Rhoda Bernard, Ed.D.

In today’s technology climate, with social networking in its myriad forms, the name of the game is sharing. But when does sharing in the name of generosity cross the line into oversharing?

As an educator and academic, I enjoy posting links to interesting, cutting edge articles on my Facebook page. I subscribe to dozens of blogs and Google alerts, and I often share the latest news in music, education, and music education with my social network. As an avid reader, I relish letting my various networks know about books that I have read that I feel are particularly insightful (most recently, educational historian and policymaker Diane Ravitch’s new book) or fiction that blows me away (see my regular posts on Goodreads). This kind of sharing strikes me as generosity. I want my networks to know about meaningful, interesting, insightful information or publications that I have encountered.

This blog is another way that I share. In it, I write about things that have been on my mind, and the topics range quite a bit. Some of the posts are academic in nature, while others are more reflective. I don’t really have a sense of the audience for this blog, though I do receive some feedback from people I’ve never met. So I use the blog as a forum to write about things that are on my mind, in various categories.

[By the way, I have been asked to contribute to the Boston Conservatory website beginning this fall as a regular blogger. That forum will give me the opportunity to write about what is going on in the Music Education Department and in the Boston Conservatory Program for Students on the Autism Spectrum. I am excited about this new blog opportunity – I will post here to let folks know when it begins.]

And, of course, my status updates and other posts on Facebook (I have not yet succumbed to Twitter, though I am thinking about it) are yet another way of sharing. For me, that form of sharing is definitely sanitized. My Facebook friends list includes friends from all areas and times of my life, professional contacts, colleagues, students, and former students. I make sure to post only those updates and pieces of content that are appropriate for such a wide audience. The very first thing that is on my mind may not be what I post in a status update. First I stop and think – would it be appropriate for everyone in my friends list to know that this is on my mind at this moment? – and if the answer is no, I go to the second thing that is on my mind, and sometimes even to the third.

Recently, Andrew Garcia, a Facebook friend of mine, who happens to be a professional contact, was interviewed about social media and teaching. In the interview, he talks about this culture of sharing – the fact that social media make it possible for us to share information with a wide range of people in new ways. What a wonderful set of tools for educators at all levels! Create web-based bookmarks on various topics for your students to use as resources. Broadcast important web-based information to your class with just a few clicks. Teach your students to create their own web pages, wikis, podcasts, online portfolios, and other vehicles for sharing their work and their learning processes with each other and with you.

This is the positive side of the sharing culture. But it has its negative side, as well, and that is where I become concerned.

First, how well do we consider the source when we share? There is no truth-tester for the internet. There is a great deal of unreliable information and material online. How can we teach students to evaluate critically the information that they receive from any source? How can we help them to become discerning consumers of information? Our students – hell, all of us – may need to develop new skill sets to make sense of our information encounters.

And then there’s the issue of documenting sources. Because social media make it possible for people to share information so quickly and so freely, we often do so without crediting the source of the information. And this can cross the line into plagiarism. What new frameworks do we need to help our students to use to think carefully about documenting the sources of the information that they share?

Finally, and we’ve all seen instances of this, sometimes inappropriate material/posts are shared publicly on social networking sites. In today’s world, this can be costly in many ways. We have all heard stories about times when online posts have interfered with someone’s professional life, either in a job interview situation or in some other way. This is where we need to do a better job teaching people a sense of boundaries for their sharing. How do we help people use social networking sites appropriately, and how can we make sure that people define what is appropriate in ways that will not be harmful to themselves or others?

So while social media create tremendous possibilities for us in a number of ways, they also create new ways of thinking about information, sharing, and responsibility. And this may be the next challenge for educators. And the next opportunity for us to think creatively about the new skills and ways of thinking that we need to develop in the 21st century.

The other day, I was an extra in a film project. My husband has a speaking role, and someone I used to work with is the Director of Photography. Being an extra was a lot of fun, for a few reasons. First, the people working on this project are all very nice, and I got to hang out with them for 12 hours and chat between takes. Also, it was a very nice day and we were filming outside. The work that I had to do was not at all strenuous (filling in the background during a “reception” scene). I got to watch some very savvy and professional technical folks at work, first and foremost the DP, who is incredible at his job. But perhaps the most fun part of the experience, and the thing that I found most refreshing, was that I wasn’t in charge. I didn’t have to make any important decisions. I wasn’t at the center of any high stakes discussions. I just had to show up and do what I was told. I could put myself into the other folks’ hands and go along for the ride.

