A New Philosophy Of Education - Part 1

A colleague of mine asked me if I had a philosophy of education. “Of course, I did,” I replied. I took an entire philosophy of education class which culminated in my philosophy of education paper. Philosophy is an integral part of my work as an educator, so I found part of this paper, which I published on my blog back in 2012.

Oh boy. So, I wrote this thing back in 2005, before I had never taught in a classroom. Reflecting on my “ivory tower” setting, this statement has no connection to current issues and the needs of society. Instead, it is very much about the idea of music education as a study that somehow has meaning within, well, the search for musical meaning.

A lot has changed in the sixteen years since I wrote this philosophy statement. I see myself more as an “educator” than a “music educator.” Back then, I was dedicated to studying music pedagogy, and now I find myself spending most of my professional development improving my skills as a diversity practitioner. I had visions of being a music teacher, waving a baton in front of advanced wind ensembles and marching bands, and now I find satisfaction teaching 5th graders camp songs and teaching band students about issues with whiteness in the music education.

More importantly, my understanding of the world has changed. In the past sixteen years, I’ve learned about privilege, systemic racism, systems of oppression, the myth of meritocracy, the false dichotomy of gender, a social construct, intersectionality, and other topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. In addition, I’ve made progress in my identity development and embraced my own identity as a person of color. All of these things have become central to my work as an educator.

So clearly, I have some work to do on this philosophy thing.

Every educator should have a why behind what they do. A strong philosophy defines values, and choices that we make are based on these values.  This is how educators make many difficult decisions every day, which are often made very quickly.

In the past year and a half, the ability to make decisions has been one of the most important and most difficult parts of being an educator. While teaching during a pandemic, there were many moments that decisions were easy, but many more times when decisions were hard. Never before have the consequences of educators making wrong decisions have been dire, and at times fatal.

What is my philosophy of education that guided me through this school year?

I’m going to have to think on this one, but I’ll share one thought.

Education helps students better understand the facets of their own identity and the lived experiences of others. Students explore the different academic disciplines in this pursuit, which provides them with experiences with the different ways that people have sought truth: objective, scientific and emotional.  It is in understanding truths and in the pain and trauma of our past and present, that students find purpose and meaning. It is studying different ways that people have told the story of the human experience that students learn to tell their own students, and it is through education that students are empowered to use these stories to create a more equitable world.

It’s a start. I’ll keep working on it.

Parenthood: Week 428 - Holding Hands With Family

 “Ollie, hold hands as you cross the street.”

Without hesitation, he grabbed the hand of his cousin standing next to her. She held his hand firmly as they crossed the street and continued for a block.  Later, I saw another glimpse that I saw of their relationship. She was patient as they sat on swings next to each other. She gracefully pumped his legs as Ollie struggled to get his swing going. They both giggled together as I attempted to teach Ollie how to use his legs and shift his weight to get his swing moving.

Ollie told me a couple of days earlier that he was worried about seeing his cousin. He told me that he had to “prepare” to see her. I asked him what he meant. Ollie told me that he hadn’t seen her in a long time, and the last he talked to her was on Zoom, and it was weird. I assured him that everyone has weird experiences over Zoom and that she would be happy to see him.  When they saw each other for the first time in person after two years, it was a little awkward. Ollie stayed close to me as she waved at him.

He said “hi” softly, and they didn’t talk much. They didn’t know how to greet each other, but it didn’t matter because they knew how to be with and for each other. Soon after this encounter, they were playing as if no time had passed.

Later that morning at the park, I remember playing with Ethan, and I thought to check in on Ollie and his cousin. I looked around and saw them off in the distance, sitting under a tree and chatting. I wanted to go over and see what they were talking about, but I pushed away my curiosity and decided it was best to let them have this moment to themselves.

*****

As we walked into the Asian grocery store, Ollie was excited. We recently watched Wish Dragon, and he had heard some stories from Chinese culture on a podcast. 

 

This got him interested in trying starfruit and shrimp chips. I told him to ask my mom, his pó po, about what he wanted. She showed him the starfruit and picked out a couple for him. As we went deeper into the store, we approached the ready-made food area. Instead of having chicken salad, fried chicken, and cheese, they had Asian specialties like tonkatsu, hanging roast duck, and chicken feet.

My mom asked me if Ollie wanted anything. He nodded to me, yes, and my mom reached out her hand. Ollie went up to her, stood by her side, and explained all of the different kinds of food on display.

