Democracy and Music Education, Liberalism, Ethics and the Politics of Practice.

Democracy and Music Education, Liberalism, Ethics and the Politics of Practice, by Paul G. Woodford. Indiana University Press (601 N. Morton St., Bloomington, Indiana 47404), 2005. 160 pp. $21.95.

This book takes an in-depth look at music education philosophy. The subject is very relevant but the overly pedantic writing style makes it difficult to make sense of the first-half of the book. Paul Woodford needed help from a good editor to make his book more readable and accessible to those who really need this information.

Pulling heavily from the writings of John Dewey, an educator who wrote much about education from 1900 to about 1950, Woodford believes music teachers today need to become more relevant to society as a whole. He states that by teaching almost exclusively western music from previous centuries, with a narrow view of how that music should be performed, we have created a vast chasm between our classes and what society needs. In short, we come across as "dictators" with no ability to value or listen to other music.

Further, Woodford thinks music teachers have allowed themselves to be controlled by "new right" politics, that aims to "return to a more autocratic, ordered and structured society controlled by corporate greed." He is concerned that by failing to fight against the move toward using standardized tests exclusively to evaluate students, we have allowed this "new right" the ammunition needed to cut our budgets. If our subject isn't measured in these tests, then we are viewed as being unnecessary.

Woodford believes we are missing the opportunity to guide our students to consider all music types and critically evaluate the style and culture for each type's worth to society. In fact, we could be teaching students to evaluate how music is used to influence behavior, such as in commercials or in politics as Stalin and Hitler did. If we could do this, Woodford says we would help our students become better democratic citizens, learning to consider all people, ideologies and art forms in the same manner we evaluate music styles. This type of thinking could transfer into making students better citizens and better able to intelligently participate in society.

If you can stay with the book long enough, I believe there is much food for thought and discussion among music educators. Reviewed by Laura Seale, NCTM, Garland, Texas.