The fruinirig of the teacherThe old one-room, rural schoolhouse where the teacher was ex-
pected to be mother, nurse and baby-sitter, as well as a teacher of all
subjects for all ages of children is gradually disappearing in the United
States. In its place is slowly evolving the consolidated school. Children
from all over one country are transported by buses to a central school
which provides facilities equal to those found in average-size towns
of ten to twenty thousand inhabitants. Such schools usually employ
a special music teacher who carries on a programme of music which,
as a rule, emulates the one being carried on in the elementary and se-
condary schools cities in the same area. In such situations, the teacher
is often too handicapped by time and human energy to achieve the
results which he or she realizes are being accomplished in larger situa-
tions where the various activities are divided among different teachers.
However, as in all situations, the results revert back to the kind of
teacher one finds. I have the privilege of conducting many choral
festivals throughout the United States. Some of them are state festival
choruses consisting of highly selected students from large highschools :
others are groups of rural children from both elementary and secon-
dary schools. In some places the work is of poor calibre and the teach-
ers would probably be wiser to capitalize on the indigenous music
locally available rather than try to emulate the work being done in the
city schools. However, recently in Norfolk County, Virginia, I was
working with some choral groups from rural and small town high
schools. I was extremely pleased with the musical singing of one group,
Later, I learned that there were 52 students in this particular high
school; 48 of them were in the choir and it was directed by the English
teacher, since there was no music teacher in the school. As the saying
goes, ‘It all depends upon the teacher’.
Regardless of the growth of consolidated schools in our country,
there are still thousands of one-room rural schools. The problem of
training teachers for these schools, as far as music is concerned, is
similar to the problem of training class-room teachers to teach their
own music in elementary schools. Many doctor’s dissertations are
being written on this vital problem. At Teachers College, Columbia
University, I myself sponsored three dissertations this year on the
subject.
The training of these teachers is, for the most part, pointed toward
meeting state certification requirements. These requirements are for-
mulated by state certification boards, composed chiefly of school ad-
ministrators. They are concerned that teachers have, first of all, a philo-
sophical and psychological understanding of education in a democracy