Music for Educators: Music, Literacy and Standards by Alan Warhaftig

Music for Educators: Music, Literacy and Standards
by Alan Warhaftig

Who can be against the Student Learning Standards? There are real values here, and of course we want to create a super race of children who can do it all. I just know that when I look at the chart, I am humbled by fear that I am not up to the job -- that I, myself, do not meet all the standards expected of a high school graduate.

Let us accept that the standards are an ideal toward which we should strive. The practical question is what are we to teach that will enable our students to attain these standards? And our question today is, with so much attention focused on reading and math, what will be the role of the arts, including music, in the new order?

Many of you have probably read the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling. Beyond encouraging millions of kids to read, I think that Ms. Rowling's most enduring contribution may be the word muggle -- a person without a drop of magical blood. Targeted by mind-numbing media, our kids are in danger of becoming either muggles or satanists if we don't find ways to transmit to them the joy of learning, the pleasure of reading good books, listening to challenging music, and looking at noncommercial art. If they don't know the excitement of understanding nature or seeing the past alive in every moment of the present, then the standards are unattainable.

The standards are presented in the context of paralyzing pedagogical confusion: Whole language or phonics? Integrated math and science or traditional math and science? Books or technology? The confusion is compounded by the messengers: what are we to think when the folks insisting on phonics today were whole language zealots two years ago? What will they insist upon two years from now?

The devil, of course, resides in the details, and there is an unfortunate tendency to confuse standards with standardization, that everyone should march in lockstep because it's easier to administer a world without diversity As teachers, we understand that education is not so bloodless, that the irreducible in K-12 is the human interaction that takes place in our classrooms.   Otherwise, we might as well put screens everywhere so that all students view precisely the same lesson -- the ultimate extension of uniformity.

As a teacher of American Literature and algebra, I certainly believe that reading and math are important. Of course I teach the subjects, but what I really teach are the young people whom I'm blessed to have enter my classroom. What I need to do that is not mere instructional strategies -- that's too easy and formulaic and will only help me cultivate muggles with improved efficiency. No, to succeed with kids, we have to find ways to make them feel the need to know more, to seek the profound experiences knowledge offers. We need human strategies, ways to reach heart and soul. Anything less cannot succeed to any meaningful degree, and our jobs are hard enough without seeing results -- both in test scores and other, less tangible -- but more important -- measures.

Where does music fit in this picture? Obviously, there are the arts standards. Please, let's not forget that column on the chart. What may not be as obvious is the connection of music to literacy. I have found that music provides a thread, an occasion for interpretation. Musical works are often explicitly mentioned in literature, to make a point or establish a setting, a mood or a character. Music is used in film to create tension or comment on the action like a Greek chorus. As students increasingly use multimedia projects to fulfill course requirements, music will be an essential element.

Take for example, A Child of Our Time, an oratorio by Sir Michael Tippett. This was his expression of social conscience, inspired by the infamous Kristalnacht pogrom of 1938. He used "Go Down, Moses" as part of a survey of oppression in the world. The juxtaposition is interesting -- an African-American song based on the oppression of the Jews in ancient Egypt being used in a piece that comments on the Nazi genocide of the Jews. That's a sophisticated idea. Do you think that high school kids might be able to grasp that? Is this the sort of higher-order thinking the standards seek to stimulate?

I began playing "Go Down, Moses" to classes reading Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man.   To understand how Ellison uses "Go Down, Moses," it is necessary to know the song first.   Then we can move to the function the song serves in the novel. The unnamed narrator, the Invisible Man, has been hired by an organization called The Brotherhood, and is attending a party in the luxurious apartment of one of the members of the organization. The Brotherhood sees itself as a revolutionary vanguard and believes that it knows what is best for everyone.

The relevant passage appears on the handout, describing an encounter between the Invisible Man and a drunken member of The Brotherhood, who asks that the Invisible Man sing because "all black people sing." Brother Jack, a leader of the organization, is horrified by what he characterizes as "unconscious racism." What is it that the drunken man wants the Invisible Man to sing? "Go Down, Moses."

It is ironic that a song about oppression should be used to reinforce a stereotype which oppresses, and that the request to sing it should come from a member of what purports to be a progressive political party.   If you can get kids to understand this, you don't need to worry about the standards -- you're meeting them. Reading, of course, is more than just passing one's eyes over a page -- it's about constructing a context -- understanding the world within the text, how it comments on the world in general, and how it relates to the reader's individual universe.

A film I love to teach is Sullivan's Travels, the great Preston Sturges comedy, which is also from 1941 It's about a Hollywood film director during the depression who wants to direct a heavy drama when his career had been built on musicals and comedies. He insists that he needs to do this until one of the studio execs asks, "What do you know about suffering?" Sullivan realizes that he has never suffered, so he embarks on a journey to gain experience. After a series of adventures, he finds more misery than he had planned and ends up in a chain gang sentenced to years of hard labor. One evening the prisoners are invited by a black church to watch movies with the congregation.

I had forgotten that I had played "Go Down, Moses" for the class -- but the kids didn't. They immediately remembered it, and that led to a discussion about how uses of the same spiritual in Invisible Man and Sullivan's Travels were very different.

In Sullivan's Travels, the song welcomes the chain gang, whose prisoners are mostly white, to an all-black congregation which, while not wealthy in the material sense, feels an obligation to help those who are less fortunate.

In Invisible Man, "Go Down, Moses" helps Ellison make the point that racial prejudice exists despite the desire of The Brotherhood to convince people to focus on economic class rather than race.

In Sullivan's Travels, "Go Down, Moses" reveals how a congregation, which might claim possession of the song based on race, actually transcends race because of religious principles.

Can kids get this? I think so. I have no doubt that this approach promotes literacy. What standards were met in this discussion? I am confident that we could figure it out if we needed to, but is it necessary to think in terms of standards in order to meet them? It might even distract attention from what we study, from what allows us to meet the standards.

Teaching and learning cannot be reduced to simple formulas. They are arts that teacher and students must struggle to master.   Don't let the muggles tell you otherwise, that the only way to get from Point A to Point B is a straight line.

About the Author
Alan Warhaftig teaches American Literature and co-coordinates the Fairfax Magnet Center for Visual Arts in the Los Angeles Unified School District. A graduate of Stanford University and a National Board Certified Teacher, Mr. Warhaftig co-founded the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Music for Educators professional development program. He has organized a number of teacher professional development programs and is a leading skeptic about the use of computers and the internet in K-12 education. Email him at warhaftig@alumni.stanford.org.

© 2000 by Alan Warhaftig. All Rights Reserved.
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