Changes in teaching over past 50 years?

[Kbiggs]

One of the most effective and inspiring brass teachers of the last 50 years was Sam Pilafian, the great tuba player and founding member of the Empire Brass. I did not know Sam as well as many of my friends, but I had the privilege of spending some time with him and attending multiple classes he gave.

Sam summed up his own teaching philosophy as (I'm paraphrasing) "finding each student's strengths and building from there." That was such a concise statement of the way my best teachers operated, and the instinct that I have tended to follow, that I've adopted it as the philosophy I try to follow myself.

My own teacher in graduate school, Norman Bolter, said to me in my very first lesson: "Start with what you CAN do."

None of this means that you don't identify areas of weakness and address them. But it's a fundamentally different way of thinking than a stance of correcting faults, sometimes with brutal honesty that leaves students in tears or doubting their abilities. Build from strengths. Relate progress on weakness to abilities the student has already achieved.

My toughest teacher was probably Per Brevig, who never let me slide with imprecise rhythm or pitch. And the only time I ever cried coming out of a lesson was when he said to me "Gabe, you are much too talented to sound this way." But take a moment and analyze that sentence...implicit in the criticism of the work I had (not) been doing was the possibility of my achievement. I'm guessing that tbdana took away the same sentiment from Roy Main.

“Start where you are,” or “Start with what you CAN do,” is fundamental to modern psychology and counseling. Repeated studies have shown that building on strengths rather than criticizing weaknesses helps people improve more quickly, and the lessons learned are rehearsed (practiced) more often, both in the action of practicing and in the brain’s neural pathways. The desire to accomplish something, along with the desire to please authority figures, is a stronger motivation in the long run than the desire to avoid punishment or harsh criticism.

[ghmerrill]

“Start where you are,” or “Start with what you CAN do,” is fundamental to modern psychology and counseling.

"... just as in conduct our task is to start from what is good for each and make what is without qualification good, good for each, so it is our task to start from what is more knowable to oneself and make what is knowable by nature knowable to oneself."

Aristotle "Metaphysics" (circa 350 BC)

[timothy42b]

From my perspective as an amateur player and totally outside both the professional performance and pedagogy spheres, other than as a student at times, one thing that I have noticed having a substantial effect on my own learning and understanding is the astonishing increase and ease of access to information and examples. This site is just one example of that, but now every instrument has its own site or set of sites where a vast amount of information is exchanged daily (hourly, by the minute!), discussions, arguments, criticisms, analyses, and descriptions of experience are available to a huge audience. Not to mention YouTube and the video/audio examples and demos freely available there -- including what amount to series of master classes from genuine masters (along with a bunch of stuff from the less masterful ).

I think there's a recent phenomenon whereby these sites profitable, and that can lead to people with really wrong ideas but slick production values dominating.

I'm on a sports site where one of the common topics is how badly someone is teaching a particular skill, but they're teaching it really really well, with great photography and audio, and gaining lots of followers and advertising revenue.

You can send them a video of your performance and for a fee get back some criticism, but their income really comes from the ads. Those few people who really know biomechanics are aghast at some of the advice; the point is there is no way for the amateur to know what is correct.

[ghmerrill]

I think there's a recent phenomenon whereby these sites profitable, and that can lead to people with really wrong ideas but slick production values dominating.

The description of "these sites" is pretty vague. Much available on the web is junk. Much is not junk. It is important to engage your brain when evaluating it. However, for anyone with a brain to engage, it doesn't (as you point out) take a lot of effort to evaluate what you're looking at, compare it with other stuff, perform consistency checks, evaluate available critiques, etc. We do that here in this forum, right? Anyone can do it. Everyone should do it.

Okay ... wait ... given the state of the educational process today I guess I should re-evaluate what "take a lot of effort" means to a lot of people. Still the good stuff is there, and there's a lot of it. If someone falls prey to junk it's because they were too lazy not to -- precisely like all the people who get scammed because they're looking for something for nothing. People get led in large part through their own laziness.

[tbdana]

Just saw this post on Facebook, and offer it FWIW.

Geoffrey Keezer
8 hrs ago
·
I teach at one of the preeminent, hardest-to-get-into music schools in the world, with supposedly the cream of the crop of music students intent on having a career in music when they graduate. Yet they can't be bothered to show up on time for a 9:30AM class. Nothing but lame excuses. The trains were messed up. Was up hanging at Small's till 3AM. My heater is broken. Ad nauseum. And when they do show up a half hour late (if at all), they haven't practiced and are unprepared. So I ask you students, how do you expect to have a career when you graduate if you can't get up in the morning? How are you going to make a 6AM lobby call on tour to get to the airport for an 8AM flight? The staying-up-all-night and sleeping on the plane thing gets old fast (and so does your body). How are you going to make a 10AM recording session that STARTS AT 10AM? I'm telling you, nobody cares that you live in Jersey or upstate or Queens or wherever people commute from (I commute and my ass was up at 6AM to be at work on time). This culture of "everybody gets an A", "everybody gets a medal" regardless of student's blatant disrespect for their lesson plans and their teachers (we have lives too, AND we play gigs late at night and still somehow manage to get up in the morning to take our kids to school and get to work on time) is not sustainable. Back to tough love, because it was still love. My mentors and bosses gave it to me straight, if I was out of line. It might have hurt my feelings for a day or two, but then I got my shit together. Students - if you're serious about wanting a career in music when you graduate, then GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER. Practice your assignments, do the work, and SHOW UP. Thanks.

