A very serious issue

SAVE THE I.M.S.

For once I am going to be serious.

For those who haven't yet heard the proposed "re-evaluation" (SA Govt code for 'destruction') of the Instrumental Music Service, here's the lowdown:

In short, the previous Instrumental Music service provided to the public school service allows 9000 children in 350 schools across the state to receive free small group or individual tuition on a musical instrument of their choices up until Year 12. This includes services to country areas and in areas where perhaps, parents are unable to afford private tuition. The children were able to choose whether or not they learned an instrument and they could choose WHICH instrument they would like to learn, with expert guidance as to which instrument was better suited to them.
However, after the government's review of music education recently, this is the ill-informed crap that Jane Lomax Smith and the unsympathetic beaurocrats at DECS have decided for 9000 children for 2008.

The New DECS Music Service

Early Years – R - 4 Creating Opportunities through building capacity
• DECS will support the delivery of holistic classroom music programs in the early years through a trial of good practice and Professional Development support in music education for teachers R-4.

Year 5 - Creating Opportunities through equal access to instrumental tuition
• DECS will provide the opportunity for every year 5 student to learn a musical instrument in class groups. This ‘whole-class’ model will be rolled out into primary schools over the next five years.
• Music Service teachers will work with class teachers in a team teaching model to deliver instrumental instruction to whole classes in the same instrument, like-instrument (e.g. brass) or mixed instrument classes.
• IMS staff will be invited to express interest in teaching the first stage of the Creating Opportunities roll out.

Years 6-7
• Following whole class tuition in year 5, DECS will provide the opportunity for years 6 - 7 students, interested in continuing to learn an instrument, to do so through instruction in groups/ensembles of approximately 15 students.

Years 8-12
• All schools with secondary enrolments will receive 1.5 hours of ensemble tuition.
• Seventy scholarships will be offered to particularly talented country secondary students to enable individual or small group instruction.
• The four metropolitan Special Interest Music Centres will continue to receive support from the DECS Music Service


DECS Music Service Teacher location
• All Instrumental teachers will be based in schools with primary enrolments (one teacher per school) from the start of 2008 and will travel to deliver services to a cluster of adjacent schools.
• Teachers who are currently appointed part-time to a school and part time to the IMS will remain based at their present school.
• School principals will be the day-to-day line managers for Music Service teachers.
• Music Service management will remain responsible for appointment, deployment, lesson allocations, student data, music professional development, instrumental music teaching methodology, curriculum development and matters involving non-school expenditure.
• Expressions of Interest will be sought from principals in hosting a music service teacher.
• Music Service staff will be matched to schools/clusters, requiring their expertise.
• The base school will be no more than 45km (metro) or 70km (country) from a teacher’s home.
• No decision has been taken re the future of the Klemzig and Dover Gardens offices. Appropriate discussions will need to occur.

Professional Development
• Professional development will be provided to assist staff through the transition to whole-class/large group tuition.

Current IMS Programs and Transition
• Small group tuition will be phased out from all schools.
• To accommodate the new initiatives, allocations to current primary and secondary IMS programs will be reduced by approximately 20% per annum each year for five years, commencing in 2008.
• Current students will continue to receive small group tuition through to year 12, if required.
• The only intake of beginner students will be in year 5.
• HUBS and PODS will have no new students in 2008. Continuing students will continue to receive tuition in ensembles.


Why this is a stupid idea and will NOT WORK!

I am a woodwind musician and an instrumental music teacher (in the private sector) who benefited from the IMS in public school system in the early 1990s. My parents could NOT AFFORD private tuition and my primary school did not offer music as a specialised subject. I had to wait until I was twelve until I could get free lessons at high school. If it wasn't for this, I would be probably a factory worker now. I have since then undertaken an honours degree in music performance and have performed in many ensembles of both a professional and community nature.

Music is an amazing tool of expression, and instrumental music is a perfect way for children to gain confidence, learn about perseverance, make friends and above all, experience the joy of music. This idea is, to put it simply, LUDICROUS.

Everyone who knows even the most minute detail about music knows that individual or specialised attention is required for any child or adult to learn a musical instrument. As one guest speaker said at the rally yesterday, "you wouldn't expect someone to learn to drive a car in groups of 30." Imagine this......30 kids forced to learn an instrument that they don't like, or even worse, doesn't suit them physically, in one class.

Imagine the lack of discipline, the noise, the horrible tuning of 30 beginner Year 5 violin students playing at once (or worst still, 30 trumpet players). It's hard enough to keep 2 chatty kids concentrating, let alone 30. Music is a specialised subject. This government wouldn't expect children to be forced to play basketball for a year if it didn't suit them physically or if they hated it. Why is this ANY DIFFERENT? .

And those children to whom the instrument is suited will receive less than adequate tuition and will probably lose interest in the music programme. Those children with talent or dedication will not be able to advance as they should because they will be lumbered with children who aren't as gifted, interested or dedicated to the instrument. Children learn at vastly different rates. You can't expect children to read music, to produce equal tones on the instrument, to be able to play the same piece of music together at the same level. I currently have five Year 8 students that began the same day. One child is barely able to produce a sound still and still struggles to put the instrument together whilst another is progressing very steadily towards a grade 2 AMEB level.

