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Welcome to the new Board Blog page. Here the members of the Coalition’s Board of Directors discuss the issues impacting music education in their home communities, which stretch from Atlantic Canada to Vancouver Island.
We invite you to get in touch with the Board and participate in the discussion.
Dr. Eric Favaro is a passionate education advocate who has devoted his entire career to helping teachers gain a better understanding of the importance of an education in and through the arts. He is respected nationally and internationally as an innovator and advocate for effective programs in Arts Education.
This year’s Music Monday – May 7 – marks my 40th anniversary in the teaching profession. It was that day in 1972 that I walked across the stage at St. Francis Xavier University to receive a BEd degree with specialization in music education. I often reflect on the limited preparation I had for my career, and the basic understandings of music making that were to influence the way I taught the subject. For the most part I understood that music was a performance medium and to be a successful music educator I had to teach and re-teach, drill and perfect, until the desired outcome was achieved and my students could outshine others that they may have competed against in local festivals.
My career took many interesting turns, and to support me in every new endeavour I took advantage of many professional opportunities to learn the skills I needed to improve my choirs and bands. I attended workshops and seminars, did advanced degrees, attended conferences, and read extensively. I soon came to realize that the “drill and kill” method of teaching music was turning me and my students off. There were constant battles to practice and attend rehearsals, and if things were not right, we kept doing it until they sounded just as I wanted them to sound.
Suddenly one day I had a revelation after attending a working with R. Murray Schaffer. He had us exploring sounds around us, sensing our environment, recreating sounds in nature, inventing notation to represent sounds, and doing lots of “ear cleaning” as he called it. Lights went off in my head and I realized this was something I could explore with my elementary students in classroom music lessons as we created wonderful group compositions and various forms of soundscapes. In April, 1975 I had my grade 2-3 class from St. Monica’s Elementary School in Calgary perform an original composition in the Kiwanis Music Festival at the Jubilee Auditorium. We had entered the class called “Choral – own choice”, and I was anxious as we sat waiting our turn to go on stage. We heard wonderful 2 and 3-part singing before our turn came, and I wondered what my students were thinking as we approached the stage when called. St. Monica’s was an inner-city school with many challenges. We stood on stage in a circle and from the centre I conducted our class aleatoric composition entitles “Bees” with words by Ogden Nash. At the end of the piece there was silence in the auditorium. Suddenly the adjudicator, the late Lloyd Bradshaw from Toronto, stood and applauded and asked us to perform it once again. He saw the wonderful sense of accomplishment on the faces of my students and the fact that they took a huge risk and stood tall with the best of the choral groups they were competing against. We were chosen to perform in the Concert of the Stars, and it was after that that I began to really observe my young students for the first time, to see them take risks, experiment, solve problems, and capture their inner thoughts and feelings in sound. Most striking was the level of involvement and the commitment to the music they were making. They were profoundly engaged, and even those who would never try out for the school choir or a band programme all of a sudden were making beautiful and meaningful music, and they were proud of it.
Fast forward time to April 23, 2012 when I sat in a theatre in Halifax with 1,000 delegates assembled to hear a talk by Sir Ken Robinson. I had attended his talks before, and debated about hearing the familiar message once again, but I thought since he was in the area I should go. This time I found him much more engaging as he related stories of his earliest memories of school when, as a handicapped student – he had contracted polio at age four and still has physical limitations – he spoke of being placed in a school with other handicapped students. Every student in his class had a disability of one sort or other, so no one stood out as better than the others. Sir ken talked about how different most public schools are from this model, and how our education system, thanks to standardized testing and the strong push to “raise standards” works on the deficit model, focusing on what students cannot do. I immediately was reminded of the St. Monica’s School experience when all my students had equal opportunities and instead of a drill and kill approach to music education, we adopted a more collaborative, interactive and creative approach. Music making truly became a celebration of what students could create and ultimately perform, albeit sometimes very primitive and not your “standard” repertoire.
I retired from public education six years ago, and throughout the latter part of my career I moved from the classroom to an administrative role, with the last six years devoted to work at the Nova Scotia Department of Education. In both those capacities I had the opportunity to push a more creative approach to the teaching of music. Curriculum that was subsequently developed had its primary focus on improvisation and composition, and although this approach was generally met with skepticism by many music educators, there were some teachers who really took to the new pedagogy and developed it further.