In most of what I do, I am the boss. I run the show. I make the decisions, and I have the responsibility as to whether something succeeds or fails. While I enjoy the autonomy and the decisionmaking power that come with being the boss and leading, there is something wonderful about not being in this role all of the time. Going along for the ride, like I did as an extra, is not something I regularly do in my life.

Now, of course, being someone who is accustomed to being in charge can make it difficult to cede control. I can find myself noting the ways that I would do things differently if I were in charge. The different decisions I would make, the different systems I would use, the different ways that things would be organized, etc. It’s very easy to be an armchair quarterback in such situations. But if I put myself fully into the role and let those in charge take control, I can let go in a very refreshing way.

It’s kind of like when I go to get a massage (which I do at least once a month). While I do have preferences (ticklish feet that should be avoided, a back injury that should be highlighted, and an area of tension that needs extra work), once the massage begins, I am quite literally in someone else’s hands. I might have feedback along the way (responses to the pressure, etc.), but the actual massage is up to somebody else. Somebody else is doing the work of the massage. Somebody else is managing the time. Somebody else is making the decisions about what to massage, when, and how. This adds other layers to the therapeutic aspects of the massage experience for me.

In many areas of my life, I simply am in charge, and I can’t step out of that role. This is particularly true in my job. But when I can step back and cede some control in other areas of my life, I need to encourage myself to do so. Letting somebody else worry about the big decisions, the organization, the systems, the operations, etc. can be therapeutic and very healthy, when it is appropriate. Even if I might do things differently.

Recently, I had lunch with a new friend who has moved to Boston from Canada to take a position teaching in the Music Education Program at nearby Boston University. He was dismayed and confused by the fact that music education in Massachusetts appears to be uneven – some school districts have outstanding programs, some districts have no program at all, and a lot of districts have a situation somewhere in the middle. He wanted to know what accounts for these differences.

From my perspective, there are several factors at play:

a. Proposition 2 1/2 – The passage of Proposition 2 1/2, which sets a 2.5% cap for annual property tax increases, plays a prominent role in the state of music education in the Commonwealth. Communities that have difficulty balancing their budgets (which, these days, is most communities, unfortunately) end up having to make very difficult choices and cuts OR trying to pass an override to Proposition 2 1/2 so that they can increase property taxes by more then 2.5%. Overrides are very, very difficult to pass. Just earlier this week, residents in Belmont, a community with a very strong music program, voted against an override of Proposition 2 1/2. They are bracing for cuts in schools and town services.

I was an entering high school freshman the year that Proposition 2 1/2 passed. We lost the school bus (even though I lived more than a mile from the school), much of our sports program, and a couple of music teachers in the district (to name just a few of the immediate repercussions). Music programs across the Commonwealth have fallen victim to cuts because of Proposition 2 1/2.

b. Economies of Scale Issues – In Massachusetts, most school districts are drawn on town lines. Each town is its own school district. (There are some exceptions, particularly where two towns will share a high school, like Concord-Carlisle, and some regional school districts, like Hamilton-Wenham, and the larger Gateway Regional School district, which serves the towns of Huntington, Russell, Blandford, Chester, Worthington, Montgomery, and Middlefield.) This means that each town must have a central office to perform all of the administrative and support functions for the town’s school district.

In Maryland (like many other states), school districts are county based (the well known Montgomery County School District is an example). This means that only one central office is needed for the entire county.

It is expensive and inefficient for virtually each town in Massachusetts to support a central school district office. Why does it take place? See c. below.

c. The Tension Between Centralization and Local Control – As I discuss with my students every summer, one of the ongoing tensions throughout the history of public school education in the U.S. (as well as throughout the history of other areas in U.S. life) lies between centralization and local control. In education, there have been generations of battles between those who wish for centralized education – national curriculum, larger school districts, etc. – and those who desire local control of education – school districts based on towns, each district determining curriculum decisions, etc. Right now, we have a mishmash of both of these forces at play. We have national educational mandates like No Child Left Behind and national educational initiatives like Race to the Top, but we have local control of the particular standards and curriculum for each subject. (Discussions about national standards and curriculum have begun, but they are in their early stages.)

Music education is affected by this tension because individual communities get to make their own decisions about what their arts/music curricula and programs should look like. There is a lack of parity among various communities as those decisions differ.

d. Site Based Management – In Massachusetts, individual principals determine the management of their schools’ budgets and resources. They are provided with guidelines and certain requirements by the central office, but the ultimate on-the-ground decisions are based with each principal. So while some arts program is required of all principals, the way that it takes shape in a particular school depends on the person in charge. A principal who values music and wants a music program will find a way to have one in his/her school. One who doesn’t, won’t.

e. Participation MMEA – I am a big fan of MENC (the national music education organization), and I am active in the Massachusetts chapter, known as MMEA (Massachusetts Music Educators Association). A great number of music educators in Massachusetts are active MMEA members, and they gain a great deal from their membership (journals, conference participation, advocacy, festival opportunities for their students, networking, and many, many more).

