July 9, 2000

East High School

Erie, Pennsylvania

Imagine with me a recent editorial cartoon that I saw in a local newspaper. Mozart and Michelangelo are children working together in a room behind a door marked “arts classes.” Wolfgang is composing at the piano, and Michelangelo is diligently creating a sculpture of a human form. The caption reads “If Mozart and Michelangelo were students in today’s American schools.” The door bursts open to reveal a wild-eyed, frantic teacher waving a handful of papers. She screams: “Wolfgang! Mike! Stop wasting time! You should be doing practice drills for the state exams!”

For arts educators, this cartoon says it all. From Pre-K through higher education we are faced at every turn with obstacles to teaching the arts in which we believe and love. In addition to class time needed to prepare for and take standardized tests, these obstacles may include intensive scheduling; funding shortages and related equipment and space limitations; local, state and federal politics; problems unique to urban, suburban, and rural areas; a varied array of societal ills; an increasingly litigious society; school safety and security; religious issues in the curriculum; and the absence of teacher certification in two of the four arts areas represented at this Institute. In addition, arts educators must be concerned with and understand such “hot topics” in education as curriculum integration, reading and writing across the curriculum, inclusion, multiculturalism, assessment, technology, national and state standards, and the certification update process now required by Act 48.

In spite of this laundry list of items, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to kick off this exciting week of the Governor’s Institute by sharing with you my refusal over the years to be discouraged by educational trends that impact on teaching the arts. Having taught instrumental and vocal music on all grade levels in public and independent schools in the United States, Europe, and West Africa, I have experienced many of the things I described. For example, I have worked with a student population consisting of 99% of children of color in a challenging urban setting; classes of 25 students from 18 different countries, 3/4 of whom spoke English as a second language; and homogeneous groups of upper income students. I have taught both where the materials were plentiful and where there was almost nothing available. I have taught from a cart going into other teachers’ rooms, in a trailer, on a stage, and in a beautiful room in a brand new arts facility. I have been paid both poorly and well and in foreign currency and U.S. dollars. And just like yours, my hourly rate is very low compared to the amount of time I actually work.

The beauty of all this, however, is that I get paid to do something that I love, working in a field that is both my profession and my recreation. I am able to combine doing my art as I continue to perform, teaching my art as I work with students, preparing others to teach my art after I will be long retired, and enjoying my art during recreational time. I still love to get up in the morning and go to school (notice I did not say go to work!). I become excited when the weather begins to change in the fall and the new students arrive on the Gettysburg campus. After all, in what other profession can you begin all over again and try to get it right, finally, each year? I love the difference I can make with even one student. I meet administrative, parental, and student challenges head on, and I am relentless in defending the importance of the arts in the curriculum and in the lives of children. After all this time, I still thrill at having opportunities for continued growth and professional development in order to learn something new that will help me be a better musician and teacher. In fact, I came to Erie following a week of Dalcroze Eurythmics training in Pittsburgh and a weekend of a world choral music workshop in Indiana. Perfecting this most difficult craft is always a work in progress.

The great thing about coming together with other arts educators is that you are among friends who can provide you with the kind of support and encouragement that you need to return to your schools to function virtually in isolation. This evening I want to suggest seven things to think about during the week and to consider seriously when you go back to your schools:

1. Always continue learning in your field…just as you are doing by being here.

2. Join and get involved in the important work of your professional organizations – I am always amazed at how many music teachers, for example, do not belong to MENC. There is strength in numbers in our professional organizations, and we should not forget how the four major ones in our fields were able to get arts standards on the table in Washington, DC ahead of all other disciplines.

3. Be the most vocal advocate that you can be for the importance of your discipline in the curriculum in your school system…and always represent the arts and arts education well wherever you go.

4. Take a proactive approach to problems or changes in education on every level – Get involved rather than sitting back and complaining while things happen around you. The train will continue to pass by whether you are on it or not.

5. Vote in every election for the candidate that you believe will best support the educational needs of children, especially in the arts – Living and teaching in other countries has increased my sense of patriotism. Voting is important, and major elections lie ahead this fall.

6. Seek out Pennsylvania’s higher education community in your discipline for research information to support your work in the classroom and for potential partnership arrangements – Just last month I was the music facilitator at a research convocation at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia where arts researchers in the state gathered to share and make their research available to teachers around Pennsylvania. A WEB site will soon be available to you where you will be able to find research information to support your work in the classroom. And in a minute or two I will share with you information about a partnership Gettysburg College has had with an area elementary school. Colleges and universities have much to offer you and your students. Establish a dialogue with them.

7. Finally, don’t just talk about the arts - actually engage people as often as you can in doing and experiencing the arts…at every opportunity and gathering….back-to-school nights, PTA meetings, etc…

In order to follow some of my own advice, at this point I am going to guide you through the process of making music. Since one of the themes of this Institute is technology, I want to share with you the most recent innovation in teaching choral music to singers in every age group. This is a CD-ROM software program called Global Voices. Mary Goetze and Jay Fern at the Indiana University School of Music in Bloomington, Indiana, created the program. It provides choral music educators with a means of introducing global cultures in the process of teaching world choral music in the tradition of the culture where it originates. Even the technologically challenged arts educator can learn to use it.

Global Voices in Song is an important teaching innovation, both in terms of technology and multicultural education. It uses technology as a tool rather than as a toy or gimmick. The software allows the teacher to bring into the classroom the actual images and sounds of cultures outside the Western European tradition. The individuals who are shown and heard on the video clips serve as informants from the cultures that are being introduced. The Global Voices concept moves the choral director and singer beyond the printed page of phonetic pronunciation and beyond the attempts of arrangers and editors to notate choral music that originates in cultures where music is transmitted through an oral rather than a written tradition.

I was fortunate to be able to pilot Global Voices with a new choral group that I founded this past year at Gettysburg College, the World Music Ensemble. This group was also involved in a partnership with a chorus from the Fishing Creek Valley Elementary School in Harrisburg. The children’s ensemble was under the direction of a wonderful music teacher, Janis McCauley. The two groups had a performance exchange that brought them together in each school to sing the South African songs they had mastered individually. Let’s examine together how the Global Voices technology works.

< Global Voices Demonstration Here >

I hope you have found the demonstration of this technological innovation in choral music education to be interesting to see and fun to do. It illustrates how technology is being used to bring authentic and accurate material from around the world into the music classroom for easy use. As you attend sessions here this week, you should discover other exciting ways to use technology in your teaching. At the conclusion of the Institute, may you return home refreshed, full of new ideas, and ready to assume arts leadership roles in your schools and communities. As you prepare for another school year, keep in mind those seven suggestions I made earlier. Each one of you here tonight is to be congratulated on your willingness to spend part of your summer break becoming better arts educators through this Institute. As I used to tell my first grade students, give yourselves a pat on the back. You deserve one! It has been my great pleasure to spend this time with all of you.

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Those interested in finding out more about Global Voices in Song: www.globalvoicesinsong.com