Why one school board
believes studying music is essential for all
CBC
Radio · Posted: Mar 16, 2018 5:04 PM MDT | Last Updated: July 13,
2018
There are
bitter public clashes over cuts to music programs in many schools. But the
Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board has bucked that trend.
By
David Gutnick
[Originally published on March 18,
2018]
Seventeen-year-old
Evan Tanovich is wiry, articulate and intense — so full of energy that you can
almost hear him buzzing. The Grade 12 student at Assumption College Catholic
High School in Windsor, Ont., is also an accomplished composer. He's had some of
his compositions performed by professional musicians.
Evan
credits his music teacher Brian Zanier with changing his life: Zanier was the
one who told him he should write down the sounds swirling around in his head.
Now Evan keeps a notebook in his pocket at all times.
"It
contains all of my musical ideas that I've written on the bus, or in my English
class if it gets a little boring," he says. "Because I have the
competent knowledge to be able to transcribe that on a piece of paper, it
allows me to say what I want to say beyond the confines and boundaries of our
language."
Zanier's
classes are crowded with teenagers like Evan, eager to explain how their
musical worlds are expanding:
"It
is all the same: every style, it is just the same, notes and rhythms,"
says one student.
"It
is something you look forward to at the end of the day," says another.
"I start my day off with a music class, and I end off with band: it is a
great time."
17-year-old
Evan Tanovich keeps this notebook in his pocket so he doesn't forget the
musical snippets he composes. (David Gutnick/CBC)
They are
lucky. Music education has been under siege in Ontario over the past two
decades — trained music teachers cut, programs shrunk. According to a study
published in 2017 by the Ontario-based lobby group People for Education, only
41 per cent of Ontario schools now have trained music teachers. That's an eight
per cent decline in the past six years.
The
Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board has bucked that trend,
however. It is committed to making sure every child in its 42 schools gets
the chance to study music with teachers who know more than how to whistle a
tune.
We believe
that they need to have music and the arts as much as they need math and
science, as much as they need literature, French language — whatever interests
these children have.- Barbara Holland, Chair of the Windsor Catholic school
board
"Music
is ingrained in the culture here," says Mike Seguin, the board's
superintendent of education and student achievement, pointing out that Windsor
sits just across the river from the musical hothouse of Detroit.
Seguin
himself is a professional trumpet player who plays in a local jazz band and
occasionally with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra. His day job is keeping the
school board's music programs healthy and growing, with concert bands, rock
bands, choirs, musical theatre and general music appreciation.
Every
elementary school student has at least one music class a week taught by a
teacher with a degree in music. All eight high schools have full-time music
specialists, as do some of the elementary schools.
What makes
the Windsor-Essex school board's commitment to music all the more hard-fought
is that the last 10 years have been hard on the city of
220,000 — once called "Canada's automotive capital."
Downtown storefronts are boarded up; abandoned auto parts factories are covered
in graffiti.
There are
signs Windsor's economy is back on the upswing, with the welcome news that
Fiat-Chrysler will be building its new van here and Ford will be building new
engines.
But the
2008 recession took a toll. As unemployment spiked, people moved away in search
of work — and school enrolments plummeted.
The
Windsor Catholic school board made some tough and unpopular decisions: shutting
down schools, laying off teachers and closing school libraries. However, it
wasn't enough to balance the board's books, and in 2012, the Ontario government
stepped in to co-manage the board for a year to get it back on track.
"It
was a defining moment," recalls Barbara Holland, the board's chair.
Commissioners decided that students would not be served if the entire system
was "stripped down to the bone."
In
financial crunch times, choirs, musicals and concert bands often take the hit.
When you
are creative, when you can work independently, and you are self-disciplined and
you can work as a team, you are going to do great whatever you do... That is
the beauty of music education.- Brian Zanier, music teacher at Assumption
College
The
Coalition for Music Education is struggling to compile national statistics on
cuts to programs. Most schools still claim to offer music to their students.
But with fewer music specialists, more and more classes are delivered by people
with no training — a gym teacher who happens to play guitar, the head
of the math department who's a garage band guy.
In Nova
Scotia, Alberta and B.C., there have been bitter public clashes over the future
of music programs in the schools.
When
Holland and her fellow commissioners were cutting costs in Windsor, parents
made it clear that music programs were not to be touched, and the board got the
message.
"We
believe that they need to have music and the arts as much as they need math and
science, as much as they need literature, French language — whatever interests
these children have," Holland said.
"Every
time there is a change in political parties there could be a different mantra,
and sometimes it is, 'we expect you to do more with less,'" said Holland,
a lifelong citizen of Windsor.
"Well,
to me, growing up as the daughter of an autoworker, that was always the
challenge. But my mom and dad never said you have to do more with less. They
said we are going to do better with what we have."
In other
words, it is not guns or butter. It's robotics and Rachmaninoff. And Bob
Seger.
Well, if
not Bob Seger, at least, Robert Franz. Franz, the conductor of the Windsor
Symphony Orchestra, was treated like a bit of a rock star when he showed up
recently to St. Ann High School to work with music teacher Grant Bergeron and
his concert band musicians.
Franz
visits Windsor schools whenever his busy schedule allows.
A
49-year-old American in running shoes, Franz is also the associate director of
the Houston symphony. He is both funny and serious and treats the teenagers
like colleagues.
He says
that in Windsor he has found "a passion and a commitment to the arts and
to arts education that is second to none and really, really makes it an
impressive place to be."
Franz says
that he cannot understand why some school boards are cutting music when there
is more and more evidence that music is good for the brain.
"You
have to have kids who understand math and science," he says."The arts
teaches us what to do with things. How do we experience them?"
Music
teacher Brian Zanier is on the same wavelength. On the wall of his band room in
Assumption College, there is a banner emblazoned with a quote from Albert
Einstein: "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
"I
always tell the kids, 'Who knows what you are going to be doing in the
future,'" says Zanier. "But when you are creative, when you can work
independently, and you are self-disciplined and you can work as a team, you are
going to do great whatever you do."
"That,"
says Zanier, "is the beauty of music education."
©2024 CBC/Radio-Canada.
All rights reserved.