The Future of Education: Choral Music

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1. Ronald Richard Duquette says

   July 7, 2011 at 7:54 am

   A couple of fundamental reactions.  One:  I would want to be a student in that teacher’s classroom – because I would LEARN.  Two:  This little video ought to be sent to every single educational administrator in every single educational district in the country – and hope that it would start a RAGING debate on the nature of education.  Three:  It struck me that what she’s saying is that we have been goal-oriented in our educational system, and that it is time to become process-oriented.  Life ISN’T about reaching a goal, but rather understanding that each goal reached is simply part of a larger process of living and learning.  Four:  Every parent of a young person currently in school, about to go to school, or having been in school (yeah, a large number!!!!) ought to see this and start challenging the educational system – teachers AND administrators AND legislators – to think about what it should be.  We here in Virginia have the Standards of Learning – the SOLs.  The teachers themselves admit that they teach to the SOLs, because the success rate (which MUST rise in order to continue to receive adequate funding – which is even then not guaranteed) is the sine qua non on which all else rises or falls.  And how did we get to this sad state of affairs in this Commonwealth?  Because, quite simply, parents believed and were sold the idea (by press and politicians) that their children were falling desperately behind in all measures that counted educationally.  Well, the only way to really measure success in most people’s minds is by an objective standard – one that can be counted.  And when you turn to bureaucrats to create such measures, they create means to count beans.  And “answer bubbles” became the norm – not whether the students understood the subject, or that what was taught really made any difference in their lives in the future.  No; it was bean-counting, pure and simple.  Well, six of the larger educational systems in the Commonwealth have petitioned to have the SOLs administered earlier than had been the case (January vs. May), in part to allow teachers to use the remainder of the year to TEACH and the kids to LEARN – though not one of the system administrators would say that.  Instead, the argument is based on allowing teachers to help students who failed the SOLs to be helped to pass it.  The means has become the end.  This teacher in this video is arguing that there IS no end – a process has no period at the end of its sentence, until the lights go out on that person’s life.  That what educational systems should be aiming for, as difficult as it is to measure, is to engender lifelong learning habits.  I read every bit as much, if not more, than when I was in school – and in more subjects than I dreamed possible.  But I was lucky; I had parents who encouraged that, and went to some very fine schools which were not as concerned about checking off boxes as in learning to put a string of boxes out there to go through on my way to….???  We FAIL our children miserably by insisting that somehow they must meet some objective goal as though that were the most important thing.  I do not hear any educational administrator talking about the process of learning, because he or she will lose their job if they do.  What we as musicians and any performing artist understand is that one must go beyond the the technical matter of our art – beyond the notes, beyond the script, beyond the dance position – and one must co-create with the composer and the author and the choreographer.  This is why the arts are important in schools and in life; and why we artists must be passionate about what we learn in the arts as a model for learning for life.

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