As I watched Ollie and my mom holding hands and looking at the food, I felt pride and gratitude. My mom wasn’t just explaining the food to Ollie; she was doing so much more. She was teaching him about his heritage and who he was as an Asian-American.  Later that day, when my mom prepared the starfruit for Ollie, she was giving him so much more than fruit.

Year 11 – Week 40: Private Vs. Public

One of the things that became clear in many communities is that private schools were more likely to be in-person during our ongoing pandemic than public schools. This was the case in Chicago, where I teach, and in Evanston, where I live.

From my experience and anecdotal knowledge, in-person teaching with COVID-19 mitigations was more effective than remote learning. Were there exceptions to this? Of course.  It will take time to research and understand these differences thoroughly, but from what I saw and the information I have gathered, it’s not even close. In-person was better.

Why were the private schools able to be in-person?

As not to overly generalize, I’m going to speak specifically about my school.

There are several reasons my school is able to open in person. First off, like many other private schools, we had bigger budgets than many other schools.  Also, we had more flexibility in their budgets. Reallocating money into different parts of the budget is not a big challenge in my school.  Money solved many issues when it came to being in-person. We were able to hire more assistant teachers. There was more money that could spent on cleaning and supplies.

One of my jobs as music department chair is managing our budget. We spent a lot of money on things that were not budget for. We bought microphones for students to record music at home.  We bought the individual instrument bags for our elementary school students and hand drums for the drumming curriculum we did without middle school students. Also, there were the masks designed for singing that I got for our choir students. This stuff, along with other things, was a significant expense. However, my budget did not end up going over because many things like field trips and concerts didn’t happen this year.

We were fortunate to have a medical advisory team that made hard decisions, so I didn’t have to. Guidance from medical professionals proved frustrating at times when it felt like there was tension between what they recommended and what was the most logical way to educate students. Still, at the end of it all, their guidance kept us safe.

Teachers at my school are unionized. This meant that there were structures for faculty to have their voices heard and limits on what we could be asked to do. This provided some willingness when teachers were asked to do different things because people were watching out for the faculty.

When I think about what we were able to do, it becomes clear that the things we had were privileges that other schools could have had. Money could have been made more available. Medical professionals could have played more active roles in advising schools. Unions could work for ways to help teachers work in-person effectively.

What happened at my school could have occurred at other schools.

There is this idea that there is a dichotomy between private and public schools, that the illusion of scarcity means that private schools’ success limits public schools’ achievement. Like the false dichotomy of gender, this idea serves to divide. The truth is that private schools can provide a vision of a possibility of what could be and should be for other schools. Many private schools did just that this past school year, and instead of coming up with reasons what this example doesn’t apply to public schools, we need to figure out how we can from each other and together create a better vision for education in America.

Parenthood: Week 427 – Roommates

I’m not sure if it was the fact that Ethan was learned how to launch himself out of his crib or the fact that Lucas was outgrowing his mini-crib, but it felt like it was the right time for a change. Lucas moving to a regular crib was a no-brainier. The question was what to do with Ethan.

Ethan was making good progress with his sleeping, and we figured that having him share a room with Ollie could be fun. Yes, it could be a disaster, but at the same time, it could help Ethan sleep and be fun for the boys. The thing is that it’s not like sleeping arrangements aren’t an irreversible decision, so we went for it.

Bunk beds just didn’t work for me, and seeing how Ethan launched himself out of his crib, I did not want to give him something higher to climb. So we went with a trundle bed. Growing up, my bed was a trundle bed that we would use when we had guests over.

We built this up for the boys. Diana let them pick out new sheets and a special pillow. Ollie chose Harry Potter as his theme and got some sheets of small pictures from the Harry Potter universe and a pillow with the Gryffindor crest on it. Ethan chose white sheets with little unicorns, and Diana found a pillow shaped like a unicorn. This got both of them excited.

Ollie and Ethan have shared a room for most of this school year, and it’s been interesting to observe.

There are challenging nights. Sometimes one of them is annoying or doesn’t settle down to sleep. There are the nights when we have to be stern with them to get them to settle down, which is never fun. Then there are mornings when one of them gets up early and gets the other up, which they have now learned not to do.

Most of the time, there is laughter in the room as they get ready for bed. Lucas often toddles in the room and joins with them, giggling the whole time. While there are times that Ethan and Ollie get territorial with their beds and do not want anyone in their bed, there are many nights when I find them in the same bed looking at a book together.

