Klarinet Archive - Posting 000670.txt from 2001/05

From: Bilwright@-----.net (William Wright)
Subj: Re: [kl] School Board
Date: Sat, 26 May 2001 15:19:47 -0400

Moments after I had read Dee Hay's message (about how the loss of
general music instruction may relate to sports worship), I happened to
channel surf and to land on Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451". It was
the scene in the elevator where Montag's wife asks him (not verbatim),
"How did it end up this way, that we burn books?"

Thanks to recent events in my community --- such as our primary
musical theater group shutting down, which has cost my teacher dearly,
and the threatened loss of librarians and instrumental music education
in our school district --- Montag's wife's question really hit me.
"How did it (nearly) end up this way?" Dropping music education is
(effectively) a sort of censorship, isn't it?

I learned last week that some of the music teachers in our school
district are paid by individual PTAs, not by the school district.
Three cheers for the PTA, but.... How did it end up this way?
One of the problems with PTAs is that they vary dramatically in
wealth from one school nighborhood to the next, and hence the musical
curriculum in our area varies between schools that are separated by only
a few miles --- that is, the curriculum doesn't exist in some of the
schools.
Given how much time kids spend listening to music and playing 'air
guitar' and spending on concerts and day dreaming about becoming
performers, how has it happened that music education is/has become so
threatened? I've posted before that I'm against mandatory music
education, but why has the opportunity become so restricted in public
schools?

In the final analysis, perhaps I should be glad that sports teams
want bands, or perhaps there would be no opportunity at all (for kids
whose parents can't or won't invest in private schooling).

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