Whenever and wherever humans have existed music
has existed also. Since music occurs only when people choose
to create and share it, and since they always have done so and
no doubt always will, music clearly must have important value
for people.
Music makes a difference in people’s lives.
It exalts the human spirit; it enhances the quality of life.
Indeed, meaningful music activity should be experienced throughout
one’s life toward the goal of continuing involvement.
Music is a basic way of knowing and doing because
of its own nature and because of the relationship of that nature
to the human condition, including mind, body, and feeling. It
is worth studying because it represents a basic mode of thought
and action, and because in itself, it is one of the primary
ways human beings create and share meanings. It must be studied
fully to access this richness.
Societal and technological changes will have
an enormous impact for the future of music education. Changing
demographics and increased technological advancements are inexorable
and will have profound influences on the ways that music is
experienced for both students and teachers.
Music educators must build on the strengths
of current practice to take responsibility for charting the
future of music education to insure that the best of the Western
art tradition and other musical traditions are transmitted to
future generations.
We agree on the following:
1. All persons,
regardless of age, cultural heritage, ability, venue, or financial
circumstance deserve to participate fully in the best music
experiences possible.
2. The integrity of music study must be
preserved. Music educators must lead the development of meaningful
music instruction and experience.
3. Time must be allotted for formal music
study at all levels of instruction such that a comprehensive,
sequential and standards-based program of music instruction
is made available.
4. All music has a place in the curriculum.
Not only does the Western art tradition need to be preserved
and disseminated, music educators also need to be aware of
other music that people experience and be able to integrate
it into classroom music instruction.
5. Music educators need to be proficient
and knowledgeable concerning technological changes and advancements
and be prepared to use all appropriate tools in advancing
music study while recognizing the importance of people coming
together to make and share music.
6. Music educators should involve the
music industry, other agencies, individuals, and music institutions
in improving the quality and quantity of music instruction.
This should start within each local community by defining
the appropriate role of these resources in teaching and learning.
7. The currently defined role of the music
educator will expand as settings for music instruction proliferate.
Professional music educators must provide a leadership role
in coordinating music activities beyond the school setting
to insure formal and informal curricular integration.
8. Recruiting prospective music teachers
is a responsibility of many, including music educators. Potential
teachers need to be drawn from diverse backgrounds, identified
early, led to develop both teaching and musical abilities,
and sustained through ongoing professional development. Also,
alternative licensing should be explored in order to expand
the number and variety of teachers available to those seeking
music instruction.
9. Continuing research addressing all
aspects of music activity needs to be supported including
intellectual, emotional, and physical responses to music.
Ancillary social results of music study also need exploration
as well as specific studies to increase meaningful music listening.
10. Music making is an essential way in which learners come
to know and understand music and music traditions. Music making
should be broadly interpreted to be performing, composing,
improvising, listening, and interpreting music notation.
11. Music educators must join with others in providing opportunities
for meaningful music instruction for all people beginning
at the earliest possible age and continuing throughout life.
12. Music educators must identify the barriers
that impede the full actualization of any of the above and
work to overcome them.
The intensive
evaluation of the role of music in American society and education
provided by the Tanglewood Symposium of philosophers, educators,
scientists, labor leaders, philanthropists, social scientists,
theologians, industrialists, representatives of government and
foundations, music educators and other musicians led to this
declaration:
We believe
that education must have as major goals the art of living, the
building of personal identity, and nurturing creativity. Since
the study of music can contribute much to these ends, we now
call for music to be placed in the core of the school curriculum.
The arts afford
a continuity with the aesthetic tradition in man’s history.
Music and other fine arts, largely non-verbal in nature, reach
close to the social, psychological, and physiological roots
of man in his search for identity and self-realization.
Educators
must accept the responsibility for developing opportunities
which meet man’s individual needs and the needs of a society
plagued by the consequences of changing values, alienation,
hostility between generations, racial and international tensions,
and the challenges of a new leisure.
Music educators
at Tanglewood agreed on the following:
1) Music serves best when
its integrity as an art is maintained.
2) Music of all periods,
styles, forms, and cultures belongs in the curriculum. The
musical repertory should be expanded to involve music of our
time in its rich variety, including currently popular teenage
music and avant-garde music, American folk music, and the
music of other cultures.
3) Schools and colleges
should provide adequate time for music in programs ranging
from preschool through adult or continuing education.
4) Instruction in the arts
should be a general and important part of education in the
senior high school.
5) Developments in educational
technology, educational television, programmed instruction,
and computer-assisted instruction should be applied to music
study and research.
6) Greater emphasis should
be placed on helping the individual student to fulfill his
needs, goals and potentials.
7) The music education profession
must contribute its skills, proficiencies, and insights toward
assisting in the solution of urgent social problems as in
the “inner city” or other areas with culturally
deprived individuals.
