Tarnishing a concept

As we sat in class on Tuesday, a lot more questions were going through my mind than answers. Unfortunately most of the time, if I thought too long about the questions, I would lose track of the conversation. One of the first things that came to mind was when Dr. Schmidt spoke briefly about how the cup he had in front of him was a coffee cup. We all acknowledged that it was a coffee cup, but what if it had actually been tea? or mocha? or teddy grahams for that matter? It may have been a silly thought, but it got me thinking, what happens when a concept we establish in our minds and becomes accepted by a group becomes tarnished by an individual or individuals with an agenda to change reality? How do we muster enough strength to literally alter the views of communities to our own?

Simiarly this summer, I had an interesting battle with the pastor of my church who oversees my musical directorship. As a boss, I cannot confide in him with musical details of my position, only because (to be quite frank) he doesn't know much about the position in general, nor does he really put the time in to see the job unfold. To his credit, he runs a 1500 family membership parish by himself so between hospital runs he might stop in to say hello. This became an issue over the summer when we spoke about the establishment of the children's choir. While I intend to embrace theology and put basic choral technique into the program, he had claimed that parishoners don't care about this. They only care about the finished product. As a quote, I was told that if I wanted a choir to sound like they do here in Princeton, I'm in the wrong place. Parents don't want their kids to learn about church in church choir. They only want their kids to sing for an hour and go home.

Performance in our society is one concept for me that has become tarnished. In the business world, one can't help but think, "When am I going to get the next raise? When will I get the next promotion?" Music is not a question formed by asking "when". Music is a question answered when we know how. Music educators have quite a task ahead of them. On page 12 of Peter Block's book, "Community", he sums up McKnight's thoughts and ideas by focusing on gifts and associational life. I belive this statement should ring true throughout our public and private school systems. But when gifts are put into place as an answer to the product and not a part of the process of forming that solution, the association factor that McKnight talks about is lost. Caring is a huge issue in the classroom. In Higgin's article, "The creative music workshop: event, facilitation, gift", he introduces the article by stating flat out that he is a "community musician...a musician committed to people, participation, context, diversity and equality of opportunity thorugh which active music-making experiences happen." While this perspective of concept is not one we carry in our teacher bags in America, we should never cease to figure out the best way to deliver a concept without losing our individual philosophies, goals and gifts.