Watching the decline (known among the "experts" in the capitol as "reform") of education in Florida is alarming to begin with, but recent hacking and slashing of the education budget has led school districts across the state to minimize or eliminate music education courses.
The attack on arts education is not new. Entire college courses for music majors are built around advocacy and the benefit of music education to students on academic, social, and personal levels. Music teachers are encouraged to pass the information along to parents in hopes that they, too, will advocate for school music programs. It seems like music teachers spend as much time defending their programs as they do running them.
And the reward for this, more often than not, echoes the response Richard Dreyfuss' character in Mr. Holland's Opus attempted to communicate to an unsupportive school board, when he found himself not only defending the value of music education, but his own integrity: "No, no. Do not misunderstand me. I am not talking about my job."
Well, since the drive-by experts won't listen to music teachers because they are supposedly more concerned with keeping their jobs, maybe they'll listen to the students who are affected by these cuts.
Patrick Prentice, a 13-year-old eighth grade student at Powell Middle School, which is designated by the county as a "performing arts theme school," is the first student to make it into the All-State band in ten years. The grueling audition, which took Patrick six months to prepare, included playing seven major scales in at least two octaves in under two minutes, a three-octave chromatic scale, two prepared exercises out of the Rubank Advanced Method for clarinet, and a sight-reading exercise. He first began playing clarinet in sixth grade in Powell Middle's band program, and also took piano lessons from All About Music under the direction of recording artist Bickley Rivera.
While Patrick's accomplishment is nothing short of monumental, it speaks volumes that Hernando's only performing arts middle school has produced just one All-State band student in the last ten years, and only with the help of a band director who no longer works for the school. With the exception of a few, most of the county's band programs (or any music programs) are not taken seriously. Nature Coast Technical High School, for example, has only one director for the band, chorus, and orchestra programs. Both West Hernando Middle School and Fox Chapel Middle School have combined the band and chorus programs. It is illogical to expect one director to give 100% to two or three programs. Furthermore, a click on the Music of Hernando County Schools website reveals that it hasn't even been updated in seven years.
Patrick has a message for the decision-makers, in this county and in the Governor's Mansion:
"It had been an agonizing six months of practicing for it, and now that I have made it, in addition to also being the first in 10 years from my school, it made me proud," he said. "Not only because I had done something I'd never thought I could do, but because I knew that the family and friends that surrounded me would also be proud to know of my accomplishment.
"Music to me represents not just random notes on a musical staff, but rather a passion of mine that I hold near and dear to me. … Whether a drum made of animal hide or an electronic keyboard, music at my perspective represents the expressing of human emotion and a universal language that can be understood through any human ear."
Hey, politicians! Are you listening?
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