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instruction. If we compare sharing music to sharing love, then the ideal implies much more than is typically considered by prospective music teachers.
Another common answer is “because I’m good at music and have much to offer.” Without doubt, music teachers must be musically accomplished; but they must also have other competencies central to teaching effectiveness, such as knowledge of how students learn and develop. And, in fact, some music teachers don’t know how to cope when students do not learn as easily as the teacher did—which is all too common. This motive for teaching can also run afoul of either a negative outlook about, or giving up on students who are not as musically motivated as the teacher was at that same stage. It is probably true that teachers tend to love their subjects more than students naturally do (although some teachers make their subjects into ‘work’ for students), and to some degree that can also be a challenge for music teachers.
Some candidates have enjoyed their own school music experiences and simply want to continue with them as teachers. From this view, “school music”2 is seen as its own self-sufficient musical practice; a musical end-in-itself they want to continue to enjoy. They don’t necessarily realize—or wish to consider—that many of their peers did not respond in the same positive way to the same teaching. Or that the jeopardized status of school music reveals a legitimation crisis in many places that has the public, school officials, and others calling into question its value and continued existence.
Similarly, the desire to be “just like” a favorite music teacher can fail to note that not all of the favored teacher’s students thrived or that all students did not favor that teacher. It can thus overlook the criteria for favoring that teacher. Being a “good teacher” is not unlike being a
“good person”: it is a complicated matter and not one that easily submits to imitation. Yet the observation is common that “teachers teach the way they were taught” and, as a result, teaching is a very conservative profession: change is often at the speed of a glacier. Combine that tendency with “conservatory” influences on music teachers (passed on by their musical training), and it is all too easy for some teachers to gravitate to the most motivated or best students. They are like the doctor who complains that the patients are sick, or the pilot who anticipates only good weather.
Music teachers often ‘do’ their subjects professionally outside of school, unlike most other teachers. In fact, the preponderance of their training is focused on becoming a musician—the mistaken assumption (learned from their music professors) that a good musician is
automatically a good teacher. This can lead to the problem where music teachers ‘perform’
their ensembles like an organist performs the organ pipes. Their focus, then, is more on the musical results than the educational benefits for ensemble members. They take for granted that the experience of performing music is automatically educative. However, for many students such experiences are regarded as school-based social activities,3 and any carry-over to life outside of school and as adults is thus typically missing. The same result is often typical for the experiences provided in classroom music (i.e., so-called “general music”): few if any skills are learned that can be and are used outside of such classes and throughout life.
As trained musicians, some music teachers are tempted to protect music from students!
They are thus quick to be rid of those whose contribution to the optimal musical result is problematic, instead of redoubling their efforts with such students. They can tend to treat their students as proto-musicians in the same way they were treated during their musical training and demand the same kind of dedication to musical excellence.4 Competition (for the seating hierarchy within an ensemble, and competition with other ensembles and other schools) often becomes an end-in-itself, made all the more notable by the fact that music teachers’ efforts are often public in a way that most other teaching is not.5 The effects of competition can be negative for individual students.6 And, in any case, once the conditions of competition are missing, notably, after graduation from school—motivation to continue performing disappears. Such teachers are also more likely to resort to various questionable means, such as embarrassment, to motivate students. This, of course, is a problem owing to
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the predictably unstable nature of many students’ self-concepts during the school years.
Some teachers enter music teaching because they excel in music. On this basis they seek a musical career. However, while this can be reasonable, the question that has been raised over the years remains “Do we teach music or students?” There’s no reason that the answer needs to be either-or; clearly both can and should be served. But if the main focus is on the benefits for the teacher, it becomes too easy to ignore the students’ musical needs and benefits.
There are several more potential problems with this disposition, aside from such ethical implications. The first arises when students enter music teaching in order to pursue a musical career, but don’t want to subject themselves to the fierce competition and risks musicians face in the marketplace for jobs. The second involves parents who, similarly realizing that musical careers are risky, agree to let their child study music only on the condition of becoming a music teacher. In both instances of entering the profession, it is all too easy for such teachers to regard teaching merely as a their ‘job’—a means of making a living—rather than as a mission to which they are ‘called’ and where they are altruistically dedicated to students’ best interests.7
A related problem can be the attraction to teaching as a lifestyle. It is stable, generates a decent standard of living and usually allows teachers to spend more time with their families.
However, and again, while this kind of vision can seem reasonable, it can lead teachers to ignore students’ needs.8 Then, such teachers (of any subject—everyone has experienced at least one) operate on auto-pilot, or as though working on assembly line. The quality of their own lives is their focus and getting through each day and school year with the fewest problems is their immediate goal—not the future well-being of their students, musical and otherwise.
