The Music Never Stopped

Sometimes the best way to move forward is to listen to everything that happened while you were away.

It has been a minute.

Actually, it has been more than a minute.

The last time I posted a blog here at LifeThruMusic was July 2023. A lot can happen in three years. Jobs change. Titles change. Kids grow up. Families experience joy and loss. New people enter your life. Others leave. You travel. You learn. You mess some things up. You get a few things right.

And, if you are paying attention, you grow.

So, as I sat down to write the first new LifeThruMusic blog in more than three years, I wondered where I should begin.

Then it hit me.

I don’t need to start over.

I just need to pick the music back up.

LifeThruMusic Was Never Just About Music

The name has always meant more to me than songs, albums, performances, or hip-hop.

Life. Through. Music.

Music has always been one of the ways I understand the world.

I was a kid who loved hip-hop, comic books, science fiction, fantasy, art, and anything else that gave my imagination somewhere to go. I eventually became a teacher. Then an administrator. Then a district leader. Then I found my way into national education work.

Through all of it, music stayed with me.

More specifically, hip-hop stayed with me.

It taught me about voice before I knew educators would spend so much time talking about student voice. It taught me about audience before I ever stood in front of a classroom. It taught me that words matter, rhythm matters, storytelling matters, and sometimes the person everybody else overlooks has something powerful to say.

That idea has followed me throughout my career.

And over these last three years, I think I understand it better than I ever have.

The Work Kept Moving

Since my last post here, I’ve had the opportunity to stand in front of educators in schools, districts, conferences, and communities across the country.

I’ve talked about leadership.

I’ve talked about literacy.

I’ve talked about engagement.

I’ve talked about vocabulary, comprehension, technology, culture, relationships, and what it means to truly see the young people sitting in front of us.

And yes, I’ve rapped.

Quite a bit.

But somewhere along the way, something shifted for me.

For years, I spent a lot of time talking about how we engage students.

I still believe deeply in that work.

But today I find myself asking another question:

What happens after we get their attention?

That question has changed the way I think about education.

A student can be engaged and still struggle to read.

A student can love your lesson and still lack the vocabulary needed to understand the text.

A student can sing every word of a song and still need help making meaning from the language inside it.

Engagement matters.

Relationships matter.

Culture matters.

But they aren’t the finish line.

They are the doorway.

And once a student walks through that doorway, we have to be ready to teach.

Maybe I’ve Changed Too

One of the benefits of getting older is realizing how much you didn’t know when you were younger.

That’s humbling.

I can look back at myself as a young teacher and see things differently now.

I can look back at myself as a principal and recognize decisions I would probably make differently today.

I can even look back at things I believed about teaching, learning, leadership, and literacy just a few years ago and say, “Merv, you didn’t have the whole picture.”

I probably still don’t.

That’s the point.

Growth isn’t about reaching a place where you finally know everything.

It’s being willing to keep learning after you’ve become experienced enough to think you already should.

That’s something I want this blog to explore again.

Not just what I know.

What I’m still learning.

So, What Is LifeThruMusic Now?

In many ways, exactly what it has always been.

A place where education, music, leadership, culture, family, creativity, and life can sit at the same table.

But I think there is room at that table for more now.

I want to talk about what I’m learning about literacy.

I want to talk about the kids who can read the words but don’t always understand what those words mean.

I want to talk about hip-hop and why, more than 50 years after its birth, educators still have lessons to learn from the culture.

I want to talk about leadership, especially the lessons that don’t show up in leadership textbooks.

I want to talk about artificial intelligence and technology without pretending either one can replace a great teacher.

I want to talk about family, purpose, creativity, books, music, mistakes, wins, and some of the strange roads life takes us down.

And every now and then, I might just talk about Star Wars.

Because if I’m going to bring LifeThruMusic back, I want it to sound like me.

Press Play

There is something interesting about returning to something you created years ago.

You immediately notice what has changed.

But you also recognize what hasn’t.

I still believe relationships matter.

I still believe every student deserves to be seen.

I still believe music can create connections between people who might otherwise never understand one another.

I still believe education can change the trajectory of a child’s life.

And I still believe our experiences, even the difficult ones, can teach us something if we’re willing to listen.

Maybe that is what LifeThruMusic has really been about all along.

Listening.

To the music.

To our students.

To the people we love.

To each other.

And sometimes, to ourselves.

So no, this isn’t a comeback.

The music never stopped.

I’m just pressing record again.

Welcome back to LifeThruMusic.

Dr. Mervin Jenkins

Educator. Author. Hip-Hop Artist. Speaker. Lifelong Learner.