Thanks to Jere Hochman, superintendent of the Bedford Central School District, for bringing this wonderful story to my attention.
Phenomenally successful musician-singer-producer Pharrell Williams tells his story to CBS News. He grew up in Virginia Beach, where his father was a handyman and his mother was a teacher. When he was 15, his grandmother encouraged him to get involved in music and learn to play the drums.
“He went to summer band camp and joined the school band: “And that’s where I met my first music teacher, Mrs. Warren. And my other band teacher, Mr. Warren. And then there was Mr. Edwards and then there was Mr. Sharps.”
“You remember ’em all?”
“Yes, I do. And Ralph Copley had taught me how to play the drum set. My story is the average story, you know. It was filled with special people.”
“You’re giving everybody else credit.”
“Well, what am I without them? Just try that for a second. Take all of my band teachers out of this. Where am I? I’m back in Virginia, doing something completely different.”
“What would that have been do you think?” Mason asked.
“Struggling art teacher. Struggling because the rest of my grades were not so good. They were like Cs and D’s. And sometimes E’s!”
Imagine: This brilliant, talented young man had bad grades. He was not “college-and-career-ready.” Maybe he didn’t test well.
But some dedicated band teachers helped him develop his passion for music, and today he is a superstar.
Best of all, he remembers his teachers and is grateful for the gift they gave him.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
He is such a humble person. It was an inspiring segment on CBS’s Sunday Morning. Of course, his song/video HAPPY is amazing!!
My favorite part of the interview was when he was asked if he was a person who thinks outside of the box. He answered that he never even saw the box. What box? That’s what he means by a room without a roof. There are no limits, anything is possible. I love this guy. Not only did he have great and caring teachers in school, his Mom was a teacher.
Finally a celebrity who gets it!
I saw this interview and I really appreciated him saying it. He does seem to be very grounded
My oldest son is very much the same way. Low grades, but talented and passionate about band and debate. Those are the reason he goes to school. His band teacher is AMAZING and allows him complete freedom to experiment with a variety of instruments, which he adores. This teacher has been a lifesaver for my son. I don’t think my son will be a professional musician or anything, but getting my son through high school earns his band and debate teachers my eternal gratitude.
How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
Arne Duncan should be forced to listen to this CBS segment OVER AND OVER AND OVER and then OVER AGAIN AND AGAIN. Williams is a productive, well-rounded, talented, life-long learning high achiever who is self-sufficient. Under Duncan’s model, he would definitely be deemed a failure with low test scores and would likely have been a high school drop out, who never had an opportunity for exposure to music because of program cuts for the arts. His test scores may have even contributed to his school’s closing, firings of his teachers etc… He would have spent all of his time in useless test prep being forced into a VERY TIGHT CORPORATE “ED REFORM” BOX. Is it not TIME TO change the hideous take over of public school education and to DUMP DUNCAN?????? How many “Pharell Williams” will wind up in jail and angry at a world that does not care about them.
Matt Damon is another grateful one with a love for teachers. I saw Julia Roberts on Oprah once. Her dream job, other than actress, was Kindergarten teacher. And Oprah was making it possible for people to do it for a day. So Julia went to a Kindergarten class and started teaching, smiling, loving giving and within 15 minutes utter chaos ensued. The Kindergarten teachers were against the wall with their arms folded watching. I’m sure they came to her rescue. She was graceful enough to say it’s not as easy as it looks. God knows that’s true. God bless those that admit that and support and honor teachers.
It makes me sad (and a bit angry) to think that this is even story-worthy material. Pharrell Williams’ school had a music department. His music teachers were a tremendous influence. They helped make him a superstar. How “unusual” for this to have happened. I suppose by today’s standards, where music programs are optional or non-existant, this is.
To think that restoring music programs – properly funding arts education – would result in more superstars would be missing the point. If that were the case, it might be argued that music programs are really not necessary after all. I mean, wouldn’t those funds be better used elsewhere? Do we really need to groom more pop superstars?
I attended a public high school located in the NYC suburbs in the 1970s. I think my high school was fairly typical at that time as it had orchestra, choir, and band programs. However, these programs extended down to the middle and even the elementary school level. They were part of the school day, available to all.
In addition, every elementary school student had to learn to play the “tonette”. (Remember those?) Everyone had to learn to read music. The system ensured that all were exposed to the fundamentals and all interested had the opportunity to attain some basic proficiency before entering high school.