Every night before I got to bed, I check on the boys. I almost always find Ethan and Lucas lying face to face. As if they fell asleep mid-conversation, they are sleeping as close to each other as possible. There will be a day when it doesn’t make sense for Ollie and Ethan to share a room, but for right now, there is joy in them sharing this space and comfort as they feel each other presence when they sleep. 

Year 11 – Week 39: Gemstones

One of the most challenging and essential parts of understanding the world and human nature is holding conflicting thoughts together. For example, it is crucial to understanding Thomas Jefferson's contributions to democracy to understand America. Also, it's essential to understand that Jefferson raped his slaves as we wrestle with white supremacy. Both these thoughts have to consider when thinking about this man. Holding conflicting, sometimes contradicting ideas became a feature of this school year. At times, keeping contrasting thoughts together helped clarify the path forward, and at other times, they create a lack of confusion and stress.

Everything about my teaching changed this year. My schedule change, the hours the school operated, and the rooms that I taught in changed. This wasn't easy to manage. Every day, I checked my schedule at least twenty or thirty times to make sure I was in the right place at the right time.  At the same time, these schedule changes allowed me to have more time with my family. I was able to set up breakfast before I left for work and the shorter day meant I could do more pick-ups. 

 The school canceled numerous evening events worse or made them virtual events.  As opposed to almost twenty times in a school year when I missed bedtime with my children, I only missed one bedtime routine this year.

Teaching itself was so difficult. COVID-19 mitigation practices were unprecedented. We knew what we needed to do, but we didn't know how to do it. The simple things were not simple. Wearing a mask doesn't seem like that big a deal. Well, it is. Beyond the discomfort, when talking with a mask, studies showed that voices are significantly quieter. Teachers figured out that microphones were necessary but not on the first day. This took days of struggle to figure out. It wasn't until April that I found a mask set-up that allowed me to teach and not be aware that I had a mask on most of the time.

And had everything we needed.

There were plenty of wipes, dividers, masks, and technological resources. The school set up access to the vaccine early in our vaccination phase and time off for school meetings and teaching to get vaccinated. I experience more privilege than the vast majority of teachers in America.

I will never forget the trauma of being exposed to a student who tested positive for COVID-19. The logistic struggle to get tested was significant, and this combined with the emotional toll made this the most challenging situation I've ever experienced as a teacher. There were tense meetings, rude words spoken, and other moments when people experienced fear, anger, and frustration.

This was also a year of great gratitude, love, and kindness. I'll never forget the sadness of a colleague who told me that she had to say goodbye to her mother on the first day of school. She lived with her and felt for her safety that they would have limited contact with each other. Like so many of us, she wasn't sure how contact with students could put her family at risk. Then less than an hour later, I saw him hugging a young kindergarten student in the misting rain, bringing comfort and love to this child. 

 During one of my last classes, I had our percussion teacher finish up a unit.  This could have been a blow-off class, but the students wanted to work, so the students focused and worked really hard for the entire class. I was so proud of them for taking the opportunity to learn and doing so with focus and joy. Even in what felt like the worst of times, there was laughter among the faculty. Some of it was "either I'm going to laugh or cry, so I might as well laugh," but most of it was genuine joy and comradery.

I don't think I'm ever going to done fully processing this school year because the effects of this pandemic will likely affect the rest of my teaching career. While this will be challenging, what this school year has shown me is that there can be another side and that there can be beauty in the darkness.

Sometimes, like with the creation of gemstones in times of tremendous pressure over time, we can create beauty.

Parenthood: Week 426 – Butter

I don't know who needs BTS more, my children or me. 

When I was growing up, I didn't very few representations of Asian and Asian-American men in popular culture. I don't remember watching TV and feeling annoyed that most of the actors were white. What I do remember is being excited about the representation that I did see.

When Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, a biopic about Bruce Lee, came out, I was really excited to see that film. This film did not disappoint. The fighting was great, but more than that, scenes like this one were a powerful lesson in the harsh realities of racism in America.



At that time in my early teens, I didn't know that this scene was a foreshadow for my own life. I did fall end up dating a white girl too, and she has always been sensitive and a true ally around issues around racism.

Soon after, I saw The Crow and fell in love with this film. I found the stylized production, the awesome fight scenes, and the dark fairytale fascinating.



