Policy can enable, impose, promote, encourage, nudge, control, and restrict.
All of these functions have the potential to benefit and impede music
education in different ways. Control is usually related to the use of resources, and control mechanisms can be made particularly strong by connecting reporting of results with the possibility of receiving future funding. In music education, where “results” can be long-term and hard to measure, strict accountability policies run the risk of creating too much pressure and thus becoming counterproductive, especially because students are often young and still finding their way.
Finland’s model of teacher professionalism is generally characterized by a high level of trust in teacher competence. Pedagogical decisions are decentralized, and teachers enjoy substantial autonomy in their everyday work. In arts education, local and school curricula are based on national core curricula for two different kinds of syllabi, one general and one extended;
both characterized by considerable flexibility. In addition, the national association of music schools gives recommendations on repertoire. This system presupposes the exercise of practical wisdom (prudence): it needs a wise interpreter who applies the general curricular norms in individual cases – for instance, during a music lesson – so that relevant circumstances are taken into account. Therefore, a teacher cannot just read curriculum texts or repertoire requirements without keeping in mind the various needs
MUSIC SCHOOLS AND HUMAN FLOURISHING / CECILIA BJÖRK / MARJA HEIMONEN
of individuals: students of different ages, who come from different kinds of families and places, and are learning music as part of how they live their lives.
Although Finnish music schools are expected to regularly and systematically evaluate their own activities, they are also trusted to elaborate their own curricula. As long as reflection and development are part of this process, students and their families are part of the dialogue, and schools are granted sufficient latitude to enact national policies in ways that work in their local contexts, the system can function very well. However, when policy frameworks leave room for interpretation, this deliberate openness may also be seen as empty space in which there is an opportunity to exercise power.
In such situations, there is always a risk that democracy and dialogue are replaced with the law of the strongest: traditions, routines and privileges may go unquestioned; one charismatic teacher or school director can impose a focus on certain students, genres, or instruments; and local governments can make decisions about music school funding which may be compatible with the letter of the law or the national curriculum, but not with its spirit.
The relation between central and local policies is vulnerable to dynamics of dominance and also to the insecurity of hasty reform. One such example is cited by Demerdzhiev (2014), who argues that in Bulgaria, the absence of a common development strategy has “left each music school to its own destiny” and to the perhaps arbitrary decisions of its director (Demerdzhiev 2014, p. 9). In Poland, on the other hand, education in music schools is described as “a matter of the highest social value, over which the State too keeps a watchful eye” (Riediger, Eicker & Koops 2010, p. 65). If such “watchful eyes” become overzealous for one reason or another, the system may
become too rigid, and some needs, new ideas, and possibilities may become invisible to both music schools and policy makers. A good balance between flexibility and regulation as well as between support and freedom seems to be most conducive to flourishing, both for different musical practices and for individual music school students.
Conclusions
Human flourishing is embedded in and dependent on a multiplicity of human cultures and practices. Music, in turn, is not a singular phenomenon but a complex set of cultural practices, each with their own way of defining goodness and quality. There are, as MacIntyre (2016) wryly observes,
“inconveniently many” ways in which human flourishing is conceived
(MacIntyre 2016, p. 27). Even within one and the same culture, he reminds us, “there are different ways of flourishing, given our differing abilities and circumstances” (p. 30). Recognizing this variety is central for our awareness of what national music school policies can enable and restrict.
Music schools need to assure their ability to see students as persons who are becoming involved in one or several musical practices: “on their way to becoming flourishing human beings [who] have the qualities of mind and character that enable them, in the company of others and through their relationship with others, to develop their powers, so that they achieve those goods that complete and perfect their lives” (MacIntyre 2016, p. 30). Just as importantly, each student is also involved in other social practices: as a child, a teenager, a family member, someone who has a personal history and a network of friends; as a member of one or several historical and new communities, including online communities, and as a citizen, a person who participates in and influences culture. If one or several of these dimensions of students’ lives are either unacknowledged or overemphasized, there is a risk that studying at a music school will impede rather than promote their flourishing as persons.
We suggest that practitioners, scholars and policy makers need to take complexity into account as a condition inherent in contemporary European music education. It requires time, patience, effort, and reflection to make wise policy decisions at national and regional levels. It also requires wisdom to enact those decisions in good ways in music schools, in classrooms, and in small everyday situations together with individual students. But rather than thinking of this task as a burden, dealing with complexity might be seen as a core activity for music schools, remarkable in its potential to generate worthwhile results. Along with and beyond the task of supporting music as a meaningful activity for young people, music schools that accept a broad, complex and nuanced view on music education are likely to make significant positive contributions to the lives of millions of students who – as part of their individual destinies – attend music schools week after week, year after year.
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MUSIC SCHOOLS AND HUMAN FLOURISHING / CECILIA BJÖRK / MARJA HEIMONEN
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MUSIC SCHOOLS AND HUMAN FLOURISHING / CECILIA BJÖRK / MARJA HEIMONEN
Introduction
Music education in Greece is provided by (state-funded) public music schools, private conservatories (except for a very few which belong to municipalities, such as Thessaloniki) and by the music departments of universities. Music as a school subject constitutes a minor part of the curriculum of general secondary schools, while some private secondary schools have a broadened curriculum including, in addition to other subjects, more extensive music lessons and instrumental training.
Since the establishment of music schools (in 1988), however, music education in Greece has gone through many changes. Music high schools (there are currently, in 2018, forty-eight all over the country, with six grades,) accept a certain number of students, depending on the potential and the infrastructure of each school, through exams for admission into the first year or qualification exams for the rest of the classes (provided there are available positions).