Questions about urban education

As a musician and aspiring music teacher, I would be primarily interested in how music affects students' lives, communities, identities, and schools. One of the most interesting questions would be how music can shape identities, both individually and collectively. How does music shape how we view ourselves and others? Music is intertwined so closely with some cultures and groups of people that the music the music is used as a defining characteristic; for example punk can refer to not just a music but an entire subculture. Personally, I use music as a lens through which I view the world around me. Certain songs evoke images in my mind about my life. A piece of music can make me think of anything from a person to a season to a single moment. I tend to identify with people who listen to the same music as me, and am likewise affected by the music that my community listens to. Do urban students do the same, and if they do, to what degree? How strongly does the music they identify with define their individual and collective identity? How does the music they listen to affect their view of education? How does the music they listen to affect their view of authority?

As a music educator, I am also interested to know what effect music has on schools and individual student learning. My personal experience with music in school mostly had a positive effect on my education. Music gave me confidence and passion, and allowed me an opportunity to contribute to something bigger than myself. It also gave me a reason to come to school when I had few others. Can music have the same effect on everyone? Would it make an even bigger difference in impoverished urban communities? Or would it fall by the wayside because of more immediate concerns How does the quality of a music program affect the school as a whole? How does the quality of a music program affect the individual students enrolled in it? Does it improve learning in other areas, or distract and have a detrimental effect? Does a music program affect the students in a school who do not participate in it? What effect does music have on teachers? Do they value it? Do they use it for instruction?

I feel that music is important to individuals and societies. It can affect these in various ways, and my questions primarily deal with those effects. My own experience has led me to believe that music can have a very positive impact on education. I would like to see if this is a possibility in urban areas.

What factors shape our schools?

After reading the introduction through chapter 2 of Fruchter and the Anderson and Summerfield article, it seems to me that there is no single overriding factor that shapes our schools, and in particular urban schools. While Fruchter’s argument seems to be that race is the overriding factor that shapes our urban schools, I am not convinced that it isn’t more complex than that. While in certain school districts, especially in the South, this might be true, I think it is a broad over-generalization to claim this as the main factor shaping urban schools in the country as a whole. Anderson and Summerfield main argument is that a belief in rural ideals as “American” ideals is shaping our public school policy, and that those ideals are forced on urban schools where the populace is “foreign,” or un-American. Again, race is implicated, though less overtly. While I agree that race and school segregation are major factors that shape our urban schools, I think the issue, like almost every other human activity or interaction, is too complex to attribute to just one or two factors.

While I agree with Fruchter’s premise that segregation of America’s schools is a major force in the shaping of those schools, and that segregation must be addressed to close the achievement gap that children of color have with their white counterparts, I am not convinced that addressing only those factors would solve the problem. Although it is never stated, Fruchter seems to imply that simply busing urban children of color to a white school or changing what he calls the “culture of schooling,” which involves everything from the curriculum to the discipline system, would help to solve the achievement gap.

His use of the DoDEA schools to show that the culture of schooling determines student performance actually seems to me to show that social and community factors play as large a role as the culture of schooling. While the way the schools are run no doubt has a factor on the performance of their students, the DoDEA schools operate within a vastly different community and framework than our urban public schools. To his credit, Fruchter admits this. However, he seems to disregard the societal influences, and his two paragraphs (on page 22) devoted to refuting the social and community influences offer little in the way of supporting data. Based on the two chapters I have read so far, Fruchter has convinced only that his “culture of schooling” is only one of many factors that must be addressed to improve failing schools. I am unconvinced that schools can be changed independently of the communities and societies they are a part of.

Anderson and Summerfield similarly fail to offer any persuading supporting data to support their claim about the imposition of rural schooling values on rural schools. While the idea is one that seems to make sense based on the recent Republican party convention and all the talk about “small towns” as the exemplar of America ideals, Anderson and Summerfield offer little in the way of supporting examples or data. The examples they do offer are specific and I would hesitate to use them to represent anything beyond what they specifically show. I see the “rural ideals” as one of many factors shaping our schools, not only one or the major one.

Again, I state my belief that all schools are shaped by many factors. Societal, cultural, economic, racial and a host of other factors all play a role. The weight any particular factor has most likely differs from region to region and school to school. It seems to me that to attribute any single factor as the shaping force of all schools, or even all suburban, rural, or urban schools, is a dangerous oversimplification. When we do such a thing, we run the risk of overlooking things our pre-conceived notions don’t want to see. We must look at all schools as part of a larger framework in which they are shaped by their communities, and in turn help to shape their communities.

Education and communities in the media

Music

Suburban: "Heavy Metal Drummer"-Wilco

I love this song! It exemplifies my suburban high school days: going to see bands play in the cafeteria on a Friday night, sometimes actually playing in them (I thought I was sooo cool). And of course the theme of falling in love at a rock concert, something I have done countless times, often with girls who I never even talked to. It perfectly captures how music can made me feel in high school.

