ADVOCACY—FIVE STEPS TO ARTS IN
SCHOOLS
© 2010 Doug Goodkin
Fresh from teaching an Orff workshop in Portland, I couldn’t help
but notice yet again
the fervor and enthusiasm of teachers dedicating a Saturday to
furthering their craft,
immersing themselves in joyful community, treating themselves to some
soul-stirring
music and dance. And yet again, such commitment became all the more
poignant as
teacher after teacher shared that their job was on the line due to
cutbacks—or that they
had already been out of work for a year, It was no surprise to me to
hear the same old same
old of politicians making the predictably mindless choices.
“Economic crisis? Let’s
take it from the schools! School budget cuts? Let’s cut out the
arts!”
I left the workshop with advocacy on my mind—as it has been the
last 35 years as the
same old stories repeat themselves. It feels like we’ve tried
everything—the bake sales,
the Parent Associations, the Mozart-Effect-Better-Math-Scores, the MENC
lobby in
Washington, the film Mr. Holland’s Opus—and ignorance and
short-sightedness
continues to trump an intelligent decision-making that could transform
the lives of the
children we teach and change education as we know it.
One more article on advocacy is unlikely to make even a
ripple—and yet, as the poet
W.H. Auden says, “All I have is a voice, to undo the folded
lie.” And that lie is that
music education is expendable, unnecessary, a frill, something that can
be cut or
neglected without serious consequences. The fact that a dynamic music
education offers
much of what the future demands is little understood, even by music
teachers themselves.
This article takes a look at five beginning steps to turn things around.
1. Do Good Work: If you’re going to argue that a good arts
program can transform
the lives of children, first you have to transform the lives of
children. Give classes
that are unforgettable, filled with swirling movement, soul-stirring
sounds,
laughter and joy. Stamp each class with your personality, give the
children the
height of your intelligence and the depth of your love and help raise
them to their
own heights and depths. Commit to the long haul—it will take a
minimum of five
years to take root. Create a program that is irreplaceable, so that
when the pink
slips come, the parents will rally to your side.
2. Study, Train, Practice, Read: The music teacher’s training is
never complete.
There is always something more to do in our own musical development,
something more to know about the process of effective teaching,
something
more to think about when trying to reach each child. Besides working on
instrumental and vocal techniques, investigating an ever-expanding
repertoire,
arranging and composing for and with the children, we also need to feed
the
reflective side of our practice—read, read and read some more. To
thoroughly
know the essence and meaning of our craft, we need to read beyond our
craft.
Books about linguistics, neuroscience, anthropology, psychology,
sociology,
education, poetry, music history, music theory—all is useful for
a better
understanding of what we do, why we do it and why it is important.
3. Baptize As Well As Preach: This phrase comes from Yeats, who wrote
in an
essay over 100 years ago that “the arts have failed…we are
a priesthood of an
almost forgotten faith…Thus, we must baptize as well as
preach.” Give
workshops to parents, fellow teachers, school board members so they can
experience music education as they never knew it. Give sample classes to
parents at back-to-school nights, use concerts to explain a bit of the
process of
arriving at the performance and what to watch for (the focus of the
kids, the
smiles on their faces, the way they are listening to each other, the
way they play
many different instruments, etc.). Remember that most adults
today—and in
California, more and more each year—have either had no music
education in
schools or a dismal one. Why should they vote to include something that
was
either painful or non-existent in their own schooling? We bear the
burden of
responsibility to educate them as to what a dynamic music education can
be.
4. Make Allies: This one is my great failures, but I recognize
it’s import—get into
the muck and mud of politics, go to school board meetings, make
contacts, cut
deals, schmooze. Don’t assume because your program is irrefutably
excellent
and your ideas are lined up to convince that merely being right will
effect
change. Having the right idea is probably only 10% effective—the
other 90% is
knowing the right people at the right time. Make friends with your
fellow
classroom teachers and band together with your music colleagues in other
schools. When the pink slip comes, “don’t mourn—
organize!”
5. Lower Expectations: After aiming for the stars, be happy to sit on
the floor
with the children—for as long as you have your job. Truth be
told, the arts will
always be a losing battle in a culture primed for achievement, power,
money,
fame and winning. Ultimately, the arts live in vulnerability, that
place where the
heart opens, is ready to receive beauty and know its own mortality. A
heart open
to beauty is also a heart open to pain and grief and loss and
that’s a place few
people want to visit. Schools primed for success and achievement (worthy
values up to a point) have little need for, understanding of or
patience for
vulnerability, aesthetics, emotion. Do what is necessary (short of
selling out to
Pepsi) to keep your job and program, but don’t assume that all
your fellow
teachers, parents and politicans will value it as you do. But if
you’ve done good
work (see number 1), the children will and that’s who the whole
thing is for.
The music teacher’s path is strewn with obstacles carelessly
thrown down by
ignorance and greed, all maddeningly frustrating in light of our
purpose. After all,
all we want to do is walk in beauty with children and bring some color
and life to
their school day. When feeling discouraged, take heart in another
phrase by
W.H.Auden and “Stagger onward rejoicing!”