“Some things are better taught outside the school system.”
Paul Green isn’t a professional educator but he’s made music education his life.
The 41-year-old is the founder and owner Paul Green Rock Academy where kids age 8 to 18 learn to rock.
The performance-based music school just outside of Woodstock in the town of Saugerties, New York.
Since 1997, the Academy has been teaching kids to play instruments and play together.
About 100 kids attend and every three months, students perform live rock shows - - not ‘recitals.’
Green’s academy draws its teachers from the Hudson Valley's wealth of local musicians and bona fide ‘Rock Stars.’
Believe it or not, Green describes himself as ‘ambivalent’ about the idea of music education in the public schools. For him it's less about what they are teaching rather than who is teaching, because passion is infectious.
Green's lament is that traditional music education in schools often misses the point.
He says while subjects like reading, history and science are important disciplines for the kids to master, slogans like, ‘Kids who study music are better at math’ shouldn’t be the focus of the message.
“Music is its own reward,” he said.