Rural: "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road"-Lucinda Williams

Exemplifies what I picture when I think of a rural childhood. Sang mostly from the point of view of a child. With lines like “Cotton fields stretching miles and miles/Hank’s [as in Williams] voice on the radio...” and the refrain of “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road,” I feel like I can picture exactly the rural South.

Urban: Things Fall Apart-The Roots

While no single song on this album tackles education, the album as a whole exemplifies what is often depicted as the macho self-aggrandizing rap world (although on a deeper level than most rap). It speaks of growing up and living in Philadelphia and becoming famous primarily by defeating other MCs. The urban rap lifestyle is depicted in a poetic and sometimes ironic style.


TV

Suburban: The Simpsons

Classic show about a suburban family from just about anywhere in America. Springfield Elementary satirically depicts good students (Lisa) and bad (Bart and a host of others), the overtaxed teacher, and the principal that cares more about how his school looks than about the education of his students.

Rural: Friday Night Lights

Depicts a rural community through the local high school football team. Football is a central part of the community. Depicts some racial and social tensions that are often thought of as typical of rural communities with a more diverse demographic, such as many communities along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Urban: The Wire

I have never seen this show, but season 4 supposedly depicts a middle school in Baltimore. Reviews are mixed, some praising it as totally real and others saying that it is too dark and pessimistic. This has sparked my interest, and I will definitely check out the show to see what I think of it.


Movies

Suburban: Superbad

This movie is a hilarious tale about me (kind of). My friends and I spent many nights in high school and on summers home from college trying to find a party where we could get wasted and find a girl who actually liked us. Perfectly captures senioritis in spoiled suburban kids with comments like, “...I’m about to graduate. They should be sucking on my b---sack.” All the rest is there, too: running from cops, horrible fake I.D.’s, and trying to get older people to buy us alcohol.

Rural: Napoleon Dynamite

This movie is about a boy in a small Idaho town. It follows his fairly normal life, with little to no plot. Though this is depicted in humorous ways, the impression the movie leaves is that almost nothing happens in rural communities. Many characters are depicted as simple-minded and provincial.

Urban: Requiem for a Dream

Although this movie is not about education, it offers a very certain depiction of urban communities. Three young adults become addicted to heroin while a mother of one of them becomes addicted to diet pills. This depicts urban communities as full of disaffected youths and drug dealers who prey on them when they turn to drugs.


News

Suburban: from the Star-Ledger: Florham Park schools contract with local vendors for lunch

This article reports that Florham Park school district has contracted local restaurants to provide lunch for students. Students’ parents order their lunch online and it is then delivered to the schools. This shows how large a gap exists between urban schools and their suburban counterparts. While suburban parents are able to order restaurant quality food for their children’s lunch, many children in urban schools are on the state’s free lunch program.

Rural: from the Star-Ledger: Somerset Hills, Bedminster to discuss school district merger

This article reports that 2 small rural school districts are considering merging. The article notes that the 2 districts may be looking to save money in these tough economic times, and that merging could save some money. The state also notes that in bureaucratic terms, mergers could make sense, as New Jersey has more school districts than municipalities. This article shows some of the changes that could take place in rural schools as New Jersey tries to reform its education system.

Urban: from the Star-Ledger: Newark mentoring program to link high schoolers, youngsters

This article reports that the city of Newark is starting a mentoring program in which high school students will mentor younger students at a nearby school. While the article strikes a promising tone, it leaves the impression that Newark schools need a lot of help.

Frames of Reference

Coming into this course, I have had no personal firsthand experience with education in urban areas.  I have spent little time in cities, and when I have spent time, it has usually been in nicer areas based around the arts.  Besides some talks with my mother (a public school speech and language specialist), or when I read the paper or watch a news special, education has generally not been a part of my thinking when I think about cities and urban areas.  I dislike cities, am uncomfortable when I visit them, and this has certainly affected my view of urban areas and the schools in those areas.  This being said, many of the things I like find their spiritual homes in cities.  As a musician, I know how important a geographically small community with a high population can be to the facilitation of artistic trends and ideas.  Some of the most fulfilling moments in my life have happened at gigs in cities.  They involved unexpected appearances by musicians that were only possible because they lived close to where I happened to be playing.  An urban environment is essential to creating these types of opportunity.  This dichotomy between how I feel in urban areas and my understanding of how they have given rise to many of the things I love (along with many other examples of human achievement), combined with my exposure from the media, has affected how I view and feel about urban areas and urban education.

