Today's Christian Science Monitor has a neat story on schoolhouse rock and rollers, learning in an innovative music education program called "Little Kids Rock." David Wish, leader of the program, dislikes comparisons to the recent Jack Black movie School of Rock, but regardless, Little Kids Rock sounds like something too cool for school. The kids plug in and jam, belting out Jimi Hendrix tunes or banging on their instruments as if they were drums.

Wish ends the article with a wonderful remark:

"When you put someone in touch with their creativity...the cheap thrill of destructive behavior becomes less appealing. There's no competition between reaching new heights of creative expression versus breaking a window with a baseball or spraying graffiti."

Although a third grade music class is eons away from a college level creative writing course, I'd like to think that Wish's comments hold true for my adult learners as well. Creative expression can be a release valve, a therapeutic bath, or any other metaphor you might come up with for managing socially unwelcome moods or behaviors. (I think this is also why all the horror fiction writers I know seem to be some of the calmest, most relaxed people...). But it's more than just self-expression: there's an audience out there listening. That's one thing I really try to impress on my writing students -- that the reader's needs are just as important as (if not more than) the writer's. I'd say that the kids banging on their axes in Little Kids Rock weren't conscious of that, but then again, they do have three albums out and you can listen to them online!

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