Of course, this is just anecdotal. I honestly studied so long ago that I don't know if students were like that to the degree this guy complains about modern students being. If this is a trend -- and I've heard others complain that students are different nowadays in this and other ways -- I'm sure that has resulted in some changes in the way students are taught as compared to 50 years ago. If students change, teachers have to change, right?

[Bach5G]

Don’t think this only applies to music students.

[bitbckt]

Nor even constrained to students.

[harrisonreed]

Nor constrained to the present:

"Our sires' age was worse than our grandsires'. We their sons are more worthless than they: so in our turn we shall give the world a progeny yet more corrupt."

Horace
Odes, III, vi, l. 46

Ca. 20 BC

___________


“…a fearful multitude of untutored savages… [boys] with dogs at their heels and other evidence of dissolute habits…[girls who] drive coal-carts, ride astride upon horses, drink, swear, fight, smoke, whistle, and care for nobody…the morals of children are tenfold worse than formerly.”

Anthony Ashley Cooper, the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, Speech to the House of Commons

February 28, 1843

----------------------

"If only things were like those glorious days of yesteryear, where the girls drove their coal-carts and spat, smoked, and fought. A simpler time. Nay, the kids these days give no care for timeliness, and doth arrive late to their 9:30 musical tutelage!"

Music teacher
in 2024

[Burgerbob]

Kids these days, amirite?

[bitbckt]

Kids these days, amirite?

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

[harrisonreed]

There is even a passage in the Iliad I believe where an old soldier laments that the heroes of his day were much more heroic and skilled than the heroes he was fighting alongside in the present (which included Achilleus, of course, possibly the most famous fighter of all time).

Now the big caveat is that in this case, the "old soldier" was probably 35 or something, complaining about people who were between 15-20 years old. I would bet that the ratio of age difference though (with regards to life expectancy) has stayed the same throughout history. Back in the day you definitely had to grow up a lot sooner than today.

[ghmerrill]

Back in the day you definitely had to grow up a lot sooner than today.

Do you really have to grow up today? I say this from the perspective of having taught (graduate and undergraduate) in a fairly large (private) university circa 1973-1982, Then entirely in industry 1982-retirement in 2009, but working closely with a couple of large (state) university departments by running an internship program in AI/cognitive science, and after retirement teaching a course in one of those departments. Things had changed -- a LOT. Some for the better, some not. But I would not want to teach in a university today. The engineering schools/departments have largely (though not entirely) held the line in terms of requirements, objective evaluations, guidance, etc. Some of the pure sciences have. But many students are now taking 5-6 years to complete a bachelor's degree while going "full-time," and PhDs (even in the humanities) are often stretching into 6-8 years. Students can now "afford" that time -- both financially (though how is a good question), and in terms of their own goals (or lack of them). A lot of young people (and I mean "under 30", or even older) don't "need" a job today.

Of course the educational system has contributed to this by wanting to keep students (even excellent students) enrolled as long as possible for a variety of reasons I mostly won't go into, but some of which are obvious. I worked closely with a an excellent Ph.D. statistics student who was an intern of a colleague, and who in fact had finished his dissertation work, but whose adviser refused to schedule his dissertation defense and granting of the degree until he had (with her as co-author) published more of his work. That added two years to his program. For a year I played in a tuba section with a young (late 20s) cell biologist (different state university) whose degree was being delayed in the same way -- and who just wanted to get out and move on to a job in industry. You can't hire and support faculty if you don't have students. You can't get grants for your labs if you don't have (and retain) students capable of doing that work. Etc.

Master's degrees used to be 1-year degrees. Bachelor's degrees (with some exceptions such as architecture, and some engineering disciplines) used to be 4-year degrees, PhDs (definitely in the humanities, and often in other areas such as math) used to be 4-year degrees, start to finish. No more. There's a lot of money in play that's supporting what is basically "not growing up" -- or maybe "not having an independent life" is a more accurate description. It must be difficult for the young to struggle against this -- or perhaps even to see it happening.

[Wilktone]

Society today is very different than it was back when I was a student. If we look back even further I think the difference is much more pronounced.

Life is a lot more complicated than it used to be. Many jobs today require a deeper level of understanding of the field, requiring more training. Many people today are not happy with the amount of time and effort employers ask for while not providing similar pay and benefits from the days when it was common to work for one employer for your entire career. Today it's common for people to change their careers multiple times.

Gripe all you want about "kids these days," but back in "The Past" had its own share of problems that we've made progress towards fixing today. In many ways my students are more "grown up" than I was at their age, even while seeming behind in other areas.