Music and Music Education – an Inseparable Pair

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Chapter 3 The MEND Methodology and Agenda

Pre-MEND Perceptions

The findings of the Deaf Ears? Report were profoundly disturbing, all the more so because its promulgation coincided with the celebrations of the European Year of Music (1985). The suspected malaise in school music, disguised as it had been by policies of concealment, was at last made palpable. Furthermore, there was no plausible reason to believe that the situation in other branches of music education would be more encouraging.²⁰ The crisis was ineluctable and called for a response. Although there were isolated attempts to address particular problems from 1985 inwards, the perception gained ground that the time was ripe for a thorough, importunate, nation-wide investigation of the gestalt of music education to confront its debilitating demon.

Towards an Agenda

The author of the MEND report was the Director of the DIT College of Music at the time he proposed that the national debates should take place. He was deputed to lead the MEND Initiative and redesignated, at a personal level, Director of Cultural Affairs of the Institute. His brief, however, was primarily to organize, in a systematic way, the conduct of the investigation. The object of MEND was not (indeed it could not have been) to effect solutions. It was, rather, to re-identify, collectively, the manifold problems of Music Education in Ireland and to offer them to the whole music-loving community, for open debate, in an attempt to take the findings of Deaf Ears?, and other related concerns, to a stage where procedures for reform could be formulated, and relevant strategies could evolve.
The establishment of a forum for music education was prefigured from the outset. MEND was not to be a regurgitation of the Deaf Ears? published material but, rather, a quasi-public investigation into the pessimism behind its findings – something that had not happened up to that point. And MEND was (obviously) not to have an executive function but rather to lead towards it. The prime concern in the early stages of the Initiative was to ensure that as wide a participation as possible should be achieved, and, then, to rekindle public awareness, in the first place, of what the problems were and the gravity of their consequences. To obviate any bias in the perception of what the critical areas might be, a plan was put in place to involve the music educators (and the music education lobby generally) themselves in an exercise of examining a possible agenda and prioritizing the most pressing concerns before the debates themselves were organized.

Basic Premises of MEND

Since school music education had been the target of the Deaf Ears? Report it was, as stated above, re-adopted as a major focus of MEND. It was felt that without this basic building block, all other provision would be contrived, discriminatory and elitist. Since the DIT was itself in the forefront of private (semi-state) enterprise in music education and educational reform, it was in a position to provide substantial intellectual advocacy in setting up the structures for the debates and in formulating the opening philosophical parameters. Thus a preliminary set of agenda items was assembled from the implications of the Deaf Ears? Report itself. This called for a detached and thorough search for what it is that music education in schools sets out to achieve. Subsequent events revealed how divided the world of music education could be on this basic issue.
Other derivative concerns were the interrelationships (continuum) between curricula at primary and secondary level, the quality and relevance of teacher training, the negative burden and artificiality of the practico-academic divide, the effects (psychological and pragmatic) of assessment as a tool, the nature of performance and its place in general education, and the recognition of the work of the private sector. The time had come for musicians to be proactive, to realize that there is a demanding world outside of music and that they would have to come to terms with its constraints rather than expect that it would accommodate their partisan ideas without question.

Methodology of MEND

The MEND proposal was ambitious from the start and was, therefore, resource-intensive. Once the main sponsorship of DIT had been negotiated, the project was guaranteed the long-term support to enable a wide net to be cast. It had always been envisaged, as the plan developed, that the focused participation of distinguished music educators from the global community would add lustre and effectiveness to the proceedings. But the intention to unleash the worldview on seemingly insular problems had to be prudently choreographed to ensure a phased effectiveness of its enrichment potential. This led to the first and crucial decision, from which the remaining methodology could then evolve. It was agreed with the sponsors that the MEND initiative could be heralded as a tri-partite enquiry, with a sufficient lapse of time between phases to facilitate a period of analytical reflection.
This was to provide for the issue of interim reports and to encourage considered consolidation or reorientation of strategy.

General

In the history of the state, although there had been campaigns for a better provision in music education before, there had never before been such an ambitious enterprise in relation to it. There was reason to suppose that those potentially interested might be ill-prepared for the searching nature of the proposed enquiry and its long-term implications; yet without their committed and meaningful input the credibility of the outcomes would be open to question. Even still it is difficult to predict how effective MEND has been in stimulating a lasting awareness of the need for entrepreneurial activity from those with leadership qualities within the lobby. In anticipation of encountering a certain ambivalence in garnering general support, a modus operandi was formulated with a view to the active involvement, in the debates themselves (and not just as featured speakers), of leaders in the field of music education across the broadest global spectrum of remit. It was hoped that they would attract, by their very eminence, a participative, proactive and enthusiastic audience. This strategy proved effective; the underlying rationale was systematic, as the adopted sequence, described below, should illustrate.

Towards an Agenda for MEND

The agenda for the debates was an overriding consideration. It was necessary to demonstrate a convincing democratic spirit, from the very outset, in drafting it. It was therefore decided that a heralding one-day conference would be held to condition the prospective participants, and to explain the intention behind the main events. This was conducted by the distinguished British music educator, Keith Swanwick. During the course of the seminar the 130 participants (mostly professional music educators) were asked to consider a comprehensive list of possible issues in Irish music education, and to prioritize them. The response to this questionnaire was encouraging and workable; there was a marked level of agreement as to what were the burning questions for debate. The only moderation applied to the results was to place the final rationalization, in eight headings, into a logical sequence, so that the conduct of the debates would have a visibly plausible continuity. In the event, this agenda, although offered for modification, stood the test of time and proved to be a hardy irreducible which survived into post-MEND days as a statement of the commanding parameters of Irish music education.

Towards a Time-Frame for MEND

In deciding on the timescale of the initiative, many arguably conflicting approaches had to be weighed. It was necessary to stress the intention to be comprehensive and thorough. There was the need, first, to allow time, even leisure, to re-identify, simultaneously, the whole spectrum of concern, to present scholarly deliberations in relation to it, issue by issue, and then to debate it in forum; on the other hand the programme should be ‘telescoped’ to obviate a feeling of chronic futile debate and passivity. To engage and retain the interest of participants, individual events should be substantial and significant in content, especially since it was hoped to attract audience and speakers from the whole country, involving travel and personal expense over a period. Thus the convenience of sociable timing became critical, to justify an expectation of engaging the music-loving community widely. Furthermore it was desirable to adopt a mechanism which could psychologically benchmark key stage progress and stimulate a real sense of expansiveness followed by convergence.
In the certain knowledge that budgetary provision could be severely stretched in the process, agreement was successfully negotiated beforehand, with the sponsors, to allow the involvement, by invitation, of the international community of music education scholarship. Ireland had suffered too long from the narrowness and vagaries of post-colonial thought and the futility of a time lag in adopting new ideas, often when the promoters themselves had already superannuated them. It seemed timely to hear what the global philosophical, administrative and executive experts had to say in both general and specific terms. This suggested another strategy for flagging progression in the debates; it was therefore proposed to subdivide the enterprise along yet another axis – that of indigenous and foreign input – at least in the early stages. An exclusively Irish team would first define, delimit and debate the areas of concern; this work would form the basis of an interim report which would then be submitted to a representative team of internationally-recognized educator scholars. Responses in the form of focused papers, in the context of the thematic dominance of each specialist enlisted, would be elicited and would fuel the ensuing debates.
This process would be repeated before Phase III with the difference that the ‘faculty’ would then comprise a complementary array of speakers and panel members, drawn from Ireland and abroad, who could, at that stage, comprehensively debate the agenda with the delegates in its more refined, convergent and proactive context. It was planned to issue interim reports between the phases to ensure that the subsequent invited contributions would be cognizant of and reflect the progress thus far, and that delegates would have documentation with which to focus their intended participation more effectively.

Abstract 
Dedication
Acknowledgements 
Table of Contents 
List of Abbreviations and Acronyms 
List of Abbreviations and Acronyms 
1 Background to the Study
1.1 Personal Motivation
1.2 Research Question
1.3 Hypothesis
1.4 Aim of the Study
1.5 Research Methodology
1.6 Notes to the Reader
1.7 Delimitations of the Study
1.8 Value of the study
1.9 Layout of the Study
2 Overview of the Educational Challenge 
2.1 Music and Music Education – an Inseparable Pair
2.2 Commanding Concerns in Music Education
3 The MEND Methodology and Agenda
3.1 Pre-MEND Perceptions
3.2 Methodology of MEND
3.3 The Agenda for MEND
4 The Emergence of Philosophies in Conflict
4.1 Key Concepts
4.2 Overview
4.3 Introduction to the Elliott/Reimer Case
4.4 Reimer’s Universal Philosophy of Music Education (Should there be a Universal Philosophy of Music Education?)
4.5 Commonly-held Values about Music Education (Reimer)
4.6 Four Philosophical Positions
4.7 Functional/Utilitarian approaches to Music Education
4.8 Bennett Reimer in Ireland
4.9 The Irish Context
5 Analysis of the David Elliott/Bennett Reimer/Harry White documentation
5.1 Overview of Performance as an Issue in Music Education Philosophy
5.2 The Reimer/Elliott Reviews of Harry White’s Paper – A book of manners in the wilderness
5.3 Aesthetic Education: Past, Present, and Potential for the Future
5.4 Music Education, Music Performance, and the Irish Music Educator
5.5 The Reimer/Elliott Documentation
5.6 Rationalization
6 Reconciliation of Rival Stances
6.1 Rationalization – Towards a Contextual Philosophy for Music Education
6.2 The American philosophical view on Music Education: towards a reconciliation of the Reimer/Elliott counterpositions
6.3 Music Education as Aesthetic Education
6.4 The American National Standards (1992-1994)
6.5 Multiculturalism (MC)
6.6 Residual Dissonances
6.7 The Irish Context
6.8 Conclusion
7 Conclusions and Recommendations 
7.1 MEND Findings and Recommendations
7.2 Overall Conclusions
7.3 Final Recommendations
8 List of Sources
8.1 Sources Part I
8.2 MEND Documents: Numerical Listing with Author’s Name.
8.3 Sources Part II
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