The Politics of Music Education

As published in the academic journal "The Recorder" (Fall 2005)
The Politics of Music Education
By Dr. Peter Zsebik

As I was perusing the article given to me to read entitled Ethical Issues for Music Educators in Multicultural Societies by Tim Rice, it resounded in me that his article touched on an issue that I had been contemplating personally. This issue is that if we in Canada are to call ourselves a multicultural society where individuals are to be given equal opportunity, then it is incumbent on all areas of the educational environment to embrace a multicultural perspective that allows for the exploration, discovery and understanding of those imperatives found within an ethnically diverse student population. Perhaps the most under-represented subject in terms of ethnic variation, but also perhaps the most easily rectified, is music.

My own experiences teaching music in different parts of the world has provided some interesting insights and observations. In most instances where I was teaching, I found always that the onus on me was to teach music from a western perspective – that is, to utilize band instruments, study the European masters, and teach the dogmas associated with western music theory, In other words, as a Canadian-raised and trained musician and music teacher, I was well prepared to teach music throughout the world. Oddly enough, it wasn’t until I taught in Vienna, a purported mecca of western music, that I realized just how one-sided my training had been from an ethno-musical perspective. I started to feel an imperative within myself to attempt more of an ethno-musical focus within the program, stemming from the realization that a number of students were musically talented, but not by western standards. This direction of teaching culminated in a performance for World Peace Day at the United Nations Headquarters in Vienna. The piece was student composed, and consisted of a didgereedoo, two violins, a bass guitar, an electric guitar, a drum set, and tabla (Indian percussion). It was a highlight of my time in Vienna to be sure, and the experience provided for me some insight into the possibilities of incorporating different cultural influences into both a classroom and performance situation.

Having come back to Canada, however, I find that I am once more on familiar ground teaching the same old, with the experiences of my past now simply something to add to my portfolio. And yet, I ask why is this the case? The same ethnic diversity I found overseas at the international school I taught in Vienna is on par with the high school where I currently teach in York Region. And unless I am wrong, I have found that there are still far too many music programs that have at their core the same western focus, with very little time given to ethnic music and its derivations.

It’s not the teacher’s fault. Every music teacher I have met loves to try new things. I think it is an inherent quality in music teachers to experiment and create. These qualities are also necessary psychological survival skills. I think what prevents many from attempting new things, though, are accessibility to equipment and availability of in service instruction. Generally speaking, the teaching pool (in Ontario at least) derives primarily from individuals who have gone through an education that to a high degree has focused on western musical tradition. Naturally, when faced with 25 to 250 shining new faces each September, one will seek comfort zones to help mitigate the process (read survive), and fall back on what they know best, and that will be their own extensive training.

To return to Rice, he believes that the music teacher should think the nature of music through metaphor. His justification for this is as follows:

‘We create metaphors when we link two dissimilar ideas or objects together … (they) provide an extremely important way for us to understand our world and to explain that world to ourselves and others.’(Rice, p. 5)

To summarize, here are the five metaphors that he uses:

1) Music is a conversation – where it is a way of talking to one another
2) Music is text - where it is a fixed, written document that can be read and
interpreted in the absence of the person who composed it
3) Music is history – where it provides a way to perform a group’s history
4) Music is art – where music is seen as sound, as technique, as craft
5) Music is a commodity – where music is a product or service, exchangeable for
money.