And what about kids that want to do music at a senior level. It's either 'ensemble tuition' or 'private lessons paid for by the parent'. So, as usual, it's the kids with rich parents who will be the ones with access to the jobs in music performance, not the ones in poorer families who are naturally more talented and hardworking at the instrument.

They call this a 'trial' period. What trial???? This proposal will in short, destroy the current IMS service, redistribute the teachers and stop any children from learning instruments individually in EVERY year except year 5. This is not a trial. Once it starts, there's no turning back. Too much damage will be already done and it'll be too costly to re-establish the IMS once it is disbanded which is what will happen in 2008 if this will go ahead. Not to mention that we would have lost most of the qualified music teachers to private systems and other non-arts related occupations because their current jobs are under threat.

The future implication for arts of all kinds in this state will be DISASTROUS. The future of our qualified music teachers' jobs aside, the problems this will cause in other organisations in the arts are undeniable. Most of these organisations are likely to collapse due to lack of interest and also lack of local talent.

• Parents in poorer families now forced to pay for their children's continued music tuition will be forced to cut tuition in other areas such as dance, sport, community drama and other extra-curricular activities. Therefore, enrolments in extracurricular subjects such as ballet, gymnastics, singing and drama amongst other areas will suffer as a result. Sports teams will have their numbers cut because parents will only be able to afford one activity.
• The Elder Conservatorium will be forced to make cuts to the education programmes offered in music due to the lack of talent auditioning for university programmes from graduates of high schools that have poor music programmes. Eventually, it will close all together because the institution will become a laughing stock and no one will wish to attend music degrees in such a low-arts-focused state.
• Schools such as the four Specialist Music Centres (Marryatville, Woodville, Brighton and Fremont) will be forced to lower their standards of entry as feeder schools will not be providing potential musicians. Their credibility will be destroyed. Competition for private tuition and private schools will be tough, less scholarships awarded and private teachers (particularly in popular instruments such as piano, guitar or drums) will be worked to their limits until they will have to turn potential new students away disappointed.
• Due to the lack of excellence in music tuition, art professions will suffer such as the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, State Opera, music festivals, the Fringe (no local acts will be good enough to play) as there will no longer be people playing at the excellent standard currently available. These organisations will be forced to limit their repertoire due to depleting musicians and therefore this will hurt box offices takings. No doubt, the government will 'reevaluate' the viability of having these organisations in South Australia at all if it is no longer a financial success.
• Visiting international artists will no longer want to visit our state as there will be no musicians to play with at the standard they would expect from their associate artists. Local bands such as Goose and Marmalade Circus (and other bands made up of many DECS educated musicians and teachers etc) will be hard pressed to find musicians with enough skill to play with them. South Australia will quickly become the state of artistic mediocrity and eventually, the 'festival state' will be damaged forever. As one speaker said our slogan is 'SA Great', not 'SA Average'. Would you hire someone to play in your band who had been tutored with 30 other kids on an instrument he/she didn't choose?
• Community ensembles such as brass bands, orchestras, concert bands and choirs will be forced to rely on the older members of the ensembles to carry through as there will be no younger players coming in. Eventually these people become too old and retire, therefore causing the ensembles to collapse through lack of membership.
• Amateur musical theatre will no longer be operable as no properly qualified or trained singers will be around to play the parts. And even if they were, there would be no orchestra to accompany them as there will be no-one in the state good enough to play the music. And those who are will either be too old or too busy covering the entire arts community of the state to do it.
• Those few musicians in the state who have been forced into privately paid tuition will take jobs in other states as there will be no performance opportunities left in the state. And they'll stay interstate. Womad, the Festival of the Arts, the Fringe will be moved to Victoria or NSW.

There are many other terrible and drastic implications from this ridiculous proposal. But the most scarily problematic one is that most children educated in the public school system SIMPLY will not get the chance to learn an instrument at all. As far as this 'new and improved' service is concerned, if you're not in Year 5, tough shit. How is this an improved service? Thousands of children across the state will simply be denied the chance to learn at all or to even get a glimpse at what could be. Not everybody can afford $1000 a year in instrumental tuition and by the time the child earns enough money to pay for lessons themselves, it'll be too late for them to have a career in music. You wouldn't expect parents to fork out $1000 a year to learn maths, or science, or P.E. And rightfully so.

But of course, in a country that doesn't take the arts seriously, what do you expect? The day they cut the sport budget in this state will be the end of civilisation as we know it. But they're quite happy to destroy 9000 children's potential for a happy satisfying musical life.

And all this from a Rann government that claims to be 'for the common people' and pro arts! What a joke!

My suggestion if this goes ahead is to organise a public performance in the foyer outside Jane Lomax Smith's office of all the students in the state learning a musical instrument in a group of 15 or more. I think it'll take about 2 minutes of listening to it for them to re-evaluate their plan entirely.