I can’t say that my public school music program churned out any pop superstars, but I can tell you that more than one or two of my high school orchestra buddies committed themselves to a career in music. Included among them: a percussionist with the Boston Symphony who is also a manufacturer of a line percussion instruments, a composer living in Munich who teaches at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, and a violinist who went on to study at Juilliard with recording credits that include sessions with Sheryl Crow and Daft Punk.
Where, I wonder, would these three be today if they hadn’t had the opportunity to nurture their musical interest at an early age?
“No talent left undeveloped” ought to be the mantra of our public school system. The sad part is it seems we have drifted further from this ideal as time has passed. While schools now chase the goal of “college readiness”, I worry that untapped talent is left on the table. Sure, we may end up with a few less pop superstars, but for every nascent Grammy winner whose talent is never realized, there are dozens of would-be jingle writers, music educators, and working musicians who might not ever develop their musical talents and make the contribution they were destined to make.
Richard Swack, you are right. It is sad that a story like Pharrell Williams’ would need telling. How many millions of similar stories are out there a out young people whose lives were changed by a teacher? And yet there is so much vitriol out there in the blogosphere and the media that it is necessary to remind the public of the importance of teachers and to remind them that test scores are not everything. Pharrell would be considered a failure today, in our current data-driven climate, where federal law requires that all students must get higher scores every year. If they don’t, it is their teachers’ fault. The teachers that Pharrell remembers so gratefully would be fired because he got bad grades and probably kow test scores. His story illustrates how our deviation of education has been narrowed and corrupted by federal law and policies like Race to the Top. Pharrell today would be left behind and treated as a loser.
Ms Ravitch, just this weekend a very similar story ran in Fort Wayne’s newspaper. It was written by a wealthy person who started at zero, and who LOVED music and marching band. He is a very generous supporter of Fort Wayne’s marvelous public school system – FWCS.
One takeaway that I’ll use again and again is his answer back to STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math); he favors full STEAM (science, technology, engineering, the ARTS, and math) moving forward, just as you advocate, and he is precisely right .
Here is a link to the article, titled Sound of Success:
http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20140810/EDIT10/308109983/-1/EDIT01
We need more entrepreneurs like him
Don’t forget, we have neurologic research tying rhythm and music to language comprehension now. Dr. Nena Kraus and Adam Tierney have done fascinating research at Northwestern University and published “The Ability to Move to a Beat is Linked to the Consistency of Neural Responses to Sound” in the September 18, 2013 Journal of Neuroscience. Once again, not everything that matters can be counted on a test, we do move to the beat of our own drummers, the better tuned the beat, the better we function.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx This is a story that speaks to my heart. All 3 of my boys turned out to be music-techies. 2 out of 3 had LD IEP’s diagnosed in primary grades (one was hi-IQ lo-processing speed, the other purely adhd), & needed such things as resource room & self-contained classes to become college material; the 3rd floundered academically until he met up with our hs’s alternative school w/n a school founded in the ’70’s.
We were so fortunate to afford a hi-qual NJ sch sys in the ’90’s-’00’s. All found small regional colleges w/music/ audio-tech programs, & all are slowly building their careers. Each has stories such as that told in the article: a mentor whose only contribution may have been that one time, at the spring concert, they gave the solo to my kid & said ‘give it what you’ve got’.
In retrospect I understand that my kids were spit off the current reading-writing assembly line as ‘different’, needing SpEd & alt-hs retrofit, because some musically-inclined brains are wired differently– & I recognize that in my day 40 yrs prior they would have sailed thro on intelligence alone. But I accept that system as it was in the ’90’s-early-’00’s, because it found a way to support those differences.
I fear that in today’s CCSS-testing-mania, which, complete w/VAM, has invaded my town, they would have simply failed.
I hear about music programs getting cut left and right…it is really sad to me. This underscores the importance of these programs.
Bravo – What a great example
Who decided that reading and math were the only subjects that mattered? Many, many kids actually learn reading and math through other subjects and interests. Both my kids were slow readers, but in 3rd grade things clicked. Though not through their classroom work. My son got hooked on Mad magazine, my daughter on a local children’s theater. Reading things they loved fueled their reading skills — not extra “seat time”, drills, and bubble tests. Both, by the way, graduated with honors from Syracuse.
