"There are things you need for a healthy society ... music is one of
them."
-- Paul Huston,
Director
American Association of School Administrators
Each day, it seems, your White House war criminal's No Child Left
Behind educational nonsense is coming under heavy fire from all
corners of the vast U.S. parent-student-educator community.
Without question, the NCLB's strict, narrow, and unwavering insistence
upon TEST-TAKING TRAINING is forcing our children into straight-
jacket, lock-step, one-size-fits-all educational precepts that are
shortchanging them on creativity, joy, and abilities to make sound and
innovative decisions relative to life's challenges.
But with 13 months left in the clutches of the worst "administration"
in U.S. history, hope is rising among students, parents, and educators
that NCLB will be totally ditched -- or at least modified to remove
the policies that serve the skewed desires of fundamentalist planners
that believe they are serving necessarily conservative values in
public education.
The tide is turning.
-----------------
"Hoping to Turn The Beat Around"
"Even as Attention to 'No Child' Law Squeezes Class Time, Teachers in
Manassas Champion the Value of Music"
By Valerie Strauss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 17, 2007; B01
Seventh-grader Jessica Dodson walked into class and yanked Eric
Clapton from the wall -- the guitar, not the guitarist. Classmate
Corey Cook already had Carlos Santana cradled in his lap, plucking out
E-minor, C and G chords.
"On the C chord, I'm hearing some funky sounds," teacher Darlene
Dawson said after her 17 students at Metz Middle School in Manassas
played "Eleanor Rigby" in unison. She played along with the students,
having taken up the guitar just a few months ago.
This isn't the kind of music class Dawson, a teacher for 25 years, is
used to teaching. Or the kind students are accustomed to attending. Or
what most students in U.S. schools are offered.
The elective class at Metz -- with guitars named after guitarists --
is being given as music education programs across the country are
facing difficult times. Despite research showing that students who
study music have better attendance, achievement and lifetime earnings,
music classes are struggling to survive.
Supporters of such classes place some of the blame on the federal No
Child Left Behind law. They say the focus on high-stakes testing
leaves little room for other subjects.
"There are things you need for a healthy society," said Paul Houston,
executive director of the American Association of School
Administrators. "Music is one of them," he said. But the No Child
environment "sucks the juice out of everything else."
Music and the arts are listed in No Child Left Behind guidelines as
"core" subjects, but there is no money in the law to support such
programs nor any mandate requiring schools to provide them. As
instructional time in math, language arts and other subjects students
must achieve proficiency in has risen, time devoted to other subjects
has declined. Time spent on arts and music in 2007 is about half what
it was before No Child Left Behind became law in 2002, according to a
report recently released by the nonprofit Center on Education Policy.
Educators are lobbying legislators to raise the profile of music
education when No Child Left Behind is reauthorized, action that had
been expected this year but has been delayed until next year. They are
pushing for more money for arts programs and seeking a requirement
that school systems report to the federal government on the status of
their music education programs.
The federal law was one reason Dawson said she wasn't sure whether the
guitar program at Metz would ever happen. Some see electives as
expendable, she said, and "there is so much emphasis in Virginia on
test scores." But administrators at the school were very supportive.
Manassas school leaders see music as critical to developing a well-
rounded student, said Michaelene Meyer, deputy superintendent of the
small district of nine schools in Virginia. Teachers are encouraged to
experiment rather than stick with a rigid curriculum. Even
administrators participate; Haydon Elementary School Principal Rebecca
Stone is singing in the school's choral concert tonight.
It was Manassas's commitment to music that helped it join the top 100
school districts for music education in the country for 2007,
according to an online survey by several music organizations,
including the National Association for Music Education. No other
Washington area school system was cited.
Administrators responded positively several years ago to Stacey
Rubach, a music education teacher at Haydon, who became enamored with
the guitar and began holding voluntary classes in school. The students
loved it, she said, and Metz teachers wanted to try it, too.
Dawson and another veteran music teacher, Wendy Pierce, took part in a
summer guitar seminar to learn to play. "Guitar: A Course for All
Reasons" was co-sponsored by the National Association for Music
Education and other music organizations.
Metz got 20 guitars and a board to hang them on the wall, transformed
a health room into a music classroom and gave students a new option
beyond the traditional offerings of orchestra, band and chorus.
About 50 students signed up.
"It's so cool," said Corey Cook, 12, who was in chorus last year but
had trouble with the different pitches.
Jessica Dodson used to play the flute in her school orchestra but
found the guitar far more enticing. "This is more fun," she said. "We
play songs I know."
In one of Dawson's classes last week, students practiced songs by the
Beatles ("Eleanor Rigby") and Beethoven ("Au Clair de la Lune"). This
year, they have learned "Hound Dog," "This Land Is Your Land," "Rock
Around the Clock" and "Ode to Joy."
Dawson stood in front of the class, teaching music theory as students
struggled to stop strumming their guitars.
"Let's work on the C chord," she said. "Fifth string, third fret.
Fourth string, second fret. Open third string. Second string, first
fret. Open first string. Let's hear it one string at a time. That's
five strings. . . . I'm hearing some of you playing six."
At the start of the year, the students offered names of great
guitarists. Teachers chose from their suggestions and named the
instruments for guitarists that span the world of music. Each student
then selected a guitar and wrote an essay about whom he or she liked
and why.
An essay by Steven Alvarez, 13, posted on the wall, reads: "Elvis
Presley is my favorite guitarist. Mainly because he is one of the few
that I know." He wound up, though, with the Bob Dylan guitar: "I think
I've heard one of his songs."
Michael Monte, 13, picked the Jimi Hendrix guitar "because he rocks my
socks."
But even in such an encouraging environment, school officials must
meet the goals of No Child Left Behind. Dawson said Metz
administrators changed the school schedule to provide more
instructional time for math and language arts in an effort to raise
standardized test scores. That means students no longer have music
class every day; they have it two days and then skip a day.
"We've made everything in education instrumental to economic issues,"
said Houston, as he argued why cutting music is not the way schools
should be moving. "And the truth is, we can't win if we want to do
this by competing with numbers. China and India have more people.
"But we can be the most creative. You can always win that battle. Look
at American music forms: jazz, bluegrass, rock-and-roll, rhythm and
blues, hip-hop, gospel," he said. Those music forms were created by
the underclass, the same folks, Houston said, "we are testing to
death."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/16/AR2007121601765.html
.
|
