Everywhere I look these days, I am confronted with yet another example of the destructive power of our drive to simplify. I know that our brains are wired to make things simple by classifying them, labeling them, and embedding them into the structures of our understanding (a Piagetian view, to be sure, but one that has been borne out time and again in brain research). So biology certainly plays a role in all of this. I get that.
But at the same time, it seems like we never learn. Must complexity terrify us to the point that our world view becomes myopic? Must we be paralyzed by the simplicity that we strive for?
As one example, I am reading Diane Ravitch’s new book, The Death and Life of the American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education, where she brilliantly examines various waves of education reform and education policy in this country through the lens of the simple systems and models that dominate various movements and discourse: the accountability movement, the business model for education movement, and the choice movement. Each of these movements has appeared in various forms throughout the history of public school in America, and each of them has failed to live up to its promise. And each of them has been considered by policymakers, scholars, and educators as the panacea, the simple solution.
Here’s another example: Over the last several years, I have enjoyed learning about the El Sistema program of music education and youth orchestras in Venezuela. This system of youth orchestras has had a profound effect on the children, particularly the poor children, of that country and has demonstrated the power of music and music education in a new way – not only for individual students, but also for communities. I am thrilled at the success of El Sistema. However, I get very uncomfortable with the idea that all we need to do in order to improve music education in the US is to adopt El Sistema here. What works so brilliantly in Venezuela cannot simply be transposed to the US. And thinking that it can ignores the complexity of context, history, politics, educational mandates, issues of socio economic status and diversity, and much more. I know that I may be taking an unpopular stance here, because El Sistema has become a darling of many people in this country. And I see its charm and its many contributions to the lives of children in Venezuela. But I also see the complexity of the US context for music and music education, and I fear that, in the drive to find one simple panacea, many people here have ignored that complexity.
Here’s yet another one: A former student of mine recently told me that the supervisor of the arts in her school district (who is not a music educator) has just proposed that all music teachers in the district use only one method of music instruction in their elementary classrooms. This individual does not know much at all about the breadth and depth of the various approaches to music education; nor does this person understand the need for and importance of being an eclectic music educator who draws from as many possible areas as possible in order to achieve musical and educational goals for the particular students in a particular context. This person has got it into her head that this one method is the only way, ignoring the rich complexity of music education, not to mention the complexity of the ways that people learn.
In all of these cases, choosing and adopting one simple approach ends up failing many different stakeholders, but most importantly, the teachers and the students. I haven’t finished Ravitch’s book yet, but after hearing her hour-long segment on C-Span, I know that she will argue that educational reform needs to attend to the voices, perspectives, experience, and expertise of teachers and students. Maybe Ravitch can help some of us seek complexity, rather than simplicity. I can only hope.