I was raised in Hunterdon County, New jersey.  It was, and to a slightly lesser degree still is, somewhere between a rural and a suburban community.  When my family moved there, there were still many farms.  Sometimes the school bus would get stuck behind a tractor.  So my upbringing had little to no exposure to urban areas, let alone the schools in those areas.  My first exposure to an urban area other than the nicer areas of Manhattan where relatives lived came in my senior year of high school, and it was still very minimal.  I participated in Jazz for Teens at NJPAC.  It was five month jazz education program.  My exposure to an urban area consisted of looking at Newark by way of McCarter Highway while on the way to NJPAC.  While in the program, I did meet other students from urban areas such as Elizabeth and Newark.  However, these students and I shared a love of jazz and music, and there was little discussion about other things.  So it seemed to me that there was little difference between them and I except for where we lived or how we dressed.

My experiences as a musician and music teacher have made me feel that I have a common bond, however slight, with any person on the face of the earth.  I have not met, or even heard of, a person who's life has not been positively affected by music in some small way.  Music is common to all cultures and all people.  This makes me believe that I would be able to find some common ground with students in an urban school.  This may be, and on closer inspection to some degree most likely is, ill-founded naivete.  It could lead me to think that I understand the students and their community more than I do because I listen to some of the same music, and I could come off as gratifying.  I realize that music alone would not be able to bridge the significant gaps in culture and background between my students and I.  My experience at Jazz for Teens and with countless other musicians and music lovers since has instilled in me a sense of community with anyone who enjoys music as much as I do.  This is surely an oversimplification of things.

Conversely, this belief in the universality of music could also, and I believe will, help me to form closer and more meaningful bonds with my students to some degree regardless of where I teach.  I have met many musicians who have said that music was the only thing that kept them going in hard parts of their life.  In some extreme cases it has saved lives.  Music helped me get through high school.  It was the only thing that made me go to school in the morning, and the possibility that I could study music in college was the only thing that motivated me to to well in my other classes.  Music has given me and countless others something to live for.  I am not implying that I would be able to turn any student into someone who wants to go to college for music or dedicate their life to it.  However, when daily life is a struggle, as it is for many children in urban environments, music can give students something look forward to, to be proud of.  I have seen music invest many of my private students with self-esteem and I see no reason why this is not possible for students anywhere.

The media, particularly Newsweek magazine and The New York Times, has been the other big influence in my view of urban education.  Most of these articles have been about crumbling schools and corrupt or inefficient educators and the fight of a small handful of teachers and administrators trying to change things.  Many have been openly critical of the status quo of the practice of teaching.  Tenure in its current form has come under fire.  It is seen as a protector of teachers that can't teach and make no effort to improve.  Despite my choice to become an educator, my experiences as a student tend to lean me towards this view.  I have had many educators at all levels who are obviously teaching the exact lesson plans they used fifteen or twenty years ago, and make every effort to go home as soon as the bell rings.  They offer little or no extra help to students who need it, and they exemplify "going through the motions."  I feel that these teachers do not deserve their jobs or the protection that tenure gives them.  Why should they have almost guaranteed job security in such an important profession? Doesn't the fact that teachers have such an enormous responsibility hold them to an even higher standard in job performance than other professions?

In my experience, only a small handful of teachers act like this.  In contrast, most media coverage of urban schools seems to depict this problem as endemic to all urban areas.  When I read articles about Michele Rhee, for example, Washington D. C.'s schools appear to have an overabundance of these teachers.  Ms. Rhee is depicted as someone fighting against an entrenched bastion of people fighting to keep their jobs and the status quo.  They also depict most of Washington D.C.'s schools as poorly maintained and sometimes dangerous.  In many cases, the articles generalize these conditions to most or all the other urban school districts in the country.  Our urban school systems are depicted as hopelessly behind, their progress handcuffed by teacher's unions and others that wish to see the status quo maintained.

The reality is certainly more complicated.  There are definitely many passionate, dedicated teachers in urban areas, and not all urban schools are so severely under-maintained.  I must admit, however, that this type of media coverage is discouraging.  It does not make me want to teach in an urban environment.  It appears that I would be fighting a losing battle against drugs, poverty, poor facilities and even other teachers.  Would it really be worth it to put in so much work, especially in an area (music) that would likely get little support when the schools are so concentrated on other, admittedly more important things?  If I am able to succeed in an urban school would the sense of fulfillment be enough to compensate for my natural dislike of cities?

These are just some of the questions I hope to have answered or at least explored in this course.  My personal dislike of cities has always been slightly puzzling for me because I have had some of my most fulfilling personal experiences in them.  I understand how an urban area can foster the type of environment for great artistic achievements.  I have also been inundated with media coverage of how terrible urban schools are, and how many problems they face.  Are things really as bad as they are made out to be?  Is my belief in the transformative power of music founded in reality, and does it apply everywhere, to everyone, as I believe?  Hopefully this course will at least give an idea.