Arts Education in the AI Age
I have interacted with AI in some way almost every day for the last three years. I carry real concern about the way AI infrastructure is being implemented at the expense of the environment and common sense with all the frantic energy of an arms race. At the same time, my personal experience with AI, especially ChatGPT, has been significantly meaningful. I discuss ideas with it. I design with it. I reflect with it. I celebrate that humanity has reached this point in our technological development, even as I believe this moment asks a great deal from us.
AI has given me a lot to consider as an artist and as a teacher. Now that we all have access to generative AI, I believe that it is access to rich human cultural experiences that will determine the quality of what a person will make with access to AI agents. I would make the case that the more deeply they have participated in music, art, history, natural science, literature, community, and embodied living, the more meaningful their collaborations with AI will be.
This is why I believe that arts education is essential in the AI age. If the world is about to be flooded with generated content, then students need discernment. They need taste. They need a calibrated sensitivity to beauty. They need the ability to recognize what is hollow & shallow, what is real & trustworthy, what is skillful & worthwhile.
My goals as a music educator
I want my students to speak the language of music fluently enough to express their own musical ideas and understand the music they hear.
I want to transmit to them a rich cultural heritage that includes music from diverse and historical backgrounds, music that connects them to the human story and nourishes them through experiences of remarkable beauty and meaning.
I want my students to become competent, embodied learners who discover the joy of challenging their hands and minds to make the music that moves them.
I want them to experience the dignity of practice, the satisfaction of growth, and the meaningfulness of blessing their community with their gifts.
I also want my students to develop as whole human beings. Music has the power to regulate, instruct, affirm, and integrate. It can hold emotion, sharpen attention, awaken imagination, strengthen memory, and create a sense of belonging. A good music education makes room for the whole person.
Most of all, I want to love my students well. I want to take a genuine interest in their lives and cares, understand them as learners and as people, and become the teacher they most need. This relational dimension is at the heart of what I do. The more powerful our tools become, the more important it is that children are known, guided, encouraged, challenged, and cherished by real human beings.
In addition to discernment, the arts give us the opportunity to cultivate perception, patience, courage, and participation. They connect us to the past, deepen our experience of the present, and prepare us to engage the future.
In the AI age, arts education is foundational to human thriving.
How I Use AI As An Arts Educator
It’s important to me to be an example to my students of someone who uses AI well. Even so, every family has a different approach to AI in their home so I honor whatever my clients request when it comes to including AI in my sessions.
In my sessions with my students, I use AI to:
Generate illustrations to make the curriculums I design more engaging
Build out a student’s composition so they can hear it in different styles.
Show a student an AI arrangement of a song they have learned to inspire them to improvise and explore the creative opportunities in the piece.
Write scripts for theater-based musical classes like Hogwarts Adventure and Quantumnauts.
To generate music for songs that I teach them. For example, a 13-year-old student is interested in learning to speak the French language, so with the help of AI, I’ve been writing songs using ChatGPT and SUNO to teach basic vocabulary and conversational phrases in songs generated in French gypsy jazz.
Discuss my approach to teaching and document my methods. (I don’t use my students’ names in my conversations with AI.)
Keep track of the curriculums I’m designing
But the center of the work remains the same. A hand learns how to move. An ear learns how to listen. A mind begins to recognize patterns. A heart finds its voice. Artistry finds expression as the musician’s journey unfolds.
The purpose of all of this support is to make more room for music, beauty, embodiment, relationship, and meaning. The technology is powerful, but the deeper question is what we are cultivating when we use it.