Since retiring, I have maintained an active role in curriculum development in Nova Scotia and I was very pleased to see the launch of their most recent curriculum projects – Explore Music 7, 8, and 9 and Band Instruments 7, 8, and 9. Now the province has a continuous curriculum from Primary – 12 that honours and celebrates the musical creativity of all students. Now students improvise and compose in every lesson, even in performance classes like band, orchestra and choir. They are performing their own works, and arranging familiar tunes for ensembles. Moreover, the new “informances” outshine the performances of polished works that often were the result of rehearsing a set of 4 or 5 pieces for the entire year to be performed at a festival or year-end concert. Most importantly, students now are articulating their musical learnings, and they are encouraged to take an active role in the interpretation of standard works.
Once could question the integrity of this approach and the true value for developing musicians. I strongly feel that the role of music in schools is to develop a love of music, and an understanding of what it is to be a musician, whether as a performer, composer, or participant in an audience. We want our communities to be thriving, creative and musical places, and we want generations to come to understand and value the role of music in our lives. This to me is the most important aspect of a music education.
Sadly I recall a story of a first year teacher I once hired about 20 years ago. I asked her why she chose music as a career. She confided in me that she always loved music, and that at the end of the final graduation concert many of her classmates put their instrument back in the case for the last time. They had developed such a negative feeling towards music because of the “drill and kill” approach that they had experienced for thirteen years that they vowed never to put themselves through that again. The young teacher admitted that she decided then that she would become a music teacher to make a change in how music is taught. As a side bar, she is one of the most effective music teachers I have met, and her students excel in music, particularly when her senior bands perform their own compositions and arrangements. They excel because they have a sense of accomplishment in what they have experienced and achieved.
As a board member of the Coalition for Music Education I want to reinforce my strong opinion that music making is much more than preparing for a performance or a professional career in music. As an advocacy group, we have a responsibility to celebrate best practices and hold up models of excellence in music. Ironically these are often not our award winning ensembles. As Sir Ken reinforced, we need to personalize education so we are meeting the needs of those in front of us, taking them from where they are to the best that they can be. Do we do this by drilling a piece of music for months at a time? No, we do it by allowing them to discover their own musical aptitudes, and developing them to their full potential. Happily, I review curriculum from across the country, and although we on the east coast have been doing it for several years now, the trend to more student-cententric music lessons with a focus on improvisation and composition has become the norm in many provinces. The challenge now is to recognize and celebrate the creative abilities of students so they do not remain stagnant as “musical robots” but rather musicians who know and understand all aspects of the music making process.
Theodora Stathopoulos
What’s your role with the CMEA, why did you take on the position and what do you foresee achieving in the role?
I am currently serving as President of the CMEA/acme. After being nominated to the board, I was asked by executive members to consider allowing my name to stand for the position of Vice President that was vacant at the time. I accepted because I believe I have something to offer as a result of my teaching experience. I also felt I could help strengthen collaborations between the two linguistic communities in Canada.
During my term of office I hope to serve the membership in areas that need support through the work of the various committees and I am optimistic that I will influence board members to assume a more active recruitment campaign for non-affiliated provinces. I also aspired to motivate board members to consider national projects that will inspire, motivate and engage our membership, will promote and advance our mission and will enable us to demonstrate the relevance and value of music education. In this regard, I am happy to report that, at the CMEA annual board meeting in November, the directors approved a motion to bid, in partnership with the OMEA, to host the 2016 ISME World Conference on Music Education in Canada. We are looking forward to hearing the decision from the ISME board.
What do you value about the reciprocal partnership between the CMEA and the Coalition?
The membership of our two boards is quite different and we are well positioned to complement each other: On one hand the CMEA board has a wealth of expertise in music education, being composed entirely of experienced music educators, researchers and administrators who are skilled musicians.
On the other hand, there is diversity of expertise among the membership on the Coalition Board. Each member brings a different perspective and is open minded and willing to try different strategies in order to advance the broader spectrum of the music education agenda in Canada. The value of the two associations working together is in supporting each other’s work and in avoiding duplication of work.
What do you bring to the Coalition Board?
I bring experience and expertise. For more than 30 years I have been a music specialist in the public school system in Quebec having previously taught in public schools in Southwestern Ontario. My career has allowed me to teach in many different settings: elementary school, high school, strings, winds, choral; privately, in small groups and huge groups; in English and French. I sit on committees at the local, provincial, national and international level and know most leaders in the arts and in music education. I collaborate with the universities of UQAM and McGill in their teacher training programs and I keep in touch with many former students from as far back as 30-35 years. They communicate their perspective about the role music has played in their lives and remember how it all started: in a music classroom.
What value does the Coalition have for music education in Canada?
