The 1964 murder of New Yorker Kitty Genovese shocked the world and, after a half-century, remains one of the most iconic killings of the past 100 years.

What made the crime so egregious was not the brutal nature of the attack but the fact that a reported thirty-eight neighbors witnessed it, none of whom helped, called the police, or came to her defense. Her tragic death solidified for the world New York's reputation as a cold, heartless place where everyone was fundamentally alone and on their own.

The aftermath of the attack was as immediate as it was immense. Historians cite the crime as the genesis for our current Neighborhood Watch programs, the Guardian Angels, and our national 911 Emergency Response System.

The crime has been the subject of hundreds of psychological studies, several books, an opera, HBO special, and was even featured on NBC's Law & Order SVU.

Never before had a crime galvanized public outrage so intensely across our country. The story spread in newspapers across the nation and as far away as Istanbul and Moscow. Clergymen and politicians decried the events, while psychologists and everyday Americans scrambled to comprehend them.

The New York Times reported, "For more than a half an hour 38 respectable, law-abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks... Not one person telephoned the police during the assault."

The inhumanity of it is unimaginable.

Well, it is imaginable. And you would have to imagine it for it to be true because it didn't happen that way.

In the aftermath of the crime, Kitty's brother Bill embarked on a life-long quest to find out what really happened that night. He painstakingly tracked down and interviewed anyone and everyone associated with the crime and its investigation. He spoke to each of the thirty-eight "witnesses" and found that only two of them saw a scuffle, and they did call the police. He talked to a passer-by and found out that he initially chased the attacker away. He read the police report and discovered that she was re-attacked in a dark alley where there were no windows for witnesses to see. He interviewed the responding officer who was with her when she passed, not in a dark alley all alone, but in an ambulance with him by her side. Nothing he discovered matched the story that he, and the rest of the world, had been told.

Almost forty years after the fact, The New York Times admitted that they got almost everything wrong that day.

It turns out that despite the errant reporting, people are good. They are caring and want to help. They are even willing to put themselves in harm's way to come to the aid of a stranger. This is as true in 2020 as it was in 1964.

A global pandemic, hybrid learning, and a brutal political season have left most of us feeling jaded, frustrated, and isolated. The headlines and news reports confirm as much. But just as with the case of Kitty Genovese, there is a different story to be told. Despite the doom and gloom of daily reporting, when you look at what is REALLY happening in our profession and our world, you find:

And STILL finding time and energy to help each other.

In the coming days, we will be releasing the results of our State of Music Education Survey. The data is as overwhelming as it is interesting. One of the most compelling pieces came under the question of, "What person/organization/association/company has been the most helpful during the pandemic?"

Among the most often cited answer... MY COLLEAGUES!

YES, YOU!

I know it doesn't feel that way, but you are killing it. You are helping your students and each other. When put to the test, you showed your best (that's foreshadowing for something to come). Canceled in-services, unscheduled events, conventions called off, and you STILL found a way to share, support, and care for one another.

It took fifty years to get Kitty's story right; let's not make the same mistake here. Today's headline is MUSIC TEACHERS ROCK - Making the Best of it During the Worst of Times!

That's the truth.

Have a great week.

-Scott

p.s. In the coming days we will be releasing all of the survey data. I think you will find the results as interesting as it is informative.