Many burn out and yet stay in teaching.
Perhaps the antithesis of such a disposition is the prospective music teacher who simply enjoys working with young people and also enjoys music. This disposition is far less likely to result in the problems mentioned earlier because it focuses on the students while not ignoring the self-interests of the teacher.9 A similar motivation for entering music teaching—although altogether rare—is the desire to be better than those music teachers the candidate had in school. These individuals often realize that they succeeded musically despite poor teaching but that their peers were not so lucky. They aspire to become teachers because of a commitment to teaching excellence—not just of offering instruction, but of promoting notable and rewarding musical learning. Unfortunately, both dispositions can be confronted and confounded by the many everyday problems of schooling as an institution. But such teachers often find that meeting and overcoming such challenges is itself one of the rewards of good teaching.
No doubt, the typical prospective music teacher has multiple motivations. However, failure to consider the kinds of possibilities raised here is a likely reason for burn-out or for ineffective teaching—or both! Prospective teachers benefit, then, from being forewarned of the various problems that can arise after they begin their careers and are shocked or disappointed by unpleasant realities they had not considered. It is to the benefit of both teachers and students that the important praxis of music is advanced by teaching praxis that is effective and musically rewarding for both students and teachers.
References
Elliott, D. 1995. Music Matters. New York: Oxford Uni-versity Press.
Regelski, T. A. 2012a. The good life of teaching or the life of good teaching. Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education 11, 2, 42–78; http://act.
maydaygroup.org/articles/Regelski11_2.pdf.
Regelski, T. A. 2012b. Ethical dimensions of school-based music education. In W. Bowman, A. L. Frega (eds.) The Oxford handbook of philosophy in music educa-tion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 284–304.
Regelski, T. A. 2006a. ‘Music appreciation’ as praxis.
Music Education Research 8, 2 (July), 281–310.
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Regelski, T. A. 2006b. Music education: What is the ‘val-ue added’ for self and society? In B. Stålhammar (ed.) Music and Human Beings. Örebro: University of Örebro.
Regelski, T. A. 2005. Music and music education—
theory and praxis for ‘making a difference’. Education-al Philosophy and Theory 37, 1 (January), 7–27. Volume re-published (2005) as: Music Education for the New Millennium: Theory and Practice Futures for Music Teaching and Learning. Oxford: Blackwell.
Small, C. 1998. Musicking. London: Wesleyan Univer-sity Press.
Notes
or make time for in adult life than is the case with large ensembles. In any case, a ‘creative tension’ often exists between being a good musician (producing good musical results) and being a good music teacher (pro-moting musical learning). The relationship is not as simple or direct as is often assumed.
[6] The common objection is that competition for seat-ing, solos, and the like allows only the ‘winners’ to reach their personal goals at the expense of all the ‘losers’
not reaching theirs. When competition is the students’
main focus, they are extrinsically motivated by the tention to ‘win’ (or earn a high grade) rather than in-trinsically motivated by the music.
[7] This can also lead to the not uncommon situation of musicians who have not thrived as professionals and who ‘fall back’ on music teaching as a way of mak-ing their livmak-ing. Despite their musical skills, this does not always result in advancing students’ musical growth.
[8] Not to mention the problem of often being una-ware of the less than ideal challenges of teaching that eventually become all too apparent. As any teacher knows, what the students and the public see is only the tip of the iceberg of the daily concerns facing teachers.
[9] A student-teacher returning from her first week remarked: “This is so much fun! I can’t believe they actually pay people to do this. I love the children.”
[1] As stressed in earlier articles, concerts and recitals are socio-musical events brought into being by the music. But the use of music in religious worship, for example, profoundly affects the practice of religion.
This is also the case with musical celebrations of vari-ous kinds. As a youth, this writer attended a dance where the music was only a drummer: It was sufficient in providing a dance beat but otherwise musically and socially unsatisfying.
[2] Including community music schools, as called dif-ferently in different countries.
[3] Another variable is the so-called “need for achieve-ment” (nAch)—the need to be recognized as being good at something. This often explains why youth get involved in various activities during the school years (or is even the reason for being a ‘good student’). But as a motivation for a life of musicking, it fades in impor-tance with the arrival of adult life and responsibilities.
[4] Keep in mind that training competent music pro-fessionals is different than providing an effective mu-sic education for school students who do not aspire to professional standing but whose lives can be en-riched via music.
[5] This may be a reason why chamber groups that are not conducted in public by the teacher typically have a negligible role in most school music programs, even though their musical and educational benefits are many. That is unfortunate since they promote a disposition for performing that is much easier to find
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