These People Trynna Fade Me

I had a conversation that was interestingly disappointing today. I say this happily, as I've come to accept the fact that that's the best I can hope for. ;-)

I was at Vic this morning for the in-school portion of Ed Band with Craig Brenan. We were in the board room having a kind of discussion/meeting before going to observe his morning band class. He asked us to answer, in writing, what we considered to be the "purpose" of Secondary Music Education in Edmonton schools. After writing, we went around the table and each of us read out our answer. Then we went around the table again and refocused our answers in relation to these brainstorming cards that I won't bother describing. Then we had at each other, as was the point of the game Craig called "Muddying the Waters."

After we went around the table the first time, I was confused and asked for more specificity about the question Craig had asked us. I then found out that he was actually asking us at least these three questions:

1. Why should Music be taught in Edmonton Secondary Schools?
2. What is hoped to be accomplished by teaching Music in Edmonton Secondary Schools? (For convenience and practicality, I would further split this question into two sections: Curriculum-esque Knowledge, Skills and Attributes (good ol' KSAs) and everything else.)
3. Why do we ourselves want to teach Music in Edmonton Secondary Schools?

Ignoring the fact that number three may be a fallacy of many questions (because, if it is, we should maybe not have been there), I originally interpreted what Craig said to refer only to the KSA portion of number two. My ansawer, therefore, was as follows:

"...to develop music appreciation knowledge and skills through exposure to and experience with various types of music, with a primary focus on Western Tonal Art Music."

Craig said that my answer seemed "too textbook," and opined that Music teachers with such approaches seemed to suffer the worst from burnout early in their careers. I was vaguely miffed at him for misrepresenting the question, but, moreso, I was disappointed in him for only hearing jargon. "Music appreciation" is a big, fat, loaded term. Like "Heaven." Or "terrorist." Or "iPhone." And there's this assumption that nobody, not the teachers, the administrators, the students, the parents, the professional musicians, not anybody really gets that. I'd get more credit for limiting my scope and saying something like "...to teach students the calming effects of playing the piano" because it sounds like I might actually believe that.

This wound up sounding far more bitter than I intended. It's just that Craig, who's successful in his field and is preaching greater idealism to those who tend to all ready have the deluxe package, didn't understand that I was going for the most all-encompassing idealized goal I could come up with. I wish I knew so well the answers to the other two-and-a-half questions he asked.