Charlotte and the Progressives vs. the Classicists

I had some thoughts about the first paragraph of part 1, Chapter 1, Section 1 of David Hicks' book, Norms and Nobility. In that paragraph, he talks about education in 19th Century England. By the 1800s, ‘classical education’ had come to be thought of as a way of perpetuating upper class privilege. The state began to be involved in education, and eventually the progressive movement sprang up, dedicated to utilitarian education for the masses, pragmatic and practical.

The progressives did not worry about an Ideal Type; they did not believe in the existence of a priori knowledge; and they did not accept truth unless it could be quantified.

How does Charlotte fit into this history? Was she a progressive? A pseudo-classicist-turned-classism-promoter? Or was she something different? (A voice crying in the wilderness, perhaps?)

Charlotte Mason was born in 1842 and died in 1923. If by 1867 English education was in flux, Charlotte came into teaching during a time of transition.

What did she have to say about pragmatic, utilitarian aims?

I should be inclined to say of education, as Mr. Lecky says of morals, that "the Utilitarian theory is profoundly immoral." To educate children for any immediate end––towards commercial or manufacturing aptitude, for example––is to put a premium upon general ignorance with a view to such special aptitude. The greater includes the less, but the less does not include the greater. Excellent work of whatever kind is produced by a person of character and intelligence, and we who teach cannot do better for the nation than to prepare such persons for its uses. He who has intelligent relations with life will produce good work...

...In giving 'education' without abundant knowledge, we are as persons who should aim at physical development by giving the maximum of exercise with the minimum of food. The getting of knowledge and the getting of delight in knowledge are the ends of a child's education; and well has said one of our prophets, "that there should one man die ignorant who had capacity for knowledge, this I call a tragedy."
Vol. 3 p. 241-242

What did she say about an Ideal Type?

'But it is not only the idea of a hero which we have in Beowulf, it is also the idea of a king, the just governor, the wise politician, the builder of peace, the defender of his own folk at the price of his life, "the good king, the folk king, the beloved king, the war ward of his land, the winner of treasure for the need of his people, the hero who thinks in death of those who sail the sea, the gentle and terrible warrior, who is buried amid the tears of his people."'

We owe Mr. Stopford Brooke much gratitude for bringing this heroic ideal of the youth of our nation within reach of the unlearned. But what have we been about to let a thousand years and more go by without ever drawing on the inspiration of this noble ideal in giving impulse to our children's lives? We have many English heroes, it may be objected: we have no need of this resuscitated great one from a long-buried past. We have indeed heroes galore to be proud of, but somehow they have not often been put into song in such wise as to reach the hearts of the children and the unlearned.
Vol. 2 p. 145

Did she speak about reason?

We should teach children, also, not to lean (too confidently) unto their own understanding because the function of reason is to give logical demonstration of (a) mathematical truth and (b) of initial ideas accepted by the will. In the former case reason is, perhaps, an infallible guide but in the latter is not always a safe one, for whether the initial idea be right or wrong reason will confirm it by irrefragible proofs.

Therefore children should be taught as they become mature enough to understand such teaching that the chief responsibility which rests upon them as persons is the acceptance or rejection of ideas presented to them. To help them in this choice we should afford them principles of conduct and a wide range of fitting knowledge.
CM Principle 18

About a priori knowledge?

"Education is the Science of Relations"; that is, that a child has natural relations with a vast number of things and thoughts: so we train him upon physical exercises, nature lore, handicrafts, science and art, and upon many living books, for we know that our business is not to teach him all about anything, but to help him to make valid as many as may be of––

"Those first-born affinities
"That fit our new existence to existing things."
Principle 12

And what about quantifying educational results?

Probably the world has never seen a finer body of educationalists than those who at the present moment man our schools, both Boys' and Girls'. But the originality, the fine initiative, of these most able men and women is practically lost. The schools are examination-ridden, and the heads can strike out no important new lines. Let us begin our efforts by believing in one another, parents in teachers and teachers in parents. Both parents and teachers have the one desire, the advance of the child along the lines of character. Both groan equally under the limitations of the present system. Let us have courage, and united and concerted action will overthrow this Juggernaut that we have made.

Vol. 2 p. 224

Miss Mason discusses educational theorists frequently in her writings, including Froebel, Pestalozzi, Rousseau, Herbart, Comenius, Locke, Spencer, and even Maria Montessori (though not by name). She has a courteous way of discussing another person's ideas that sometimes appears as if she is agreeing with him or her, but if we read the dense writing through to the end of the section, she will often present a counter-argument. This can be confusing, so we have to be careful to consult context as we read.

