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Cornelia
Yarbrough is the Derryl and Helen Haymon Professor of Music and
Coordinator of Music Education at Louisiana State University'
Baton Rouge.
The twenty-first century will usher in many changes
and challenges for every individual and institution in the United
States. To answer the question "What should be the relationship
between schools and other sources of music learning?"  we
must first consider the issues that will affect the schools and
music education. Secondly, we must explore other sources of music
learning that will exist in the future. Finally, relationships
among these various sources can be contemplated.
It has been said that perhaps the best way to
predict the future is to examine what is happening in the present.
The discussion that follows contains many examples of events and
trends that are already well under way. We, as a profession, have
not found ways yet to adjust to these current events and trends.
Thus, we will need to catch up while at the same time we will
need to make ever-more-radical adjustments to new developments
that will confront us in the future.
The issues of most importance for music education
and the schools in the twenty-first century are: wider choices
for schooling, ethnic and music diversity, the impact of technology
and the digital revolution, and new approaches to teaching and
learning. The following discussion describes what is happening
now while hinting at what might occur in the future.
The public schools will still exist, but they
will be only one facet of a wide diversity of systems for enhancing
education, many of which will be privately operated. Public and
private school choices will include schools affiliated with a
religious denomination, home schools, magnet schools, charter
schools, and contracted schools. Some public schools will become
confederations of subschools that cater to students' special interests,
from physics to the performing arts. Many corporations now operate
what amount to employee universities. These will be joined by
profit-making chains and special schools catering to special students.
These trends toward more options and greater
choice have created a great philosophical debate that will continue
well into the twenty-first century. On one side, education is
seen as a private or personal good, with parents as consumers
of whatever public, private, or parochial education best suits
their needs. On the other side is the argument that public education
is provided for the common good, and that all children should
share some common experiences in common settings. Because both
sides of the argument have strength and passion, we will continue
to see greater diversity in learning scenarios.
Arthur
C. Clarke describes several learning scenarios for the twenty-first
century:
On the evening of July 20, 2019, John Stanton
is taking yet another teleclass. His classroom is actually a
room in his own home that is outfitted for teleconferencing.
At the moment, he is posing a question to his teacher [who]
appears in the room as a life-sized three-dimensional holographic
image.
Meanwhile, in a nearby public school, an early-education
specialist is teaching a four-year-old how to read....
Across town, at a McSchool franchise, a grandmother
is taking a course on small business management....
Nearby, at the university operated by a major
corporation for its employees, students are taking classes in
new technological developments in their fields.1
These scenarios suggest a wide variety of learning
environments. Some futurists predict dramatic shifts away from
the place-specific learning buildings we call schools to a "placeless
society" where everything can be accessed via technology.
For example, William Knoke, founder
and president of the Harvard Capital Group and author of Bold
New World: The Essential Road Map to the 21st Century
describes a twenty-first century placeless society as the awakening
omnipresence that will allow everything—people, goods, resources,
knowledge—to be available anywhere, often instantaneously,
with little regard for distance or place. We already see it in
many forms. CNN broadcasts bring an Ethiopian drought into lush
living rooms. Multinational appliance companies subcontract manufacturing
to wherever it is cheapest. Capital ebbs and flows freely around
the girth of the globe defying government controls. Mass immigration
into Western Europe and North America continues. Everywhere, people,
money, goods, and knowledge flow so effortlessly from point to
point that place becomes an irrelevant concept. The world is becoming
placeless.2
While recognizing the ease of communication provided
by the Internet and other mass communication media, music educators
also realize the great societal need for socialization. There
may indeed be no need for a physical place for educational activity,
but people will continue to seek out opportunities for live interaction
with others. For example, when VCRs became widely used, the motion
picture industry feared the demise of movie theatres. This has
not occurred; instead there has been an expansion of movie theatres
into large multi-theatre complexes.
In a similar way, participation in music learning
activities will become an important way to fulfill the need to
interact with one another in a social and educational setting.
The challenge for music educators will be one of blending the
social and academic aspects of music learning toward the goals
of both enjoyment and education. Additionally, music educators
will need to become increasingly involved in developing, monitoring,
and facilitating the private music experiences being produced
via advances in technology.
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