Thirty years ago, today, May 9th 1986, I lost one of my first great mentors in music education, Dr. Russell P. Getz. Dr. Getz had recently finished his 2 year tenure as MENC (now NAfME) president, and in the Spring of 1986 was on sabbatical researching the music of his beloved Ephrata Cloisters. Our time together was relatively brief, yet he was, and is, a profound influence. To teach music, to him, was a form of activism, and I recall one of his stories about a music educator who would say, "you fight for your program until your head is bloody (figuratively speaking), then you come out, clean up, and you go right back in and fight again."Getz was a man of passion for music education, who spoke his mind, and did not suffer fools gladly. Before, during, and after his tenure as MENC president, he pushed for expanding curricula beyond performance; searching for ways to reach more students, to give them a greater say in the classroom, and to strengthen teacher education programs. Getz also sought ways to incorporate then budding music education technologies and the use of electronics. I vaguely recall some rather primitive theory exercises on an Apple IIe, yet we were caught up in his enthusiasm for being on the "cutting edge."
Finally, Getz believed that if you were going to be an activist on behalf of your students and music education in general, you needed to be an active member in local, state, and national organizations. We all joined MENC our first year and I've remained a member since.
"Active," though, is another story. I pay my dues, go to conferences from time to time, submit proposals to present, and send students to state festivals, but is this enough? Can I/should I do more? It is a strange coincidence that I find myself reflecting upon Dr. Getz at the same time our NAfME board is confronting allegations its executive director made comments about a lack of diversity in our leadership that, if true, were ill-informed and frankly, thoughtless. I hope our board will be open about sharing exactly what was said, and why he apparently left the meeting.
Keep in mind, we vote for our organizations' presidents: local, state, divisional, and national. Part of the diversity issue comes from a degree of membership apathy, no? I can't tell you when I last took the time to read a bio on who was running for national office. It's also been awhile since I cast a vote for NAfME president. NAfME is like a distant planet to those of us teaching on the public school assembly line, just trying to keep our programs afloat and vital. Many of us see and teach over 200 students per day, everyday. Like unions, we pay our dues and expect our leadership to lobby and represent us. Then we largely ignore them until we need them. As with any elected body, they tend to reflect the membership who vote. This is not an excuse, just the reality I see. Perhaps it is different elsewhere. That would be heartening.
Meanwhile, if we are keeping even one eye on the ball, it should be apparent, that the increasing diversity of our country is not reflected in the makeup of NAfME, and that this is a problem. I am angered by the alleged comments/actions of our executive director and by the lack of diversity on our board, but I am equally troubled by a membership that seems either surprised by this, or is largely unaware. Why do we, as in so many areas of public life, wait for the inevitable flash point before we react to the larger problem? I attended the NAfME conference in October and was horrified at the presentation by a keynote speaker, Allen Vizzutti. Then I looked around at the audience applauding him and understood. I spoke to this soon after the event on Facebook. For me, his talk was as much an affront to diversity as Butera's alleged comments, but went mostly unnoticed, despite my efforts to get the word out. If Vizzutti's talk was not vetted, it should have been, but the positive reception he received from so many fellow members is troublesome and a wake up call.
My mentor, Russell Getz, decried what he felt was too passive a membership and advocated for ways to encourage participation and advocacy at all levels. Apparently, we have a ways to go, but perhaps this is a call to action. We can look to the board for answers and ownership of the problem, but as members we should look to ourselves as well. Don't just join the organization, be the organization. Speak up, write letters, by all means get involved, run for office, especially encourage those you feel would bring a new voice to do the same, and most importantly, be informed and vote!
