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What //Is// Excellence? (The question never asked) What, //really,// is a successful music program for young children? What does it look like? More importantly, what does it //sound// like? Take a listen to these preschool children performing: (you cannot view these items through the school's internet filter)

media type="youtube" key="vZEvO7xVgSw" height="344" width="425" Is this preschool? Really? Yes. Look at the students playing the large xylophones. They are standing on a small platform so that they can reach the instrument. Pretty cool.

No data, test scores, or fantastic rhetorical web of rationalization are needed to convince a parent, teacher, or administrator that this school has a successful music program. The results speak for themselves.

Some may scoff, 'Well, it's a Montessori school ." But, just think for second, "do all Montessori schools have music programs like this?" No. There are certainly some Montessori schools that have music programs that are far less exceptional.

The point is that one does __**not**__ have to be a Montessori school to have such a program. __//We could have such a program at our school for our students.//__

How do they achieve these results? There are essentially 2 things that produce these results: 1. the individual teachers (their musicianship and their ability to communicate with students) 2. the school management's commitment to the music program.

It's that simple. Are you familiar with [|Occam's Razor?] When teachers who are highly skilled are put into a school that has an administration that values music education and works to create the circumstances (staffing/scheduling) that give teachers and students a chance to achieve excellence, great things, like this, happen. Occam's Razor. (It's worth noting, the students in the video have music 5 times a week for 40 minutes.)

Please listen to another performance.

media type="youtube" key="4IY_qT4qiZI" height="344" width="425" We //could// do this at our school if the support existed.

Here are some really simple figures: **If** a child has music __5 days a week__ (like they do at the [|Phillippine Montessori Center]), by the end of the first week of school, all students have already had 5 music classes. By the end of the first full month of school each individual student has had 20 music classes//.// You don't need me to do the math for the entire year. Suffice it is to say that in the end, these children get about 5 times the amount of music each year than the students in our school district.

In our school system we recently noted a milestone, the **100th day of school.** This was not the 100th music class each child has had this year, but, looking at the calendar in the most optimistic light, it was each student's **20th music class of the year** (this was sometime in February). Yes, at the very best, they had had only 20 music classes by the time the 100th day arrived, and the year was already well past half over.

Please listen to this:

media type="youtube" key="WugHssWoVDI" height="344" width="425" //**We could do this**//. I'm sure that you participate in a lot of meetings in which you and other administrators are thinking about and discussing ways of changing education, developing curriculum, making schedules, etc. I believe it is necessary to know what excellence //is// before one can really have a valuable discussion. You have just seen and heard examples of excellence in music education. Please remember what it sounds like and think about //how// that was accomplished. Remember Occam's Razor. My concern, I'm sorry to say, is that many of the 'new ideas' that are allegedly, purportedly, reputedly,. . . supposed to improve the educational system are, in fact, in direct opposition to the conditions that promote real achievement. For instance, what sense would it make to have //__every teacher__// standing over __//the same//__ student repeating in __//the same//__ hypnotic drone, 'one and one is two; one and one is two; one and one is two.' Is that sensible? Or imagine having __//every custodian//__ report to __//the same//__ area to respond __//the same//__ mundane problem every day, all day long. How much would be accomplished in a day? in a week? in a year? In reality, it is a waste of resources. A //goal// is achieved, but not excellence.

Hyperbole? Only slightly. The painful truth is that we live in an age that esteems the superfluous. Historians will likely one day write about our time as //The Vaunted Age of the Superfluous// - not an age of enlightenment, not an age of reason, not even an age of common sense. If school improvement could only focus on //removing// what impedes excellence and achievement. The great French artist Auguste Rodin gives us the principle. In describing his approach to his art he said: "I choose a block of marble, and chop off what I don't need." A school system is like the block of marble. The marble is right in front of us. What we need to do is to look at it from all angles and **subtract** until it is //truly// a masterpiece - and then stop (subtracting). To attach buttons, a plunger, a handbag, an air horn, and/or a set of monkey bars is a step in the wrong direction - the direction of the nonessential, the redundant, the absurd. This is the direction some are considering.

Please, think about how //very few// music classes each child has in a school year. Such a small quantity of time to learn about an incredibly vast world of music. Please, do not allow these precious few minutes students currently have to be reallocated to the pursuit of some wayward theory.

Do you know the Joni Mitchell song [|Big Yellow Taxi]? I love that song. Mankind likes to make changes. But with each change that is made, something is lost. This is a profound principle. Would we steer away from the path of excellence to pursue the mundane? If so, for a certainty, a goal will be accomplished. We would achieve mediocrity. But can we live with this?

Rodin's //The Thinker// media type="file" key="big yellow taxi 2.m4a" Joni Mitchell's //Big Yellow Taxi

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