I am a little more able to place Charlotte in the context of her time, too, because of Mr. Hicks' summary of 19th Century English educational thought (or the popular idea of it). I don't know that she was progressive, but she was certainly doing something different.

She was very hopeful, perhaps moreso than she ought to have been, and she asked questions, too:

The truth is, we are in the throes of an educational revolution; we are emerging from chaos rather than about to plunge into it; we are beginning to recognise that education is the applied science of life, and that we really have existing material in the philosophy of the ages and the science of the day to formulate an educational code whereby we may order the lives of our children and regulate our own. We need not aspire to a complete and exhaustive code of educational laws. This will come us duly when humanity has, so to speak, fulfilled itself. Meantime, we have enough to go on with if we would believe it. What we have to do is to gather together and order our resources; to put the first thing foremost and all things in sequence, and see that education is neither more nor less than the practical application of our philosophy. Hence, if our educational thought is to be sound and effectual we must look to the philosophy which underlies it, and must be in a condition to trace every counsel of perfection for the bringing-up of children to one or other of the two schools of philosophy of which it must needs be the outcome.

Is our system of education to be the issue of naturalism or of idealism, or is there indeed a media via?
Vol. 2 p. 120

I wonder.

My Take on Practicing

(Update: I just want to add that I am not pointing this post at anyone whose kids take piano from me. I have a great group of families and students. This really is a question I have to answer a lot when people call about piano lessons, and I thought it would be good to have my policy online so folks could access it easily.)

Often when folks ask me about teaching their kids piano, they want to know what expectations I have about practicing.

I try to work with my students' and their families' vision for music education. I understand that folks have things going on other than piano lessons, that perhaps music is not a central focus in their home, and that practicing can fall off the schedule pretty easily. I do not give guilt trips for not practicing 'enough', nor do I hand out prizes for students who practice.

But what is enough?

When a new family comes into my studio, I explain to them that the student gets out of piano lessons what he or she puts into it. If the student is only practicing a few minutes a couple of days per week, that student will not progress as quickly as a student who dedicates a half hour to practicing every day. I am fine with that to a certain extent (as long as the family understands that it is the lack of practicing that is slowing us down). However, I do not want the student getting discouraged. Discouraged students often quit piano, telling themselves that they failed at it.

That is not good.

I want my students to love music and be able to participate in it, so this means I need to help my students and their families figure out how to balance time constraints with the demands of practicing.

This is a sticky wicket.

I am a parent as well as a music teacher. We pay for two of our children to take private violin lessons. They have a great, detail-oriented teacher who is also one of the least expensive in our area, but still, tuition for their lessons takes the lion's share of our school budget every month. I realize that economics is not everything, but if I am paying that much for the kids to have private lessons, my frugal intuition says they had better be practicing at least thirty to sixty minutes every day so they can get as much mileage out of those lessons as possible.

It is easy to let other activities take over time that could be spent practicing an instrument. We have that issue at our house-- especially with three kids focusing on one to three instruments apiece (if you count the voice as an instrument, and I do) in a little house. We have to limit other things (and have to be willing to hear piano/violin/singing almost constantly) in order to meet practice requirements, and I am not always good at that myself, so I certainly understand how hard it is.

This doesn't change the fact that students get out of musical instrument lessons what they put into them. More practice equals more progress.

If the student's schedule is relaxed enough to have adequate time for practicing, but the student doesn't want to practice, that is another issue entirely. Perhaps a change in approach is necessary, or a little more composer study, or perhaps it is time to dwell at the same level for awhile, gaining additional fluency before moving on. But we cannot know for sure unless the student has time for practicing.

That is my take on practicing: it is good. Make time for it. I am not going to guilt-trip or manipulate my students into practicing, but music students need to understand that you get out of music lessons what you put into them.

Let's say it together: You get out of music lessons what you put into them.

Music, and 1000 Posts

I have written over a thousand posts on Blogger! The milestone passed last week, but I didn't note it.

I was looking over my category labels and thinking about how I would like to change some of them, and I realized that I have only three posts on piano, and not even a category for 'music'. That is kind of odd for a former music major and music teacher. I wondered why I didn't have more, and all I can figure out is that music is so very important to me that I want to get it exactly right. I don't think I am as good as I ought to be at something I have studied so long, so it is hard for me to write about. (That says something about the topics I *do* write about, but I am not sure what, lol.)

