Wednesday, September 15, 2010

It's Not Often We're Wowed...

It's not often we read or hear something about music education that makes us stand on our chairs and fist pump.  But our friend David Price (pictured) sent us a link that caused quite a stir on campus at MusickEd.com this morning.  

The quote is from a transcript of the proceedings at the Tunis Symposium on Advocacy in Music Education back in 2009 and comes from Wayne Bowman.

Mr. Bowman is a professor of music education at Brandon University in Manitoba, Canada and has written extensively about philosophical perspectives in music and music education.  We look forward to learning more about him and reading more of his work. But for now, let us allow his quote to wash over us...

"And all too often advocacy claims sound like last gasp efforts to defend instructional practices that have simply failed to keep pace with social and musical change."

If you are a music maker or music teacher at any level, read the full transcript here, it will be well worth your time.  And hopefully you'll be as gassed as we were to hear such insight. 

It's time music educators re-vamped their approach, be more inclusive, professional, and by all means, modernize materials and practices to catch up to what is expected by today's students. Not doing so risks extinction. 
 
Music