Abstract
“We allow our end to be our beginning.”—Susan Wharton Conkling
As I began to think about the direction of my first “From the Chair” column for JMTE, I went back to read the first such column by my dear friend and mentor, the late Susan Conkling (2014). Susan was a shining light in the field of music teacher education, serving as Chair of SMTE and as a trusted colleague and teacher to so many of us. Although I was never a formal student of Susan’s, she is the reason I find myself in this privileged position today. I dedicate this column, and my service as Chair of SMTE, to her.
In her first column, Susan wrote about beginnings and endings, and I can think of no better topic to begin my series. Beginnings and endings are an inevitable part of life, and it is natural to consider the regular cycle of the seasons, academic years, or professional stages as conclusions/preludes. However, the COVID-19 pandemic represents a different kind of end-beginning, something more objective and universal. For the first time in many of our lives, the global community had to face an unavoidable crisis which touched all aspects of life, including education. Although the pandemic continues—with incessant spread and new variants around each corner—many of us have resumed something resembling normal, although we know that “normal” does not mean a return to life circa 2019. Even if the COVID-19 pandemic eventually recedes into a minor concern (and that is not at all certain), the climate crisis, growing economic inequality, a precarious global political environment, and war all assure that we will live in dangerous and unpredictable times for the foreseeable future.
Transitions, as threatening as they may be, also offer opportunities. In education, we witnessed such an opportunity at the beginning of the pandemic. As schools went virtual, we saw many messages on social media praising teachers, as many parents and caregivers realized what a difficult task education is. Teachers stood as “heroes” next to frontline workers and service industry employees—those who bore the brunt of the risk to keep our society running and to maintain our children’s educational momentum.
However, once schools returned to in-person instruction, we saw the return of the old, familiar (although now strengthened) attacks on public education. Lauded as “heroes” just months prior, teachers once again face fierce opposition from both the right-neoconservative a center-left-neoliberal camps. Both sides invoke the false “teacher shortage” to justify their positions. Although it is only one perspective, at my institution, we had a record number of student teachers in music this past spring (66), and we should break that record this coming spring. We also had a record number of applicants to the music education major last year. It may not be the case everywhere, but we are seeing a sustained interest (or even an increase) in students seeking to become music teachers. The problem in our local context is that so many teachers quit early in their careers. Why? The neoconservative (attacking the LGBTQ community, taking over school boards and banning books, accusing teachers of being “groomers,” digging through teachers’ social media to “expose” them, etc.) and the neoliberal (the marketization of education with school choice and charter schools, applying a business ontology to public education) have degraded the teaching profession almost beyond repair. Both these strategies work toward the same goal, if from opposite political directions: the destruction of public education as a collectively funded public good and its replacement with an individualized (either through the market or through religious/nationalistic ideology) education that works through capitalistic, consumer logics. These attacks decrease the social and, crucially, the material support for education—many teachers cannot afford basic rent in their own communities.
Some states and school districts have correctly identified the “teacher shortage” for what it is—a labor issue—and have taken the appropriate steps to mitigate it. Specifically, some districts have offered increased pay and other material supports for teachers. However, many other jurisdictions have adopted the misguided approach of placing the blame on teachers themselves. For example, in my state of Texas, some policymakers have ignored the deficiencies in the material supports for teachers and have instead pointed to teacher preparation as the key to combating the teacher shortage, arguing that more “rigorous” teacher preparation will lead to better qualified and, thus, less-likely-to-quit teachers. This approach is a thin disguise for pushing for-profit teacher evaluation systems such as the edTPA.
Blaming teachers for the manufactured teacher shortage is a symptom of a deeper issue—looking inward for immanent solutions to problems that arise out of larger social antagonisms. Recently, I read philosopher Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò’s (2022) excellent book, Elite Capture, which provides the useful conceptual framework of the “room.” Although Táíwò uses the “room” to describe the institutional structures that elites control through leveraging identity politics to serve their own ends, it is also a constructive metaphor for considering how we tackle issues such as the lack of support for teachers. By looking only within our room—to our university teacher education programs and state credentialing standards—we miss the struggles of those outside the room, the teachers working in schools. We cannot “prepare” our way out of the crisis in education through a top-down, curricular, test-centered approach. Rather, we must look out the window to the material struggles of educators. Teachers do not need to be celebrated, honored, given more opportunities to wear jeans to work, or recognized through other purely symbolic or aesthetic means (although those things are fine on their own)—they need better pay, administrative support, and working conditions!
Given these tumultuous times—an ending of an era and a beginning of a new era which, unfortunately, includes the crises of old on an amplified, more urgent level—the work of the Society for Music Teacher Education is more important than ever. Remembering to look outside our “room,” we hold that teacher education goes well beyond the work of university teacher preparation programs and encompasses the entire lives of educators. We know that we cannot be neutral when it comes to fighting for better material conditions for preservice and in-service teachers. We must work in solidarity with educators and their allies in school board meetings, on the picket line, at the ballot box, in the classroom, and in the community.
At the same time, we must recognize that not all educators—especially novice teachers—may be aware of the precarious political situations in which they will find themselves. We can no longer deny that political education must be a part of teacher education at all levels, even if we will be accused of attempting “indoctrination” by those who wish us to perceive the status quo as non-political and the music classroom as apolitical. So, while we cannot prepare preservice teachers for every scenario they will face, we can do our best to open their eyes to the realities of today’s educational environment.
I close by thanking the outgoing members of the SMTE Executive Board for their years of outstanding, selfless service: James Austin, Kimberly Councill, Tami Draves, Brett Nolker, Crystal Sieger, and Linda Thornton. Finally, we welcome the newest members of the Board: Christopher Baumgartner, Colleen Conway, Sommer Forrester, Peter Hamlin, Daniel Hellman, and Ann Marie Stanley. All of us are here to serve you and are dedicated to making a better world for music education. I wish all of you a healthy and happy start to the new era.