8) Programs of teacher education
must be expanded and improved to provide music teachers who
are specially equipped to teach high school courses in the
history and literature of music, courses in the humanities
and related arts, as well as teachers equipped to work with
the very young, with adults, with the disadvantaged, and with
the emotionally disturbed.
----- From Documentary Report of the Tanglewood
Symposium, (Washington, DC: Music Educators National Conference,
1968), p. 139.
The purpose of the Goals and Objectives Project
was to identify the responsibilities of MENC as they pertained
to future needs. The project, directed by Paul Lehman, began
in 1969 with a steering committee and the following eighteen
subcommittees, each of which related in some way to the Tanglewood
Declaration.
1. Preparation for Music
Educators
2. Musical Behaviors –Identification
and Evaluation
3. Comprehensive Musicianship – Music
Study in the Senior High School
4. Music for All Youth
5. Music Education in the Inner City
6. Research in Music Education
7. Logistics of Music Education
8. Fact Finding
9. Aesthetic Education
10. Information Science
11. Music for Early Childhood
12. Impact of Technology
13. Music in Higher Education
14. Learning Processes
15. Musical Enrichment of National Life
16. MENC Professional Activities
17. Professional Organization Relationships
18. Music of Non-Western Cultures
After the committee reports were condensed,
Paul Lehman drafted the proposed MENC goals and objectives.
This statement was submitted to the federated and associated
organizations, and by the chairpersons of the national committees.
In October 1970, the MENC Executive Board adopted the following
two goals for MENC, four for the profession in general, and
thirty-five objectives.
The goals of MENC shall be to conduct programs
and activities to build:
A vital music culture
An enlightened musical public
The goals of the profession are:
Comprehensive music programs in all schools
Involvement of people of all ages in learning music
Quality preparation of teachers
Use of the most effective techniques and resources in music
instruction.
The objectives:
*1. Lead in efforts to develop programs of
music instruction challenging to all students, whatever their
sociocultural condition, and directed toward the needs of
citizens in a pluralist society
*2. Lead in the development of programs of study that correlate
performing, creating, and listening to music and encompass
a diversity of musical behaviors
*3. Assist teachers in the identification of musical behaviors
relevant to the needs of their students
*4. Advance the teaching of music of all periods, styles,
forms and cultures
5. Promote the development of instructional programs in aesthetic
education
6. Advocate the expansion of music education to include preschool
children
7. Lead in efforts to ensure that every school system requires
music from kindergarten through grade six and for a minimum
of two years beyond that level
8. Lead in efforts to ensure that every secondary school offers
an array of music courses to meet of all youth
9. Promote challenging courses in music for the general college
student
10. Advocate the expansion of music education for adults both
in and out of school
*11. Develop standards to ensure that all music instruction
is provided by teachers well prepared in music
12. Encourage the improvement and continuous updating of preservice
and inservice education program for all persons who teach
music programs and in the certification of music teachers
*13. Expand its programs to secure greater involvement and
commitment of student members
14. Assist graduate schools in developing curricula especially
designed for the preparation of teachers
15. Develop and recommend accreditation criteria for the use
of recognized agencies in the approval of school and college
music
16. Support the expansion of teach education programs to include
specializations designed to meet current needs
*17. Assume leadership in the application of significant new
developments in curriculum, teaching-learning techniques and
technology, instructional and staffing patters, evaluation,
and related topics to every area and level of music teaching
18. Assume leadership in the development of resources for
music teaching and learning
19 .Cooperate in the development of exemplary models of desirable
programs and practices in the teaching of music
20. Encourage maximum use of community music resources to
enhance educational programs
*21. Lead in efforts to ensure that every school system allocates
sufficient staff, time, and funds to support a comprehensive
and excellent music program
22. Provide advisory assistance where music programs are threatened
by legislative, administrative, or other action
23. Conduct public relations programs to build community support
for music education
24. Promote the conduct of research and research-related activities
in music education
25. Disseminate news of research in order that research findings
may be applied promptly and effectively
26. Determine the most urgent needs for information in music
education
27. Gather and disseminate information about music and education
28. Encourage other organization, agencies, and communications
media to gather and disseminate information about music and
education
29. Initiate efforts to establish information retrieval systems
in music and education, and to develop data bases for subsequent
incorporation into such systems
30. Pursue effective working relationships with organizations
and groups having mutual interests
31. Strengthen the relationships between the conference and
its federated, associated, and auxiliary organizations
32. Establish procedures for its organizational program planning
and policy
33. Seek to expand its membership to include all persons who,
in any capacity, teach music
34. Periodically evaluate the effectiveness of its policies
and programs
35. Ensure systematic interaction with its membership concerning
the goals and objectives of the conference
*Priority objectives