In my opinion, the Coalition’s value lies in its potential to advocate, not only for existing music programs and practices but also for new initiatives in music education in Canada. This potential is due to the diversity of expertise on the board and their open mindedness. As well, the fact that the Coalition supports the position of a professional executive director is advantageous to the organization and adds to its value.
What do you think its priorities should be on this 20th anniversary?
Sustainability is a huge challenge for any organization in the 21st century because the conditions that constitute its raison d’être are continuously changing. Goals become moving targets as the needs of the people we claim to serve are constantly and drastically evolving. These needs are often complex and sometimes unattainable. But there is one need that will never change: the need for all humans to have music in their lives. If the goal to address this need becomes a priority for the Coalition, then music education is the means by which this can become a reality for infants, children, young adults, adults, rich and poor, people with special talent and people with special needs.
Why is music important?
Music resonates differently with different people but is a basic need for all humans. Personally, I think that the elements of music (rhythm, melody, harmony, timbre and form) are very basic elements found in nature. When we perceive them in a musical composition we feel a “oneness” with the composition, appreciate it and respond to it instinctively by humming, tapping, swaying etc. We can observe such responses in very young children and babies and very old people because they are uninhibited. In this regard, music connects our physical and spiritual world without having any association to a particular religion. The connectivity between these two worlds has great significance for us and therefore the conduit that makes this possible (ie music) is important to us.
Why is learning music and playing music so important for young Canadians?
People acquire their culinary tastes and skills by first experiencing food through eating. Similarly, I believe it is very important to experience (consume) music by first making music ie playing music. People, young and old, “play” music instinctively all the time even if they never had formal training: they beat a rhythm, hum a tune, make up a song, whistle, sing along to songs they know or hear being played. To perform music in a more formal setting, as a trained music maker who is a member of an ensemble or a soloist, is a very powerful experience that has the potential to transform lives. When music has been well prepared and students feel comfortable with the technical side of things, performing is creative, stress free, fun, relaxing and rejuvenating.
What are the biggest challenges facing music educators in Quebec….and across Canada in 2012?
One can name a number of challenges facing music education today but I believe the biggest challenge is to provide learners with quality music education. Of course, as a result of the hard work of many competent, conscientious, hard working music educators and teachers we can refer to exemplary practices in music education across the country with hundreds of thousand of testimonies from people whose lives have been enriched and fundamentally changed by music as a result of them. For this reason we must be constantly reminded that the best advocacy for music education is a success story and strive for excellence in the teaching and learning of music.
In an ideal world, what facilities would every Canadian school have for young music makers?
In my opinion, the best thing you can provide to young music makers is a competent, committed, caring and hard-working music teacher/educator. The rest usually follows…
How can people in the community help get there?
Parents/taxpayers must demand that their children have the right to have access to a competent, qualified music specialist teacher/educator
What advice would you have for parents wanting to support their children’s music making?
Parents should be convinced that music education must be part of their child’s education. Music is not a frill and, therefore, should not be an option. Music education should be on equal footing with any other subject that is considered core to the curriculum because, in additions to all the reasons stated above, the skills acquired through music learning support learning in all other subjects. If parents can afford private lessons they should invest in some private lessons with a reputable, successful teacher in parallel to any other music program their child is in. Of course, one of the best things any parent can do to support their child is to show genuine interest in their child’s learning and take the time to listen to them practicing, attend concerts, lessons and parent -teacher interviews.
If you could get a message to every politician responsible for music education budgets, what would it be?
If you want to build a better nation visit a music classroom today!
Do you have any stories of how music education has changed a young person’s life?
I have many stories but a most recent one comes from one of my former students and appeared in Montreal’s La Presse. It tells the story of how the life of this 18-year old has been transformed by the study of the cello. It all started in grade two with the recommendation to start some music lessons:
http://www.cyberpresse.ca/arts/musique/musique-classique/201112/21/01-4479881-stephane-tetreault-voyager-avec-un-violoncelle.php?utm_categorieinterne=trafficdrivers&utm_contenuinterne=cyberpresse_hotTopics_en-vedette_443505_section_POS2
Other, less publicized examples of students whose lives were transformed by the power of music, demonstrate how children at risk of disengaging from school stayed on and thrived almost entirely due to their involvement with performing/touring musical groups.
Do you have any examples of people doing great work for young music makers?
There are many people doing fantastic work with young music makers and the vast majority of them is known only to their students and their parents. They are our silent heroes. They are teachers whose agenda is to make the students in front of them have deeply enriching, rewarding, unforgettable experiences in music so they can establish an intimate relationship with the art for the rest of their lives.
