure. One victory. One teacher saying, "ONE MORE TIME." Another saying, "I believe in you." A Friday-night football game here, an honor band there, and an inside joke or friendship that somehow survives for twenty years.
Individually, they may look like scraps, but stitch enough of them together, and eventually you've made something your students can wrap around themselves for the rest of their lives.
For some students, music is their coat of many colors.
Dolly never forgot where she began. After becoming successful, she returned home and helped raise money for scholarships, instruments, and equipment for the very school band she once belonged to. Think about that. She could have spent her money anywhere. She could have looked at Sevier County and said that's The Last Thing on My Mind. Instead, she remembered. She came home. She invested in the next generation of kids.
That philosophy eventually grew far beyond music. Dolly created the Dollywood Foundation and later the Imagination Library, putting books into the hands of millions of children. She believed deeply that where a child starts should not determine where that child finishes. Her own journey from My Tennessee Mountain Home to international superstardom certainly proved the point. Her life seemed to say Try. Dream bigger. Learn more. Don't allow somebody else's expectations to define you. Maybe there really is A Better Place to Live, but sometimes we have to help our kids imagine it before they can find it.
That's where Dolly's story becomes our story. Music teachers spend their careers collecting scraps. We take the kid who can't afford an instrument and find one. We take the student who doesn't think they belong and give them a chair. We take the kid who can't play four measures and stay after school until they can. We take fifty completely different human beings and somehow convince them to breathe together, listen to one another, and create something beautiful. On our best days, a band, choir, or orchestra is a beautiful coat of many colors—different people, different backgrounds, different abilities, different stories —stitched together into something none of them could create alone.
A great life isn't one perfect piece of fabric. It's a thousand little pieces sewn together. Some are beautiful. Some are painful. Sewn together day by day, stitch by stitch, those experiences become our story.
The funny thing is, most of us will never know which patches mattered most. It might be the conversation after rehearsal. The trip where a kid laughed until they cried. The day you noticed they weren't okay. The first time their parents heard them perform. The moment they realized there was finally a place where they belonged.
Years later, they may not remember the music you programmed or the rating you received, but they remember how being part of your program made them feel.
And suddenly, Here You Come Again—another former student walking through your door twenty years later to tell you about something you barely remember doing that changed their life.
Dolly Parton was a public school music kid. And those experiences didn't just help shape her musical career, but her entire identity.
That should remind every music teacher of something incredibly important: you may never know what the scraps you're giving a child today will eventually become. Someday, long after they leave your room, one of those kids may look back at everything you've given them and realize something Dolly understood better than almost anyone: they were rich all along.
Have a great week friends!
Scott
p.s. Want to know more about Dolly's philanthropic work? Click here.