Music: A Powerful Force Ron Voeller, DoDEA Arts/Humanities Coordinator If you walk, you can dance. If you talk, you can sing.  Zimbabwe Proverb       My greetings to all DoDEA music educators. My thanks to EMEA and Tom Donaldson for the invitation to share a few thoughts. And, my gratitude to all of EMEA who are the cornerstone of music support and networking in the European area schools.  Office news from here:       K-12 Music Standards have been distributed to the district superintendent's offices and can also be found at: http:/www.odedodea.edu/edprogram/Music. music.pdf. [If you have trouble contacting that address, try connecting to: http:/www/odedodea.edu/ and navigate to the site. TCD] The standards are final. However, further work is being done on the introduction, preface, glossary and mission statement.  Procurement and contract officials are currently reviewing all technical and narrative evaluative data from the music review (July 27-August 2, 1998), along with my final narrative summary reports and recommendations. Award announcements for K-12 music program materials and publications are scheduled for December 1998. Standards and pre-implementation training for music and classroom teachers is scheduled to begin the second semester of this school year. ODE-directed standards and pre-implementation training will also be offered during the summer of 1999.  Thoughts while not engaged in musically void tasks as outlined above:       The time is now for all practicing DoDEA music educators to introduce themselves, their programs, and their students’ work to the public. Too often, we as music educators, talk to and among ourselves about the importance of music education. We mirror our thoughts, concerns, beliefs and aspirations about our work and career with each other. We must go public with our knowledge, skills, and experiences with students in music teaching and learning.       Advocacy, (for lack of a better term right now), in the arts/music world IS NOT:   Raising our banners and banging drums outside the school doors;   Sharing the data and facts about what music does to develop the whole child among ourselves. (We know all this–or should!)   Raising hell about pay, PTR, budgets, teaching conditions, or what have you, in voicing our “demands.”   Sitting on committees of alliances, or other synonymously named groups which “talk about it” for endless hours, work on non-substantive strategic planning, develop wishy-washy advocacy packages which all eventually end up going nowhere.       Advocacy can and does work when approached positively in both a personal and professional manner. Some ways and means that can strengthen the support for your music programs:  Take the facts out to the public. Gather the data from both the national perspectives about the importance of music education and your local school music activities and begin sharing with parents and the school community. I firmly believe this can be one of the most powerful catalysts for change in education. Whether you choose the forum of newsletter, one-on-one group meetings, or any other creative means of getting to know each other, you must become close to the parents and community. Invite parents, principals, superintendents and other active community members into your classes and/or rehearsals. To see kids working is as important, or more important, than to see or hear the works of kids.   Bring the parents into your school music program. Find out  from your students about your parents’jobs, careers, avocations, talents, etc. Parents are often very willing to join a music project or activity to display what it is they can contribute. For example, to have musically experienced parent/guardian and/or student adult friends sit-in on rehearsals and concerts.   Again, I believe, to see kids working is as important, or more important, than to see or hear the works of kids.       I do know and understand your concerns about the lack of music-qualified administrative support in many districts and schools. Therefore, it is even more important that you seriously consider these ideas and facts about promoting and maintaining support for your music programs.      I'm running late on Tom's deadline, so, to recapitulate, make visible your program, your students, yourself and the school. We talk it, but seldom walk it. Also, establish a network of colleagues in sharing your program information and activities. This is who we are, what we are doing, and what kids should achieve and do achieve in music–one of most important core subject, curriculum and program areas in the school and community!      Every one of us needs to take some part in music advocacy. You have an excellent source through and with    the EMEA. Without music, every human being would have a rift in their souls-–their very humanity--which can never be mended by anything else.     There’s much more to share about where we are now, where we need to go, what we expect, what we need to do, and how to get there. If invited and time and space permit, I would like to discuss these questions in our next meeting.      In summary:  Get to know your students, principal, parents and yourself Set high, beyond the norm, attainable goals Get your work, and kid’s work, to the public Bring the world into your world and that of   your students  You are the practitioners of one of the most powerful forces on this planet. And, you are also the messengers!   The Hills were newlyweds who decided to spend their honeymoon traveling through Europe. For two weeks they'd been having a good time. One evening, on the way back to their hotel after an excellent dinner, Mr. Hill was going a little too fast for the curve on the country lane and ran off the road. It was not a pretty sight. When Mr. Hill regained consciousness, he saw that Mrs. Hill was in bad condition; and he was in not much better condition. Even so, Mr. Hill carried his wife almost a kilometer until he reached an old castle. The knock on the door was answered by Igor. "You've got to help us. We need a doctor," moaned Mr. Hill. (Fortunately, Igor spoke English!) Igor quickly got the professor who assessed the situation as “dire” and directed Igor to take the Hills to the lab. No amount of help could save them. The professor, after two hours of operating and subsequent loss of the patients, instructed Igor to clean up the mess. He settled himself at the organ to play a marvelous Bach fugue which resonated throughout the castle. As Igor was cleaning, he detected a slight movement in Mrs. Hill’s hand. Then a twitch in Mr. Hill’s foot. Very rapidly, Mr. and Mrs. Hill twitched back to life. Igor was ecstatic! He ran up the stairs to announce to the professor that, “The Hills are alive with the sound of music!”