Abstract
In January of this year, the NAfME National Executive Board (NEB) met at the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) Trade Show, which is held annually in Anaheim, California. One of the advantages of meeting concurrently with the NAMM Show was that your NEB leaders were given passes to tour the NAMM Show floor, which included industry booths displaying instruments, publications, and all kinds of technology for teaching, creating, performing, and responding to music. As I went from booth to booth and talked with the vendors and manufacturers, I was struck by how many times the company representatives told me that their product was not just for “this” but could also do “that.” Not only did I find a device that provided a MIDI interface for the iPad, but also the device could be connected to electronic keyboards using a traditional RCA mini-plug, for example.
It struck me we are at a “not just” moment for our new National Music Standards (which I affectionately call Standards 2.0 because they are the second version of National Standards for Music) as well. Our Standards are “not just” for discussion anymore. It’s time to move to the next phase of the operation, which involves implementation and adoption of some of the framework of these Standards into our state music standards. As one of our strategic objectives for the 2014–16 biennium in which I’m NAfME President is to implement the Standards, it seems appropriate as a prelude to this implementation process to think about what the Standards are and what they are not. This is the purpose of this column—to stipulate what the National Music Standards 2.0 ARE and what they are not. In the paragraphs that follow, I suggest that Standards 2.0 are (1) not a completely new entity unrelated to the 1994 Music Standards (but rather simply Version 2.0 of those initial standards), (2) not a national curriculum (but they do provide a framework for curriculum development), and (3) not a substitute for state music standards (but they do provide a starting point for thinking about what’s important to be taught and why).
1994 and the 2014 Music Standards—How Are They Connected?
The 1994 National Music Standards were all about products of music instruction. In fact, the cover of one of the versions of the 94 Standards had as a subtitle: What Every Young American Should Know and Be Able to Do in the Arts. What every student should be able to know and do in music was specified in the nine content standards, for example, to sing and perform on instruments a varied repertoire of music, compose, improvise, read notation, and evaluate music and music performances, among other skills.
Now, the 2014 National music standards have moved from a product to a process orientation. “[The 2014 National Music Standards] emphasize the process-oriented nature of the arts and arts learning. . . . No longer will we talk about standards as lists of what students should know and be able to do. Rather, we will talk about standards as measurable and attainable learning events based on artistic goals.” 1 As teachers look at the implications of these words as operationalized in the 2014 Music Performance Standards, they are asking questions: How are the 1994 Content Standards related to the 2014 Performance Standards? Why do the 2014 Standards seem completely new? Where are the knowledge and skills from the 1994 Content Standards that we worked so hard to help our students achieve in the 2014 Standards?
Well, the 2014 Standards are not completely new. They are simply the next version of Music Standards—Version 2.0—just as we have different versions of software programs. Those knowledge and skills are still just as important to achieve in 2014 as they were in 1994. They are necessary to be mastered in order to achieve the more process-oriented 2014 Standards. Let’s examine an example. The 2014 Ensemble Strand Performance Standard suggests that in order for a student to be labeled “proficient” in the performing component of “selecting” music (typically achieved at the end of high school study), he or she should be able to “[e]xplain the criteria used to select a varied repertoire to study based on an understanding of theoretical and structural characteristics of the music, the technical skill of the individual or ensemble, and the purpose or context of the performance.” 2 Will the student be able to achieve this standard without some knowledge of the “theoretical and structural aspects of music” and sufficient “technical skill” on his or her instrument or voice to know whether the music to be selected is too hard for the individual or group to play or sing? Absolutely not. Prerequisite knowledge and skills are “in there,” namely, necessary to achieve the 2014 Performance Standards.
Is there something new about the 2014 Standards? Yes—after all, the 2014 Standards are Version 2.0. In this example, the student—not just the teacher—is involved in selecting music. That doesn’t mean, however, that students are going to choose all the music you play or sing in a concert. Maybe they can be involved in a discussion in which they work with you to select from a list that you have provided of pieces or songs for a particular occasion.
Are the 2014 Standards a National Curriculum?
No, the revised Music Standards of 2014 are not a curriculum, but they do provide a framework for curriculum. All American students are not required to master the same subject-matter content in a particular discipline, as is the case in many countries of the world. 3 In countries that do have national curricula, all third-grade general music classes would be on or near the same page in the same music book, singing the same songs at a specified point in the school year. In the United States, the responsibility for the education of our young people resides in local communities, and these communities receive their mandate to educate the citizenry from the state. The states typically provide guidelines for developing curriculum content in the form of curriculum guides or curriculum framework documents. The very nature of curriculum, a set of planned experiences to promote learning, suggests that the learning experiences planned for students will vary from state to state and from district to district because the scheduling, staffing, facilities, equipment, and curriculum goals are different.
The 2014 National Music Standards, however, do suggest (remember that these 2014 Arts Standards are voluntary standards) that a primary goal of music education should be to develop artistic literacy: “the knowledge and understanding required to participate authentically in the arts.” 4 Furthermore, the 2014 National Music Standards are built around a series of three artistic processes—performing, creating, and responding—just as the two most recent Standards-influenced National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) assessments in music were. These processes, along with the idea of “connecting,” which is embedded in these processes, provide an excellent framework or scaffold on which many layers of excellent music learning experiences may be designed to meet local community goals and aspirations.
Are Standards 2.0 a Substitute for State Music Standards?
Again, the answer is no. For the very reasons cited in the preceding paragraphs, education is a local and state function. Education is not mentioned in our U.S. constitution. Just as many states used the 1994 Music Standards as the basis for their state standards, so it is projected that the new 2014 Music Standards will become the framework for many states’ revised music standards. One such example has already received State Department of Education approval in Nebraska. 5
Indeed, the Music Standards 2.0 are not just for discussion anymore. They are ready to be used as the basis for state music standards when the states’ standards revision cycles are imminent and as the basis for developing learning experiences (curriculum) for students to develop the music literacy that will serve them for a lifetime.
