STAR-POST (Art) January 2019 Jan. 2019 | Page 16

as the world unfolds, but even more critically, we have to develop a strong moral compass and cultivate positive attitudes within them to empower them to navigate the unknown, the uncertain, the unpredictable, the “don’t know what”, and empower them to lead purpose filled lives that can make a positive difference in their families, communities, organisations, and the nation. What they need are the attributes like • honour to live by the virtues • courage to try the new and the unfamiliar, • self-confidence to deal with the unknown and the unexpected, • humility to learn and to acknowledge difficulty and failure, • integrity and trustworthiness to be able to work with and relate to others, and a capacity for leading and communication as they make their way into the future with a spirit of innovation, creativity and discovery backed by tenacity and determination. 16 But there is a huge problem here, because the qualities of courage, self-confidence, humility, integrity, trustworthiness, and so on, cannot be learnt from lectures and the black (or white) board, but has to be developed in the course of “learning by doing.” They are the products of experience and not of hearing or seeing. in building up their capacity to work with others, to think about others, and honour others in daily interaction. As teachers, you can decide either that these qualities have to be developed by “someone else,” or you can decide to address the question, “What different ways must I adopt to develop these future competencies in my students, ways that are different from traditional classroom teaching which will be more effective in developing competencies, which have to do with character and living?” An advantage you all have as art and music teachers is that you are already further along in preparing your students for their future than you may have realised. How can we learn to see things and think things and feel things differently, in order to discover and create these new ways for building the young up for a future of satisfaction and creativity? Thinking Different As an example of how we should be perceiving things differently, I know someone who is a professor of music in a university in Hong Kong who told me that it is actually not such a good idea for children to start learning music on the piano because the piano is a very individual-centric musical instrument. He would strongly recommend that children start with the violin, or even the recorder, because while these instruments do require the individual skills of playing them, they are primarily instruments to be played in an orchestra or group. Students of these instruments will thus learn the need to work with others, to be sensitive to what others are doing and blend in, and to recognise that the beauty of what they do lies in harmony and teamwork rather than their individual self. So to music teachers, you should be recognising the importance of what you are doing to not just be about the capacity to recognise and read musical notes or play instruments proficiently, but as your contribution to their lives You are helping them develop: courage to try the new and the unfamiliar, self- confidence to be themselves and to deal with the unknown and the unexpected, humility to learn and to acknowledge difficulty and failure, integrity and trustworthiness to be able to work with and relate to others, and a capacity for leading and communication as they make their way into the future with a spirit of innovation, creativity and discovery backed up by tenacity and determination, honour and purposefulness. These qualities for success in work and life go beyond the skills and techniques to produce works of art and deliver works of music. They are the values and attributes that would give them the keys for success in a VUCA world. You may not have been aware of these keys in your possession. Now that you know, I hope that you would henceforth conduct your daily lessons with new enlightenment and new motivation. Honour Talent One argument that has frequently been put forward is that you are principally in the business of developing talent, at least talents in fields of art and music. What you do here, to some extent, depends on whether you consider the talent to be a matter of nature or nurture. Contrary to what many people may think, the challenge is greater for teachers who believe that talent is a matter of nature. If you believe that talent is about nurture, you would be thinking of good and clever ways for teaching, and hopefully you would have developed ways to motivate your students to learn and to practise not just the techniques and skills of art and music, but the deeper things of life and living. We all know the story of The Animal School, written by George Reavis when he was the Assistant Superintendent of the Cincinnati Public Schools back in the 1940s. The story goes as follows: “Once upon a time the animals decided they must do something heroic to meet the problems of a “new world”, so they organised a school. They adopted an activity curriculum consisting of running, climbing, swimming, and flying. To make it easier to administer the curriculum, all the animals took all the subjects. “The duck was excellent in swimming. In fact, he was better than his instructor. But he made only passing grades in flying and was very poor in running. Since he was slow in running, he had to stay back after school and also drop swimming in order to practise running. This was kept up until his webbed feet were badly worn and he was only average in swimming. But average was acceptable in school so nobody worried about that, except the duck. “The rabbit started at the top of the class in running but had a nervous breakdown because of the extra remedial work he needed to do in swimming. “The squirrel was excellent in climbing until he developed frustration in the flying class where his teacher made him start from the ground up instead of the treetop down. He also developed a ‘charley horse’ – a muscle spasm – from overexertion, and then got a C in climbing and D in running. “The eagle was a problem child and was disciplined severely. In the climbing 17