While watching/listening to the concert I had somewhat of a revelation. It has to do with our education system, politics, budget cuts, after school programs, music, sports, war, and world peace. Let's start with some things I've though before...
For a while now, I've had a problem with our nation's obsession with competetive sports. This stems from the realization that, from a very young age, we teach our children to hate other people. Now, I don't think this is a blatent attempt to turn our children against others, but that's what happens. Through organized competetive sports, we teach them that they are on a team and they need to beat the other team. We teach them that they are stronger, faster, smarter, and all-around better than the other team. They start believing that they are part of a collective, and that their collective is somehow more entitled to win than the other group. Not only this, but we teach them to think negatively of the "other," to yell chants at their opponents that go beyond talk about the game, to verbally and (sometimes) physically attack people. We separate, teach them the infamous "us-them" mentality.
Not only is it a matter of "we're better," but it's that "we're better only if we beat them." This teaches kids that their worth is determined by their dominance over another. My team can't be good if we lose all the time. And my team is the best if we always win. This can turn very nasty, because everyone wants to be seen as good/talented/strong/winners. So, not only do we teach that they should hate the Other, but they need to beat the Other in order to affirm themselves. Sounds like classic bullying to me: tearing someone else down to make yourself feel big. And this principle of we-are-better-than-them is universalized. It doesn't stay on the field or court or pitch or diamond. It is applied broadly to life and becomes more than a game.
Recently in politics we have experienced a very similar schism. "The Democrats" are against "The Republicans" and they can't both win. Classic us/them thought. And the competition becomes not only about who is better for the job. We're all familiar with the political adds that are just outright mean and nasty that go beyond the political issues.
Anyway, the point is that I think we teach our children to belong to a group and then hate everyone who isn't in that group, and that this is portrayed and reinforced by our focus on sports.
Now, onto the education system.
School districts around the country have been talking for the past years about extending the school day, or moving it back. Contemporary brain research shows that the adolescent brain still retains sleep chemicals until late morning. This means that middle/high school students' physiology is telling them to be sleeping during their first 2 or 3 classes of the day. Some places have moved the school day hours back in order to better accomodate this, so that kids can actually be more awake when they're expected to learn. But the most common reason that this idea is shut down? Sports teams. We don't want those students playing sports into the darker hours of the night, and we certainly don't want to all-out cancel sports. So, we leave things as they are.
But then, when we face budget cuts, what's the first thing to go? The arts. Music especially. We take away band and orchestra and choir because kids need to learn writing and math and science.
Here's where we come to my revelation for the day.
What is a band? What is an orchestra or a choir? Much like a athletic team, it is a group of people working toward a common goal. The significance, though, lies in the difference between music and sports. In sports you're working for a common goal: that of beating other people. In music, however, your common goal revolves around making something beautiful. It is about blending everyone's unique pieces into a completed whole. There is no focus on, say, "the trumpets are better than the trombones," or, "the sopranos are faster than the altos!" In fact, when this happens in a band, orchestra, or choir, everything falls apart. There cannot be competition between the sections, or the music does not blend right. The result is best when everyone works perfectly together. Music teaches that you can work together without needing an enemy.
So, what are we teaching our kids? From the way things are going now, we will continue to teach future generations of Americans that competition is what makes you great. You have to be better than someone else. We teach hate. Yes, we teach teamwork, but only if your team is working to destroy someone else. We ignore the peaceful notion that you can work with others for everyone's benefit. It's not performers against the audience.
Our system is set up in a way that anger and hate are easy to learn. Compassion and love are being phased out. What are we going to do about it?
1 - You should put your opinions in the Concordian.
ReplyDelete2 - I love the points that you make about how sports and music affect children and their thought processes in different ways. I don't think that sports necessarily teach competition in a negative way, though. I think that a lot of teams/coaches/schools emphasize winning too much, but I also think it is possible to make sports about friendly competition. We all have to compete in something or another at some point in life, and I think that well-designed sports programs can help kids understand that neither winning nor losing means everything and that you can be friends with competitors, even as you try to out-perform them.
It's a real shame that the first casualties of budget cuts in public schools are almost always arts programs. I've heard of a few schools that have made substantial room in their budget by cutting some of the costliest sports, like football or hockey. I like that solution because it allows for the school to continue to offer some athletic programs and to keep its arts programs.