CJ Replay: The Value of the Children’s Choir

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1. Ronald Richard Duquette says

   January 10, 2012 at 8:50 am

   It is, unfortunately, an equally evident but sad truth that many school districts are, in the interests of either “budgetary strain” or “utility” increasingly downgrading and eliminating musical programs of any sort from their schools, thus making such programs as described above necessary if there is to be any hope of continuing music via the generations, starting with the very youngest.  A recent very intense discussion with a friend of mine who is a government teacher at a local high school here in Northern Virginia and who is the representative of the social studies department made it abundantly clear that the following is happening.  1)  The superintendant of our school district has a doctorate in educational technology; and others of the administrative staffs are following this lead, getting advanced degrees in that area.  2)  The perspective this particular teacher has (and he is far from being alone) is that school districts should be offering their students is what gives them the greatest opportunity for the best-paying jobs – period.  3)  Music is useless.  And this from a man who is also the organist at our church.  He has actively discouraged me from encouraging my son to pursue a career in music because “he’ll be poor” – irrespective of opportunities to the contrary and talent and ambition.  I am not only discouraged but frankly infuriated (but hardly surprised) that the perspective here is one strictly of “utility.”  This has become the basis of a curse in America – if it’s not “useful,” it’s “no good.”  This “educator” (and the quotation marks are deliberate) does not see it as his responsibility to argue for what benefits the largest number of students, irrespective of his point of view or for which he has been delegated; it’s a zero-sum game as far as he’s concerned.  And as I’ve commented elsewhere on ChoralNet, it’s even worse than that:  It’s a “minus-sum” game.  Not only do I win everything in the current discussion, I destroy you utterly so I can gain what sad remnants are left.  It is the cheerleading “educator” in “Glee” who not only is enraged that ANY money is put to the choral program (to the assumed detriment of her own), but wants to eliminate such a program entirely so she can focus on the next “weakest” program to eliminate, and thus “strengthen” her own.  I was encouraged, though, in that discussion by the fact that this man’s wife disagreed with him, and another friend, himself an engineer (but with a music background as a percussionist) also took strong exception, pointing out that music is absolutely a major assistance with mathematics (and thus with any science dependent on math), helping with both spatial and temporal concepts.  My “educator” friend’s comment was, “You have to become better advocates than you are.”  Well, probably true; but we’re also fighting a cultural bias that is of greater length than any of our lives.  As Gordon Wood points out in “Empire of Liberty” (his book on the early history of this Republic) the fine arts in this country have always labored under the burden of being supported only if they were “useful.”  That could mean ethically, or morally, or spiritually; but even so, “Utility” is the god worshipped by America.  And so it continues. 

    

   So what does that mean for us, musicians all?  We have to pick and choose our fights; we have to argue, passionately but accurately, whenever musical programs are threatened; and we must always be prepared to contradict the soullessness of “utility” at every step.  If we do not, we will have partially-educated, soulless, robots for children – “useful” but enslaved to Utility.

    

   Ron

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