Abstract
Frustration is an unavoidable part of teaching. No educator has escaped feelings of disappointment and exasperation when we perceive that our students’ levels of commitment, drive, and accomplishment do not match our own. Teachers want the best for our students, and we have a strong desire for our students to learn from our experiences. It can be maddening when we feel students have not upheld their end of the bargain.
This issue was brought to the fore of professional discourse on February 15, 2024, when a Facebook post describing a music professor’s frustrations with his students went viral among music educators. The post garnered over 1,000 reactions and was shared over 1,000 times. The author of the post describes himself as a professor “at one of the preeminent, hardest-to-get-into music schools in the world, with supposedly the cream of the crop of music students.” His complaints might resonate with many teachers: His students often show up late and/or unprepared; they provide “nothing but lame excuses”; he worries that they will not be prepared for the unforgiving “real world” of professional music performance; and he laments “this culture of ‘everybody gets an A,’ ‘everybody gets a medal’” (Keezer, 2024).
Of course, for any educational progress to take place, students must be responsible for their own education, and not “merely willing objects of intervention rather than thinking and acting subjects who carry responsibility for their part of the educational process” (Biesta, 2017, p. 23). This requires us to view students as agents—subjects who exercise judgment to act. However, the view expressed in the aforementioned social media post echoes the neoliberal emphasis on individual accountability.
The term “responsibility” has been co-opted by neoliberals to give credit to, or place blame on, individuals for their level of success within our economic system. As a buzzword of meritocracy, “responsibility” is stripped of its collective meaning and reduced to individual effort. (Powell, 2023, 151) What this view ignores is structure—the conditions for agency (and, thus, responsibility).
By placing all blame on (and giving all credit to) individuals, we disregard the social context that works as the “other side of the coin” of agency. Students today are facing an overwhelming and (in the postwar era) unprecedented set of challenges. They are saddled with an enormous student loan debt (this is made more psychologically impactful for students majoring in disciplines without a high expected income), and they experience rising rent and living expenses which far outpace their earnings. Students in the arts are seeing their job prospects dwindle due to austerity measures, the waning cultural/commercial relevance of “classical” forms, and an increased reliance on/preference for technology over human musical production. War rages throughout the world, as we ingest news of hundreds killed each day in unspeakable acts of violence. Social injustices deepen as political parties engage in cynical, performative conflicts for power at the expense of the citizenry. We have yet to come to terms with the collective trauma of the pandemic. We wonder how much longer Earth will be habitable by the human species (as I type these words, it is 93 degrees Fahrenheit on February 27). Stepping back, it can seem miraculous (and even puzzling) that any young person would want to engage in the formal study of music at all.
Complexities define any social system. Of course there are individuals who take advantage of difficult situations. For every student who needs patience, an extension, or grace, there is a student who needs our support through clarity of expectations and firm deadlines. The point is not to dismiss personal responsibility as a necessary part of the educational process but to try to understand the ground from which these struggles with meeting predetermined institutional expectations arise.
A response gained traction in the days after Keezer’s original, as James Falzone’s (2024) rebuttal garnered over 1,000 reactions and over 500 shares. Falzone makes a compelling counterargument in three areas: (a) The general crisis in higher education has led to a mistrust and devaluation of the institution, (b) the lack of teaching prowess by many instructors at the higher education level which results in an understandable disinvestment by students, and (c) a focus on individual effort and commitment accompanied by an ignorance of systems and structures (an argument that aligns with my own from above). While expressing an empathy with the frustrations of educators and affirming the dedication and talent of Prof. Keezer and those who share his exasperation (something I endorse), Falzone’s post is a compelling argument for care, compassion, student-centered teaching, and systemic thinking in higher music education.
If we are truly invested in students’ flourishing (and I believe that the overwhelming majority of higher music education faculty indeed do care deeply about students), then we must work to address the structural barriers rather than (only) complaining about “kids these days.” The systemic issues that deeply affect our students can only be addressed by lending our time, energy, money, and support to those in a position to enact tangible reforms. Unless accompanied by calls for structural change, general complaints about students come across as privileged whining. Among the many structural changes we could make to provide a more stable ground for student agency are:
Free or reduced cost college
Affordable healthcare (including mental healthcare)
Affordable and dependable child care
Rent control and solutions to housing supply issues
Support for student workers and contingent faculty through organized labor
Improving accessibility on campus and the surrounding community
Increased academic counseling support
Responsive, relevant curricula
Although the work is never complete or enough, from its inception, the Society for Music Teacher Education has centered systemic, “sociological” issues in music teacher education. Our areas for strategic planning and action (ASPAs) (see https://smte.us/aspas/) focus on such structural issues as curricular reform, health and wellness, program admission practices, and social justice. The pages of the Journal of Music Teacher Education reflect the work of a community of scholars focused on the social and cultural contexts within which our students live, work, and learn. I am proud to be a member of a community that seeks to understand the communal roots of our students’ obstacles, rather than seeking to dwell on their individual faults. While we all experience frustrations, a holistic approach to student growth allows us to see the complexities at play.