However, there are music educators in the state that are not active in the organization. These music educators often are isolated and lack the resources and support that MMEA can provide them, as well as the professional development that the organization offers through networking, festivals, and conferences. MMEA is actively working to increase its reach; a notable portion of its strategic plan focuses on recruiting more members and targeting those communities that are under-represented in the organization.

Bringing more music educators together would strengthen the state of music education in Massachusetts in a number of ways. I am hopeful that MMEA’s efforts in this regard will make a powerful contribution to music education.

I am a founding member of UMEC, the Urban Music Educators Coalition, a group of music educators, arts organizations, and higher education institutions that seeks to increase participation in music by students in urban school districts. We began our efforts in Boston and have worked closely with principals and other school leaders on a variety of issues (building music programs, scheduling for music programs, finding partners in the community, etc.). Through our recent affiliation in MMEA, we hope to launch chapters of UMEC in the other MMEA districts.

The kind of work that UMEC is doing is just one example of the ways that various organizations can collaborate to help to improve the state of music education. There are other initiatives at play in Massachusetts. Some involve bringing in outside arts organizations, and others involve teacher training. Those of us who care about the state of music education in Massachusetts must get involved in this work and do what we can to bring about the changes that we need.

Having just returned from a research conference on Narrative Research has gotten me thinking about the ways that we ascribe to narratives in our daily lives.

Some of these are cultural or societal narratives – what the field calls “master narratives” – broadly held discourses about aspects of the way that the world works. One master narrative that was a big part of my doctoral research (and that continues to be a big part of my work in music teacher education) is the widely held notion that music educators are “failed” musicians who are “settling for” teaching because they could not achieve the “ultimate success” of being full time performers. There are many other master narratives out there, of course. Some have to do with gender roles, for example – ideas about what is “appropriate” for males or females, specific “ideal male” and “ideal female” portraits, and so on. Others have to do with what “counts” as success in our society. I could go on and on. These master narratives play out around all of us. The degree to which we allow them to have an effect on our thoughts or actions is what can be quite interesting. How do we respond to these master narratives? Do we play along with them? Resist them? Try to change them? Ignore them?

Another way that narratives play out in our daily lives is through what I learned at the conference is called “frozen narratives” – stories that are stuck with us. We may wish to have nothing to do with these narratives, but for some reason, they are frozen in place and we cannot change or eliminate them. The stories are too powerful over us. We all know someone – or have the first-hand experience ourselves – who holds on to a particular worldview or a particular narrative in his/her life. “I am a victim” is a good example. I know people who approach every interaction, activity, event, and thought in their lives from this standpoint and play out the story of being victimized over and over again.

What master narratives and frozen narratives are you dealing with, and how do you encounter them? How might you rewrite those narratives that you wish to rewrite? Which master narratives and frozen narratives do you wish to continue in your life, and how might you do so? How can we become the authors of the narratives that influence us?

In teaching, in friendships, in work collaborations, the single element that stands out to me when I think about what makes for success is lack of ego involvement.

The people I most enjoy collaborating with are the ones who are interested in doing good work, not in showcasing themselves. Their focus is on creating an effective program, writing an excellent article, or putting together a meaningful event, not on making themselves look good.

The same is true of good teaching. Interviewing candidates for the Master’s Program in Music Education this spring hit this one home to me all the more. The best teachers put their students and the subject matter ahead of themselves. They value their students’ learning and growth, and they deeply care about and are interested in their students as people. They are passionate about the material that they teach and the classes/lessons that they facilitate. They are not concerned with how they themselves appear – with making themselves look smart, making themselves more powerful, being able to “look down” upon their students, or other such ends.

This applies to my friendships, as well. At different times in my life, I have stopped getting together with certain friends who dominate our relationship. Every conversation is about them, and I rarely get a chance to speak, never mind share anything personal. Every plan we make is about them. They see themselves at the center of all that they do. These people drain me and frustrate me. Of course, there are times when our friends are going through something challenging, and they need our support. My oldest and dearest friend loves to remind me about the year during which we never talked about what was going on with me because she was going through a very, very intense personal crisis. She needed it to be all about her during that year, and I was happy to shift our focus – because it was necessary, because it was temporary, and because I knew that she would do the same for me (and she has).

