Why do we need a tent, if we already have an umbrella?
Last week I was at a meeting comprising teachers, music hubs and services, and a range of music education organisations. Convened under the title of the 'big tent', the purpose of this meeting was to produce guidance documents for schools on curriculum and assessment/progression....
Last week I was at a meeting comprising teachers, music hubs and services, and a range of music education organisations. Convened under the title of the 'big tent', the purpose of this meeting was to produce guidance documents for schools on curriculum and assessment/progression....
A subsequent blog by one of those attending, opened with the infamous Henley statement. "The Music Education world is fragmented and uncoordinated". It was fragmented well before Henley and shows no real signs of becoming significantly less fragmented....
These two 'triggers' prompt me to share some reflections that have been on my mind for some time. My initial reaction, on hearing of the initial 'big tent' proposal, was why do we need this? After all, we already have an umbrella organisation – the Music Education Council [MEC].
Well, an umbrella it may be, but it is one that does not work very well. Like most umbrellas, there comes a time when it needs repairing or replacing. That time has surely come for our umbrella.
In brief, here is what I think is wrong with our 'umbrella' and some thoughts on how we can fix it.
The first thing to say is that MEC is not strictly speaking a council. The members of MEC are there by subscription, not election. Pay your subs and you are on the council! And over 70 organisations have chosen to do this. So you have Music Industries Association.... and also a string of commerical companies; Music Mark.... and also several music hubs and services; Association of British Orchestras and various orchestra education departments. ...and so on. An undifferentiated and unregluated hotch potch of a membership.
I'm sure those who have joined MEC find it to be a really useful great networking and sharing forum and there is nothing wrong with that. And there is no question that those in MEC care deeply about music education and are working hard to make it better. But it is not an umbrella – it is not a council. Our music education umbrella needs to cover ALL those involved in music education in a much more democratic, organised and strategic way. At the moment, it doesn't.
The other issue that MEC needs to address is to do with communications. There may be all sorts of things happening in the MEC umbrella, but most of us never get to hear about it. The website is virtually static [one news item per month on average] and use of other social networking comms is minimal. As a consequence, many in music education have never even heard of MEC and those who have, don't really know what they do.
So I call upon Dick Hallam to do something bold and significant during his tenure as MEC President – time to stop shuffling the deckchairs:
- Strip the membership down to the dozen or so major organisations who represent all in music education in a more balanced way.
- Communicate more effectively - seminar writeups or better still, live streaming; a much more active and vibrant website; more effective strategic and visible lobbying.
- Take the lead in pulling together organisations as and when required. Don't leave it to others to set up big tents or launch campaigns which really require a whole sector approach.