What advice would you have for young people who want to make music in their community?
Our communities are in need of young people playing and teaching music. Know that your work can change lives and trust yourself that you are able to facilitate this change through your teaching and performing. Persevere!
John White
What’s your role and why are you involved with the Coalition?
I am a member of the Coalition board and Chair of the development committee, which is charged with making the Coalition sustainable over the long term. It’s our 20th Anniversary next year, so we’re not doing too badly! I have been peripherally involved with [CMEC partner] the BC Coalition for many years, and have served as a speaker at a number of their events. It seems that I have been involved in music and music education most of my life. While in high school, I taught at the Calgary Conservatory of Music and played in orchestras, jazz bands and rock groups while at university (and beyond). After starting my teaching career in Whitehorse, Yukon, I moved to Langley, BC to work as an itinerant elementary band teacher. Following a year when I worked in the music industry I was appointed as Fine Arts Coordinator in the Kamloops School District and then, five years later, moved to Coquitlam as Fine Arts Coordinator. My final move, before I retired, was to the Burnaby School District where I served as Director of Instruction for 21 years. The Fine Arts were always included in my portfolio of responsibilities. I’ve been actively helping to organise Music Monday since 2009.
Why is music making so important for young Canadians?
Too often we try to rationalise the need for young people – and adults – to participate in music, whether that’s making music or listening to music. We cite all of the research that demonstrates music’s effect on discipline, on improving mathematics skills or teaching teamwork, but in reality, music is inherently beneficial. It is good in and of itself. Music is transformational, it is good for the soul; it can move you tears, live music in particular.
Though I believe music has a very special benefit, I actually think young people should participate in a variety of arts at school, whether that’s music or drama or dance or visual art or any combination… we only produce well-rounded, emotionally literate children when we expose them to a range of subjects, not just the core of languages, maths and science.
Music is such an important part of our cultural heritage and cultural make up as Canadians. I believe that everyone can learn to participate successfully in some form of music-making, and we all love listening to it. It’s an art form that touches everybody.
What are the biggest challenges facing music educators in your province?
It’s generally true across the country that there’s a deficit in funding for music education. This has a significant impact on the resources available to teach music effectively. Government itself is under pressure, there are so many other important services vying for its attention – healthcare, transportation – the broad disbursement of public funds seems to make it impossible to have every service operate at the highest standard.
That said, school trustees and many school administrators are able to make funding decisions at a local level, which means that while some schools struggle to provide for music makers, some manage to provide excellent facilities and sufficient resources. I’d implore decision makers at all levels to help redress the imbalance by dedicating funds to making music in the classroom.
In an ideal world, what facilities would every Canadian school have for young music makers?
A dedicated music room equipped with high quality equipment, and a developmentally based, sequential music program taught by a specialist music teacher. I would also say that specialist teachers are essential – especially those who are enthusiastic and able to create a positive environment for children as they learn! An equality of opportunity is key, if every child had access to good resources through their school music program we’d be in a great place.
How can people in the community help get there?
By showing that they value music, in public dialogue, at the dinner table in their homes, and encouraging and supporting their children by any means possible.
What advice would you have for parents wanting to support their children’s music making?
Offer the opportunities that you are able to support. Make the best of wherever you are and whatever you have; if you live in an apartment, there may not be room for a piano, but you could sure fit a guitar. Lots of things are available that cost very little, especially in the cities, but also many small communities have arts centres that provide low cost or free opportunities for young people to get together and make music.
The key to encouraging your child to participate in music is not for force it upon them – holding a big stick is not going to help your child develop a positive life-long relationship with making music or enjoying music.
Do set rules though, young people need parameters. Enter into a contract with your child and give them choice. If you buy them a guitar, agree between you how often your child should practice. Half an hour a day is enough.
Do you know anyone – a parent, a teacher, a student – who is outstanding at what they do to support music education in your area? Why are they so great?
I will cite the qualities of a colleague I know well, though I won’t name him as one of his many attributes is that he shuns self promotion.
He’s always an advocate for music, he puts his money where his mouth is. He is very knowledgeable, leads by setting out his vision clearly and encourages people to join him in the pursuit of that vision. He never denigrates anything else, and will always offer support to colleagues. He is valued by the communities he engages with, whether they are groups of business leaders, educators, parents or young people.
If you could be at a concert by any musician from any time in history, who would it be and why?
My taste runs the whole gamut, I’ve played so many styles… I’d have to go with Johan Sebastian Bach. My first violin teacher was actually a sixth generation descendant. I’d choose to hear the unaccompanied violin sonatas and partitas.