College faculty and the MTNA Professional Certification Program - Forum focus: college faculty - Music Teachers National Association

American Music Teacher, Oct-Nov, 2003 by Patricia Dyer Tuley

MTNA college and university faculty members have been asking why the final certification examination is required of all candidates for MTNA Professional Certification, and why they should even become a Nationally Certified Teacher of Music. These are good questions, worthy of good answers. A brief historical review of the MTNA Professional Certification Program, as it relates to college and university faculty members, could provide assistance with understanding the answers.

It would not be an exaggeration to say the history of MTNA Professional Certification, dating from 1886, has been complicated, difficult and confusing for MTNA members. The MTNA leadership has struggled to establish a successful professional certification program that meets the needs of its membership and the public it serves. The MTNA membership is composed of music teachers who may or may not hold college or university degrees, teach from one to hundreds of students and may teach age groups ranging from preschool to adults. These members may either operate a professional music teaching business, teach music part-time to supplement a partners income, teach music in a public or private school system or teach music at a college or university. Most members reside in one of the fifty United States, a few abroad and many in a variety of cultural settings. Developing a successful MTNA Professional Certification Program to meet the needs of a membership with such a wide diversity has not been an easy task. In addition, public demand for certified music teachers has not yet reached the level that makes certification a necessity for those who teach areas of music performance.

Establishing a sound and successful MTNA Professional Certification Program was very much on the minds of Edward Bowman, MTNA president, and the members of a subcommittee in 1885. He and the subcommittee met to redefine the goals of and redevelop the American College of Musicians (ACM), the name of the first MTNA Professional Certification Program for music teachers. The main goal of ACM, Bowman and his subcommittee determined, was raising the standards for the profession.

Fast-forwarding over approximately the next 100 years, the MTNA Professional Certification Program went through many changes in its approach, components and goals. No historical records can be found that reveal within the content of the program, any differentiation between college and independent music teachers until 1988. At that time, the College Faculty Certificate was implemented. It could be obtained simply by verifying one's status as a full-time college faculty member for a specific number of years, paying the certification application fee and re-verifying one's status every five years with no fee. The development and implementation of this certificate were ostensibly an effort on the part of MTNA leadership to meet the needs of the college faculty members, and to garner their support for the MTNA Professional Certification Program.

During the decade of the 1990s, the MTNA Professional Certification Program continued to provide the MTNA leadership with formidable, philosophical and political challenges. The types of certificates offered (Professional, Permanent Professional, Associate, College Faculty, Master Teacher and Emeritus) left the program open to possible legal liabilities with regard to the IRS, antitrust laws and the Americans with Disabilities Act. The teaching video component of the Professional Certificate requirements implemented in 1994 proved to be very unpopular with the MTNA membership. The number of certificates offered (six) was confusing to the state and national leadership responsible for administering the program, for NCTM and for those considering the certification process. Neither the numbers, nor types of certificates offered, resulted in overwhelming support for the program from the entire MTNA membership. The MTNA Professional Certification Program was at a crossroads.

In 1998 a committee chaired by Joan Reist, MTNA president-elect at the time, reviewed the MTNA Professional Certification Program. Upon the recommendation of that review committee, then President L. Rexford Whiddon appointed an ad hoc Certification committee to develop and recommend an MTNA Certification Program with criteria that are reasonable and applied fairly to all candidates.

The new MTNA Professional Certification Program developed by this committee was implemented in 2000. It is based on a set of five standards for what a music teacher should know and be able to do:

* Standard I: Professional Preparation

* Standard II: Professional Teaching Practices

* Standard III: Professional Business Management

* Standard IV: Professionalism and Partnerships

* Standard V: Professional and Personal Renewal

Upon fulfillment of these standards applicants are granted the MTNA Professional Certification credential with the NCTM designation. The credential and designation are granted without bias, discrimination or favoritism between MTNA members or nonmembers or any other arbitrary differentiation.