Folk music, mythology and enlightenment - Music, Creativity and the Transformation of Education - Transcript

American Music Teacher, August-Sept, 2002 by Lorin Hollander

Editor's note: This speech is a transcript of Hollander's keynote address given March 17 at the Opening Session of the 2002 MTNA National Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio.

There is much to explore today. I also want to perform music for you because it touches areas that we cannot access with words. I feel that what would be most effective here, would be to give you a sense of who you truly are; to empower your realization and acknowledgment of the importance of the work you are doing. This work goes beyond simply bringing music to children--it is about saving their lives. Your work is about more than music in the school curriculum--it is about aligning the study of music by children with the research and explorations that have been conducted globally, which illuminate the ways music empowers the humanity of young people and has the power to prevent the series of devastating crises and dysfunctions plaguing our youth. In fact, empowering the creative process of our children is perhaps the only possibility for saving life on this planet.

The system of education in this country is in a devastating crisis. This has been most recently reaffirmed in a National Commission report issued by the United States government, which explored the state of education in the United States. You may recall, "A Nation at Risk" (1) which appeared in 1982. It speculated that if somehow a foreign government had forcefully imposed our system of education on us, we would rightfully have considered it an act of war. And yet, of course, we did this to ourselves. When money becomes tight, music is removed from the schools. When priorities are set, the arts and music are considered "frills" and removed from the schools.

In 1996, the National Commission report was published by the U.S. government with the same credential and mandate as "A Nation at Risk"; it was entitled "What Matters Most: Teaching for America's Future." (2) It stated, once again, that our system of education is in such crisis that it will not survive unless a drastic transformation is accomplished; and if our system of education does not survive, the document warned, our society will not survive. If one were to encapsulate what the commission stated is wrong with our system of education, it would be that we are failing to nurture the creativity of our young children. In fact, we are destroying it.

Children are born wildly creative--that is who they are. Their vision, imagination, intuition, dream mythology and capacity to play, are all fully formed. They are born artists: dancers who writhe rhythmically; musicians--singing intervals long before they speak language. As soon as they can wield a pen or pencil, they are bringing forth "Rorschachian-depth" reflections of their inner realms, a most powerful symbolic mythology common to all humanity. They are obviously actors and actresses--that is what children do. They are in their deepest selves, a priori, being the full self-expression of the artist. That is who they are.

Then, somehow, something begins to shut them down. Lawrence Kubie, in "The Neurotic Distortions of the Creative Process," stated (and here I paraphrase), "... The greatest failure of Western culture is that we do not allow our children to resolve their conflicts of the nursery early in their lives ... within the school system ... through education in the arts." Whatever it is that destroys the essence of joyous creativity in them, it is devastating. Our only hope is that an enlightened experience of music and arts perhaps alone can re-empower their sacred curiosity and re-ignite their creative spirit. We can alert them to be aware of the forces suppressing them and support them in the blossoming of the volcanic power of creativity inherent in their humanity, spirit and soul. That is what music is about, and that is the work you are doing. MTNA has kept music alive based on primary realities about human beings, truths that never waver.

In recent years, a series of very sober and real statistics have surfaced. According to the Children's Defense Fund and the National Center for the Study of Children at Risk, right now, in the United States alone, for children between the ages of 5 and 11, (Occasionally, these statistics extend to the age of 18.) every day, a child commits suicide every four hours; six children a day. Why is a seven-year-old girl committing suicide? Every four minutes in the United States, a child is arrested for a violent crime, an alcohol-related crime or a drag-related crime. Scores of millions of children a year. Right now, in the United States alone, a baby is born to a teen mother every minute. A child is reported abused or battered every ten seconds. A baby dies in this country every fifteen minutes. Where is our wondrous medical health care? Why is this happening? Although not yet official, it appears that the number-one cause of infant mortality in this country is homicide--parents and caretakers killing children. This is a society in great pain. Why is this happening? To quote vision statements I created for a series of transformational education institutes: