Klarinet Archive - Posting 000931.txt from 2004/03

From: ormondtoby@------.net (Ormondtoby Montoya)
Subj: RE: [kl] not just the music department
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 11:37:25 -0500

David Blumberg wrote:

> I was judging Regional Band Auditions
> several years ago [snip] I don't believe in
> mainstreaming as it slows down the higher
> learners. To undereducate the smart as well
> as overeducate the slow is just wrong!
> Teach them both at their own levels.

I understand your point, David, and there's some truth to it. However,
you've just made a "one size fits all" statement --- which is especially
unproductive in a field as multi-dimensional as music is. I'm not
learning disabled, but I was excluded from music education for precisely
this reason.

The *entire child* is developing during school years, not just the
child's musical skills. One of mainstreaming's stated purposes is to
fight against the "I don't belong with the rest of the human race"
feeling. But on the other side of the coin, using a "one size fits
all" rule to force all handicapped children into mainstream would
convince many of them that they don't measure up and truly do not belong
to the rest of the human race.

Education, music or otherwise, is too delicate and too case-specific of
a situation to handle with a single rule.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
klarinet-digest-unsubscribe@------.org if you get the digest.
Klarinet is a service of Woodwind.Org, Inc. http://www.------.org