Anyway, I'm going to try to let go of my insecurity regarding my musical knowledge and skill, and write more about it.

Right now I am working on some accompaniments for the girls' violin teacher's music studio recital. I have a concerto by George Perlman, another by Telemann (which I love), the Ashokan Farewell (theme of Ken Burns' "Civil War" documentary) and various and sundry little Suzuki pieces that I have played several times over the last few years as accompanist for this studio.

I love accompanying singers and musicians; the synergy that occurs when both performers grasp the same interpretation and take the music where it ought to go is the most thrilling aspect of music to me. (This is also why I love singing in small groups, or even large groups.) Accompanying students in a music studio has an added dimension-- the teacher's expectations regarding tempo and dynamics. When I accompany someone, I feel that my job is to make them sound good; but in an educational studio, my job is to keep the tempo going and aid the student in meeting the teacher's expectations, as well as covering any mistakes.

This is so much fun! I don't know why, but I just like it.

So when I practice the studio accompaniments, I use the metronome a *lot*. It doesn't matter that I played this or that piece at 92 for last year's student; this year's student needs the piece at 88 or 104. Switching gears like that can be a challenge, but it keeps the music fresh.

I am also assisting my own piano students in preparation for recital in a month. I love watching them grow and catch new concepts. I have always started with rank beginners, and three of my students are beyond that now. I never took pedagogy classes at the university, but I am applying CM method to what I know about playing piano, and I think we are going to some good places with the intermediate music. I have done some in-depth music theory study with one of my students this year, and he is on track to be able to play both classically and in a more 'jam session' improvisational style.

I am rather astounded at the ability my students have to improvise because I am not good at it-- I am a classical girl through and through! Give me the sheet music and I can sightread it, but hand me a fake book and inspiration goes out the window! But I teach from the Suzuki books as well as another set of method books (and whatever else I find that I think will help), and Suzuki is so intuitive, they end up simply absorbing natural laws of music. Amazing. Cornflower, my 9yodd, can actually sit down to the piano and play musically relevant two-handed arrangements of music she has only heard on CD-- including Broadway, folk and classical.

I wonder. I did not teach them this. I am not good at it myself. But the choosing of materials for study is apparently very important! I know enough about piano to teach them the skills they need to read and interpret those Suzuki pieces, and I knew enough after listening to the pieces to realize that they were infinitely preferable to the usual monotonous "this is up, this is down, let's go up and down" arrangements of method books. And the order of pieces in Suzuki builds their intuitive knowledge of music.

Very exciting stuff. I have a friend who works at the local music store and teaches piano, and she has been helpful in my decision-making processes regarding which books my students should use. I am going to see if she will let me take lessons from her either this summer or next fall, to work on some technical difficulties I have. I am watching my intermediate students approach my early advanced skill level, and I want to be ready.

I generally play a piece myself at the piano recitals, as a way to demonstrate where we are going, and encourage the students in their scales, arpeggios and fingering studies. This time, I am torn between two pieces-- an early sonata by Beethoven, and a polonaise by Chopin. The polonaise is lots more fun, but I just picked it up again a week or so ago after not having played it for years. I found a recording of Horowitz playing it, and I am sufficiently humbled and embarrassed to even be thinking about playing it "in public". So maybe I'll save that for the Christmas recital next school year. I have the technical aspects of the Beethoven sonata down and am working on artistry.

I am also working with Aravis on voice. This *was* my area of focus in college, and I am discovering some classical prejudices I learned in the music department! I am having to overcome some things in order to teach her Broadway style singing. She is currently working on music from the musical, "Wicked". Mariel, too, is branching into solo voice, and is working on a Dan Fogelberg song. I ought to be working more with the girls in the area of harmony and trio singing, but with all the other music practice they do, their drama schedules, and regular schoolwork, we just can't fit it in. I have a madrigal arrangement of "Three Blind Mice" that I have wanted them to learn for a couple years. Maybe this summer.

There are a couple of other musical activities in the idea stages, and if they pan out, we will have even more musical focus next year. I feel like we already have a lot, and I don't want to shortchange other things like history and English and science, but oh! I want my kids to have all the musical experiences they can.

So that is the exciting musical part of my life. I love it! I wish I had gotten my music degree in college, but maybe after the girls have graduated. I can see this turning into a main life focus for me after the kids are up and out.