By Victoria Sosa
Intern, Big Picture High School
After 30 years of instructing and conducting student musicians, Highline High School band instructor Scott Babcock will be hanging up his baton and retiring.
Throughout his long tenure, Babcock made sure that his love and passion was passed on to these budding musicians. He made great relationships with his students and ensured that they all felt safe in his music room.
Recently, he shared his love of music with students and the community with The B-Town Blog.
Babcock was always surrounded by music his whole life, as his father was a band teacher. He knew the world of being a band teacher for most of his life and was always familiar with that.
“I grew up in a band room” he said, and added that his father also taught high school band. He initially wanted to become a tennis player but he found out that music is what was singing to him.
“Musician first, educator second, I teach as a musician, I teach as I was taught,” Babcock said. While he was a teacher, he spoke how he would see things with the eyes of a musician, trying to approach situations with the mindset of a musician. Babcock let his students know that they needed to feel the music, not just memorize it, to try to truly understand what it’s like to let the music “take over.”
By the time he was in his 30s things started to change. He had started a family, had made the move out from New York to Washington State, and received his teaching certification from the University of Washington. That’s when he started teaching high school down in Yakima for about 5 years. He later moved to Highline and that’s when his journey in Burien began, where he has been teaching until this spring.
Impact on Students
While at Highline he made impacts on students, including former student Hailey Smith, who is now a band teacher herself at Mercer Island. She shared her memories from the years she spent learning from Babcock.
“My first memory that really stands out…I signed up for a journalism class,” Smith said. “I remember getting called out of journalism class to go see Mr. Babcock – he wanted to have a conversation with me. He pulled me into his (music) room and in his humble voice he asked ‘hey we need a piano player, in the jazz band. I heard you play piano, that band is going to Reno Nevada, would you be interested?’ “Oh no, don’t you guys meet up at 6 a.m? No thank you. I (also didn’t) know anybody, (and) for me music was about the people first.”
However she eventually took him up on it and ended up loving it.
“I thought the experience was weird, (but) I loved the music,” she said. Smith was emotional sharing her experience talking about the positive effect that Babcock has on her high school years and even later in life. She shared that ended up marrying a fellow bandmate that she met in Babcock’s music room.
After leaving the classroom, Babcock will continue to publish himself as a musician – “getting back out there,” he said, and has already started to put himself out, focusing on music as a fun hobby and way to express himself, instead of looking at it like a job. As well as spending time on things that he enjoys like tennis.
While he did not become a professional tennis player, he still loves to play and even coached the tennis team during the spring season. He will continue playing tennis and spreading time with his wife and family, traveling in and out of the country.
Mr. Babock may be retiring from the classroom, but not to worry – he stills plans to conduct himself around town, with racket in one hand and a melody in the other.
The post Celebrating 30 years of music: Scott Babcock retires from Highline High School after a lifetime of dedication appeared first on The B-Town (Burien) Blog.