These five metaphors can serve as a solid starting point for a contemporary justification for music within an educational context. Utilizing this analysis, Rice hypothesis focused on the ethical dilemmas posed when determining how and what to teach music from other societies. This analysis also provides some useful connotations, chiefly in terms of outlining a possible direction for ethnic music that would qualify it for a curricular program. It also helps to compartmentalize the areas that need to be addressed. He concedes, however, that there are minefields necessary to navigate, particularly when it comes to choice of materials pertaining to music as history

‘With this metaphor…music can do political work or have a political function. When people make music, it can represent a form of political action, particularly when they are making claims about who they are in history and society.’ (Rice, p.7)

He then proceeds to note that the inclusion or exclusion of one over the other ‘will make a statement about how we understand our nation’s histories’. This issue is not new to the academic scene. In my article “The Politics of Education” (Zsebik, 2000) I quoted from the preface to Paolo Freire’s book Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1990) in which Richard Shaull states:

There is no such thing as a neutral educational process. Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate the integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes the practice of freedom (of musical expression in this case), the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world. (Zsebik, 2000, p.64)

What this means for the music teacher is that if we are to service an ethnically diverse student body appropriately, then it is almost an ethical imperative that we incorporate as many of the available ethno-musical forms as possible, and this could be accomplished through a student led survey of the musical background from which he or she came. A unit based on this premise may be nothing more than perhaps a stop-gap measure in the greater scheme of things, but I believe even this nod to internationalism has the potential to transform the musical classroom, and possibly the world perspective of our students.

To proceed further, and perhaps to provide a direction through which a longer term structure can be activated, we should make ourselves aware of some of the theories of curricular motivation that affect our music programs. To begin, we can divide our curricular programs into 4 different types of curricula. These are the following:

1. Academic – relates to the Ontario Ministry Guidelines
2. Pastoral – relates to a teacher’s interaction with the students
3. Hidden – relates to unspoken expectations for each student (behaviour, achievement, relationships with others, etc.)
4. Paradigmatic – a culmination of the above that creates the educational paradigm of that institution (Zsebik, 2003)

As music teachers, we constantly must be aware of the first three of these curricular elements, perhaps more so than other subject areas simply because of the personal nature that creating music entails. A successful conductor/teacher will not only know the music, but the personalities and limitations of each of his/her own students. A successful program, therefore, will focus on developing the integration and amalgamation of these primary three curricula to create the learning paradigm – the fourth or paradigmatic curriculum.

What does this mean for the music teacher? It means that he/she must initially be aware that these different curricular patterns exist, and from there to attempt to analyze one’s program to determine where things could change to create a more ethnically diverse paradigm. For instance, for the Academic curriculum , one could incorporate an ethnic music study; for the Pastoral curriculum, one could encourage students from other cultures to continue experimenting/ taking lessons in an instrument from their ethnic background and to incorporate it into a public situation; for the hidden curriculum, teachers should make easily accessible posters or recordings or even instruments that focus on music and instruments from other cultures. In today’s technologically enhanced and multiculturally aware environment, a music teacher’s ability to incorporate these elements is relatively simple. Publishers, artists and educators realize that these elements of world music can be commodified (see above). If these three curricula were to be activated to culminate in a shift in paradigmatic output, then this inevitably would provide a positive step forward out of the quagmire of western hegemony. There is also the possibility that a more thorough understanding of the other through music would improve race relations within any academic environment. The choice is ours.

References

Freire, P. (1990). The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 32nd Printing Continuum, New York.

Rice, T. (1998). Ethical issues for Music Educators in Multicultural Societies, Canadian Music Educator, 39(2), 5-8.

Zsebik, P. (2000). The Politics of Education, in International Schools and International Education, Hayden M & Thompson J (eds.) Kogan Page, London, United Kingdom.

Zsebik, P. (2003). A Comparative Analysis of Four Approaches to Curriculum Offered in International Schools, Ph.D Thesis, University of Bath, United Kingdom.

About the Author

Peter Zsebik currently teaches music at the secondary school level with the York Region District School Board. His experiences as a music educator come from a global perspective. During the 1990’s, Peter taught within the international school system in various countries including Kuwait, Singapore, Thailand and Austria. Peter’s professional involvement in education encompasses that of teacher, conductor, adjudicator, researcher and contributor to academic publications. While overseas, Peter received a doctorate from the University of Bath in the United Kingdom where he compared different curricular approaches to education. His current research focuses on inclusivity and race relations within the Ontario classroom.