Simply put, education is intended
to improve the quality of life. Music educators recognize
the importance of a quality school music program to the quality
of musical life. Adults provide opportunities for us to evaluate
the success of schools and our programs, since adults are,
in a sense, artifacts of education past.1
Many factors outside of school
may contribute to an adult's "musical characteristics,"
although schools and music educators traditionally have the
primary responsibility for formal music education. The importance
and impact of school experiences on the quality of the lives
of future generations is a familiar and recurring theme in
documents ranging from school districts' mission statements
to documents produced and distributed by MENC—The
National Association for Music Education.
Adult life in a post-industrial
society was at the heart of the issues examined several decades
ago at the Tanglewood Symposium.
Participants in the symposium sought to "reappraise and
evaluate basic assumptions about music in the 'educative'
forces and institutions of our communities—the home,
school, peer cultures, professional organizations, church,
community groups, and communications media."2
Although participants recognized the importance of collaboration
among the many resources and educative forces of the communities,
in the final analysis, the recommendations in the Tanglewood
Declaration placed the primary responsibility for curricular
and instructional changes with music educators and schools.3
In all probability, schools
of the future, no matter how they are defined, will be the
institutions charged with the responsibility of preparing
students for adult life, and music will be a major part of
life's preparation. In a current MENC document, music in adult
life is identified as the ultimate goal for school music experiences.
A statement in the introduction to the document Opportunity-to-Learn
Standards for Music Instruction: Grades PreK-12 reads:
"While the opportunity-to-learn standards focus on the
learning environment necessary to teach music, it is important
to note that the ultimate objective of all standards, all
school curriculums, and all school personnel is to help students
to gain the broad skills and knowledge that will enable them
to function effectively as adults and to contribute to society
in today's world and tomorrow's."4
What are the broad skills and
knowledge that will enable students "to function effectively
as adults and to contribute to society in today's world and
tomorrow's," and, what are the broad skills and knowledge
that will enable students to participate in meaningful music
experiences today in school and as adults in tomorrow's society?
What are meaningful music experiences?
Music educators define many
forms of music participation as meaningful (e.g., performing;
composing and arranging; reading music; listening to, analyzing,
describing, and evaluating music; describing and analyzing
relationships between music and other arts; and describing
and analyzing music in relation to history and culture). All
of these experiences may be considered meaningful, but the
wide range of possibilities requires that teachers make curricular
and instructional choices and define priorities.
Meaningful music knowledge and
skills may be decidedly more difficult to define and prioritize
than meaningful life skills (e.g., literacy, economic sufficiency,
independent living). When adults lack life skills (e.g., are
unable to read), consequences can be severe. When adults lack
music skills (e.g., unable to read music), consequences are
rarely considered severe by society (even in the case of professional
musicians). It is difficult for most adults to define particular
music knowledge and skills as high priorities when there are
few obvious negative consequences for lacking the knowledge
and skills. On a regular basis we observe competent, successful
adults who appear happy and who contribute to society and
yet have few music skills and little music knowledge. We also
encounter aficionados (adults and students) of popular music
who are amateur performers, who attend concerts regularly,
who are avid listeners (often listening from their own large
collection of CDs of popular music), and who can, after only
a few seconds of listening, identify and describe a popular
piece of music and also give indepth biographical information
about the composer and artist. In many cases, the skills and
knowledge of these aficionados were not acquired in school.
What is it then that we value for our students in school and
their musical lives as adults?
This problem of defining and
prioritizing meaningful music experiences becomes yet more
difficult knowing that today's students will live most of
their lives in the twenty-first century. Technological advances,
changes in demographics, educational and medical research
findings, issues of diversity, and socioeconomic factors can
all impact decisions. Tanglewood participants struggled with
similar issues in defining priorities for music education
for a post-industrial society.
The most salient issues for
Tanglewood and Vision 2020 appear to be redefinition and change,
but important: issues also involve reaffirmation of values
that have been and will continue to be at the core of music
education. New knowledge and skills may be required for new
forms of music participation in the future, although many
broad experiences that are valued today will probably continue
to be valued in the future (e.g., singing or playing expressively
and technically accurately, performing for others and attending
concerts of live performances of music, listening to exemplary
works of music of a variety of genre or styles, music literacy,
talking intelligently about music).
The professional judgment of
the individual teacher to make curricular and instructional
decisions is recognized in The School Program: A New Vision,
a publication that was developed to serve as "a model
of what the music program should comprise in terms of curriculum
content and student learnings" and as a resource that
"identifies those skills and knowledge that should be
given the highest priority."5
Although curricular values are clearly promoted throughout
the content standards in The School Program: A New Vision,
the preface clarifies that the "publication does
not constitute a curriculum," that the "determination
of the curriculum and the instructional activities designed
to achieve the standards are the responsibility of states,
local school districts, and individual teachers," and
that the standards do not "free the teacher from making
professional judgments."6
Throughout childhood, throughout
school, parents and teachers are primarily responsible for
many of the decisions involving a child's learning. With adulthood
comes the independence and responsibility to make decisions—decisions
about employment, place of residence, social network, recreation
and leisure, and music. If the musical lives we intend for
adults require specific skills and knowledge, and if the meaningful
music participation we intend for adults requires their time
and in some cases their money, then decisions must be made
as to what is meaningful for both students and adults.
Certainly music participation
by children and adults in our society is booming when it involves
popular music. If other kinds of music participation are valued,
if we want students to have a wider variety of choices outside
of school now and in the future, then transition must
become the guiding principle for curricular and instructional
decisions. Transition, simply defined, is the movement of
individuals across a variety of school and nonschool environments
throughout life. When adults participate comfortably, successfully,
and as independently as possible in meaningful music experiences,
those for which they were prepared in school, then the transition
from school contexts to adult contexts in communities and
homes is successful.