Come to think of it, I can’t come up with a context where I would prefer that someone was egocentric. When would it be better to be self absorbed than to have a more balanced view? When one is very sick? When one is in a crisis? I need to spend more time with that one.

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.

A recent presentation I gave at the MENC Biennial Research Conference in Anaheim has clearly struck a nerve with music teacher educators. I talked about the rigidity of the field’s definition of who a music teacher can be, how a music teacher can be trained, and what kind of experience a music teacher must have. I used a small research project – interviews of alumni from our program who have what would be considered “non-traditional” backgrounds (they play music other than Western classical music and/or play instruments that are not considered part of the traditional band, orchestra, choir ensemble setting) – to demonstrate the importance of the perspectives of these individuals and the meaningful contributions that they can make to music education, as well as the narrow -mindedness of the field.

Not only did the presentation go very well, the discussion after the presentation was very stimulating and filled with energy and interest. I was walking on air afterwards.

And then the emails started. I have received a great deal of email correspondence since this presentation, with everything from ideas/questions/thoughts about the topic to calls for papers for other presentation opportunities for this material to expressions of gratitude for bringing this topic to people’s attention.

As someone whose background is non-traditional, I am heartened by the response to my presentation. And I’m working on figuring out what the next steps are. Clearly there are more presentations to give. And probably at least one publication. And some expansion on the study. And some more literature review. Plenty to do – but I am excited to get started because I know that I have hit on something very important and powerful.

I just finished participating in the month-long Wellness Challenge at The Boston Conservatory (I ended up being the Individual Winner!), and the opportunity to spend an entire month thinking about and paying attention to wellness was really powerful for me.

I especially like the ways that the Wellness Challenge conceives of wellness – they go far beyond what most of us might think of when we think of wellness. The categories included:

a. Physical Wellness (physical activity/exercise, feeling well rested after waking up, limiting caffeine and alcohol intake, brushing and flossing teeth daily, avoiding second hand smoke, washing hands, and taking the stairs instead of the elevator)

b. Emotional Wellness (talking openly about your feelings, saying no without feeling guilty, and recognizing a problem and finding a solution)

c. Environmental Wellness (recycling, turning off the lights upon leaving, and unplugging appliances)

d. Intellectual Wellness (reading a book for fun, attending a program on campus, and challenging yourself to see more than one side of an issue)

e. Spiritual Wellness (exploring a new spiritual practice or tradition, taking time out of the day for spiritual growth, and practicing compassion towards yourself or others)

f. Social Wellness (going to a new place, talking with a new person, and putting aside time for a fun activity)

This broad-based view of wellness really appeals to me. Keeping all of these aspects of wellness in mind for the month of February definitely improved my quality of life and contributed to my self care.

My challenge will be to continue to prioritize wellness in all of these many forms. How do you pay attention to wellness?

Every summer, my students and I read David Tyack’s remarkable and groundbreaking book, The One Best System: A History of American Urban Education. This book is one of the core texts in a course that I teach, Foundations of Education, in which students learn about and explore the history and philosophy of education. Tyack’s big point is that the search for the one best system – the one best way to educate all students – has ill served public education in general, and particularly urban public education.

This year, my students have noticed that the search for the one best system pervades the field of education. Whether it has to do with curriculum planning, repertoire choices, teacher education, high stakes testing, or education policy, the majority of those in the field refuse to recognize that individual differences matter. Students learn differently. Teachers teach differently. Multiple approaches are more effective because they can reinforce one another, and because they can respond to context and to individual needs.

Right now, we are talking about constructivism in one of my other classes. Constructivism celebrates the individual student’s learning process by supporting and facilitating each student’s construction of his/her understanding. A constructivist pedagogy rails against the notion of following scripts from teacher handbooks, teaching from textbooks, or teaching to the standardized test. It refuses to support the notion of the one best system for promoting student learning.

Western modernist society is obsessed with the notion of the one best system, and this obsession goes far beyond the field of education. Economics, politics, history, technology, psychology, philosophy – these are just a few of the many fields that are plagued by the misguided notion that there is one best system, and our job is to find that system (or create it), and use it.

The arts are certainly not immune from this way of thinking, either, much to my dismay. In music, there are many proposed “best systems” out there – from technique-based methods for various instruments, to approaches to the interpretation of musical works, to characteristics of musical styles, to understandings of music history.

And of course, today, we are plagued by the debates over finding the one best system of health care, the one best system for deficit reduction, the one best system for economic recovery, and so on.

How can the paradigm beneath so many feet and structures be shifted? How can we move away from this obsession with the one best system to a much more productive and meaningful perspective that celebrates individual differences, diverse approaches, and multiple modalities?