I don't remember consciously thinking, "Brandon Lee is an Asian-American; that's awesome." However, I remember seeing myself in him in a way that I didn't see in any other actor. I was so into this film that I had this up in the room during my teenage years. 

Brandon Lee was critical in my racial identity development. Here was an Asian-American man who was strong, sexy, in great shape, charismatic, handsome, and talented. He was everything I didn't see in the Asian-American stereotypes that were pervasive in popular cultures and my high school. He was what I want to see and still want to see in myself. Brandon Lee showed me that this was a possibility in me.

I gravitated towards boy bands and male vocal groups. I loved The Backstreet Boys and The Temptations. There was so much backlash among high school boys at the resurgence of boy bands in the late 90s. While I loved this example of masculinity, men who dance and sing love songs, most boys in my high school did not, and they used my interest in this music and music in general as a way to emasculate me. I was called homosexual slurs for liking Nsync, but that wouldn't stop me from enjoying their music. Justin Timberlake looked happy, he had attractive girlfriends, and I loved that he was musical like me. This was a far more appealing way for me to be a man than the way my male peers embraced.

If BTS was around when I was in high school, I probably would have gone all-in for them. I would have done everything in his power to emulate everything about BTS. I would have done my hair liked Jimin, practiced the dances, learned these songs, and tried to dress the part. Like Brandon Lee, BTS is everything people don't typically think about Asian men. They are stylish, dance well, are sexy, and are great singers—pretty much opposite the opposite of Mr. Yunioshi, that horrible character that offended Bruce Lee.

I've been listening to BTS every day since "Butter" came out. It's a great song with intricate production, and the remixes are really interesting. I proudly showed the video to my sons, and they got really into "Butter" as well. I hope that BTS has a positive impact on their racial identity development, and I know for sure that BTS's music and videos are bringing my sons' joy, so that's more than enough for me to be grateful.

The part of me that is a teenager is so overjoyed that the world embraces these proud Asian men.  This is an extraordinary moment in our culture. As I told my students, never before in the history of modern popular culture has a group of Asian men been this popular. It's a wonderful thing for all people, and I'm looking forward to the doors that BTS' success will open for Asian-American men like me and Asian-Asian American boys like my sons: doors to where we can go, and doors to different ways that we can express ourselves.

Year 11 – Week 38: The Vision

One of the most important things that we learned that helped us get through this pandemic was that we could replicate what we did before the pandemic. Accepting this impossibility was freeing. Similarly, we need to come to accept that what was lost in the past year and a half can’t be made up next year.

It was impossible to focus on singing technique and instrumental technique over Zoom in the same way as you can in person.  These students had far less time learning how to harmonize and play with their peers, and in this aspect, they will be behind students from previous years. Rising seventh-graders will start band and choir, where they would have started in sixth in previous years. The lack of singing in lower school and intermediate school will affect their vocal development.

There will be deficits that can be measured in objective ways, and likely, students will likely be performing less difficult music in the next couple of years. But that’s okay because the level of difficulty of a song has never been the measure of success for music students at my school. I understand the desire to “catch students up” create some kind of “boot camp.” Teachers want to return to “normal.” That’s not going to happen next year, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Instead of trying to “catch students up” for perceived learning loss, there’s more meaningful that we can do.

The economic effects of the pandemic have devastated effects on music all around the world. Musicians have become unemployed, funding has been cut, and many music organizations had to shut down during this pandemic, and many will not reopen. More than ever before, music needs support in our culture, and so do our music students.

What we do for our students as educators is what we all should do for our country as citizens.

One way to help our students grow as musicians is to understand how their craft, their commitment, and how music education can be integral to revitalizing music in our school community and beyond. It is in having a purpose that reflects the needs of society that our students will find the meaning and motivation to grow as musicians. And as they build themselves, they are rebuilding what has been lost.

Music persists in a time of crisis as humanity persists. As love persists and hope persists, music persists as an essential communication tool that connects people in ways word fail. Music helps us better understand ourselves and each other.  It creates the empathy that will bring us closer to each other and the beauty that inspires us to move forward through the dark times.

The in-person performance on May 20th resulted from the music faculty’s determination and music students’ commitment to music throughout the entire pandemic. This commitment to music was part of the school's commitment to democracy and the souls of our students. More than a reminder of what we have missed in the past year, the students made this event a beautiful vision of what we have to look forward to at Parker in the future.