I watched the interview and thought his statements were sincere. He is an excellent example of why we need to move away from all these tests and provide students with music, art and other areas that interest them and lead to success, not failure.
Sadly, in my view, there is an artificial hierarchy based on what one teaches: Science – math: top intellectually; English – humanities – next, good but not as smart, then the lower ones: music, arts, shop etc.
A great teacher is a great teacher no matter the subject matter. I taught music, not band but choral and general music [a grade lower even than band in the hierarchy.. Could not be very bright if that is what I taught.] But I had students tell me that I changed their whole lives. The same is true with shop and in the above, band.
WE know this: children are different with different abilities, interests, talents etc. Latching on to something which excites their interest may well lead to expanding their interests in academics and more importantly, in learning, searching for truth, good, and beauty.
A GREAT movie based on a true story is: The Blind Side, the story of a man who became a first round draft player in the NFL, was All American in college but who until he was taken in by a white family was homeless, had a horrific academic record, was considered by many to be too incompetent in academics to be schooled but with help in college made the Dean’s list.
Many stories like this. I remember back years ago when a study was made of the men who had won Nobel prizes and what was the reason that they thought had been the primary cause in their exceptional work. So VERY many stated, they had had a teacher who inspired them.
This has been all too often been shunted aside in the “Nation at Risk”, “race to the bottom”, etc.
Jesus was a teacher!
Reblogged this on Flourish & Knot and commented:
Amen.
Reblogged this on rjknudsen and commented:
Music is essential to a well rounded education.
That’s why they call it a noble profession! To teach is to build a life! What is more valuable than that?
My band teacher taught him 😋. She always talks about him.
This is about sports and the person isn’t famous, but it’s the same idea:
“I am a proud 1982 graduate of the Ann Arbor Public Schools. I can still remember the name of every teacher I ever had. Almost all were very good, and I had more truly exceptional teachers than anyone has a right to expect. I’m still in touch with many of them.
This wasn’t just my experience, either. Perhaps that explains why, when I graduated, public school students from state of Michigan ranked among the best nationwide, despite our struggling economy.
… since my day, things have changed rather dramatically, and I can’t say for the better.”
“In the past decade, state legislators have reduced their investment in traditional public schools by 25%, while school enrollment has dropped by 200,000 students.
But at the same time, they’ve added more than 300 charter schools – some are great, more are terrible, but none are monitored very well — and also allowed for-profit, cyber schools to take millions of our tax dollars, and those don’t seem to work at all.
That’s right: we’re funding more schools than ever before, with much less money and fewer students.”
Is Michigan really in the bottom tier now for public education? They went from top tier to bottom over 20 years? Wisconsin will drop next.
I can’t think of a midwest state that has benefited from ed reform. It seems particularly toxic here.
http://michiganradio.org/post/were-spending-less-money-more-schools-michigan-thats-why-were-near-bottom#stream/0
I read a lot on the ed reform side and I think the objective in a privatized system would be to have a music-heavy school in the “portfolio” that people could “choose”.
The specialization in ed reform gets ludicrous. Ohio is opening a school for children who want to pursue “health careers”. My daughter has an advanced degree in a health care field. She spent most of her time in high school on the choir and theater. Luckily she wasn’t aware she needed “health care career training” beginning in 7th grade. She just likes music.
People in the public should really read the “thought leaders” in education reform, rather than listening to politicians soften the message.
It is basically 100% “public schools suck,charter schools rock!”
It’s no more “nuanced” than that:
Look at the education events held in DC and see how many of them center on “choice”-public schools are simply omitted.
The plan is to vastly expand charter schools to replace schools in middle class areas- to create “portfolios” of specialty schools- and leave a certain per cent of unfashionable “general” public schools to pick up the rest of the kids.
Some of them even go further than getting rid of public schools. Some of them want “savings accounts” that could be spent on anything education-related.
I don’t think the public knows that the goal is to get rid of public schools and that IS the goal. Ed reformers themselves say it. They lament the fact that public schools educate so many kids. They hope to get rid of the whole sector over 25 or 30 years.
California ed reformers oppose charter regulation:
https://edsource.org/2016/brown-vetoes-bill-requiring-charters-to-comply-with-conflict-of-interest-open-records-laws-cta-ccsa/570087
They will never regulate these schools. It’s always the promise with privatization- we’re always promised that regulation will be stringent, and it NEVER happens.