Vantaggi
The teachers here are mission driven, and have a work ethic to match. This is a school that has room to develop its hybrid model of El Sistema and Expeditionary Learning further, and is a unique environment that gives teachers an opportunity to be creative with their teaching craft. While the public can see Conservatory Lab as a music school, it's a school that teaches music with the same rigor as other core curricular subjects. This nuance is important, as the goal of the school is not to create young orchestral musicians, although many graduates continue music in their lives. Ideally, this model promotes five "crew qualities" that students will embody in and out of the school: empathy, responsibility, perseverance, kindness and collaboration.
Svantaggi
On an organizational level, the biggest challenge is balancing priorities of academic and artistic rigor, especially when considering the student holistically. This requires all teachers to come into the school with a collaborative spirit, and the willingness to be flexible in sharing time and space, especially. On a classroom level, resident artists will need to spend time developing an evolving pedagogical and management approach for this unique environment, which is typically larger than most group lessons, and with students who don't come into the room thinking about music as an elective.