Budget cuts and music

[Dave2002]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-essex-40422351/music-removed-from-school-s-curriculum

[zola]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-engl...l-s-curriculum

Ironic ( or depressing ? ) given the proximity to Saffron Walden, where the concert hall adjunct to a school is held up as a great white hope for the future.

[Conchis]

Music was not taken seriously as a subject when I was at school. We had music lessons and the opportunity for individuals students to learn an instrument was there (there was also a school orchestra), so in retrospect this sounds amazingly progressive for a state school in the 1980s. Lessons tended to be about choral singing (which no one took seriously) or learning about the lives of the great composers (which interested me, at least, and may have sown seeds for the future). The problem is that learning an instrument/to read music is not easy and requires dedication: coupled with the fact that it is not a 'vocational' subject.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

... coupled with the fact that it is not a 'vocational' subject.

Ah! There you have it.

[Pulcinella]

DBS check permitting, I hope to be taken on as a volunteer classroom assistant in the local primary school in September. When the headmistress showed me round a couple of weeks ago, she was very proud of the fact that all the students learned to read music, and that there was a school orchestra. When she first came to the school, she had found that they had 10 unused violins in store, and immediately put them to good use. I had originally offered my time to help poor readers, but I may well help out with the music as well as with the reading, writing, and other subjects.

[MrGongGong]

coupled with the fact that it is not a 'vocational' subject.

It is a VOCATION
so therefore is "vocational"
WHY do people misuse this word all the time ?

And to the link at the start

It's sadly what people have been voting "for"
I told you so, over and over again


So much nonsense and confusion about what studying MUSIC is about

Not good for the blood pressure i'm afraid

[umslopogaas]

Mr GG, your posts are always stimulating and interesting, but not always easy to understand. My dictionary says "vocation" is "a calling, a calling by God to his service". It appears to have a specifically religious dynamic. But surely, many musicians are passionate about music, but care little or nothing for God? If they said it was a "vocation", would they not simply mean that they did it because they liked it - and presumably, were good enough at it to not only enjoy it, but make a living out if it?

[Conchis]

It is a VOCATION
so therefore is "vocational"
WHY do people misuse this word all the time ?

And to the link at the start

It's sadly what people have been voting "for"
I told you so, over and over again


So much nonsense and confusion about what studying MUSIC is about

Not good for the blood pressure i'm afraid

My apologies. What I should have written was 'it is not obviously vocational'. in the way that Metalwork, Woodwork and Car Maintenance might be considered 'vocational'. Music is obviously a vocation for some but the education system would struggle to advise someone who wanted to be a musician; it would have less of a problem placing someone who wanted to be a plumber or an electrician.

[french frank]

It appears to have a specifically religious dynamic.

Not necessarily, according to the OED which equates it with 'calling' (meaning 9) where vocare = to call. Thus: "The means by which a person makes a living; a profession, trade, or occupation". I suspect the feeling is that not many school students are likely to have the natural talent to make a living out of music.

What I think was one aspect in this case was the school attitude: the music teacher left so that was a convenient reason to drop music. If the English teacher had left that would have been a reason to … except in that case it wouldn't have happened. Music is seen as 'optional' in some schools.

[doversoul1]

Mr GG, your posts are always stimulating and interesting, but not always easy to understand. My dictionary says "vocation" is "a calling, a calling by God to his service". It appears to have a specifically religious dynamic. But surely, many musicians are passionate about music, but care little or nothing for God? If they said it was a "vocation", would they not simply mean that they did it because they liked it - and presumably, were good enough at it to not only enjoy it, but make a living out if it?

In the world of qualifications, the term ‘vocation/vocational’ is used in opposition to or alongside with ‘academic’. Maths, science, history, or art and music etc. are seen as academic subjects. Vocational subjects are those that are directly linked to employment (although taking them is no guarantee for employment) examples are (at GCSE level):

APPLIED BUSINESS.
APPLIED ICT.
APPLIED SCIENCE.
ENGINEERING.
HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE.
LEISURE AND TOURISM.
MANUFACTURING

MR GG

It is a VOCATION
so therefore is "vocational"
WHY do people misuse this word all the time ?

The term 'vocational' when used in the context of education and qualification does not (usually) mean a job that is a 'vocation'. When I think about it, the word ‘vocation’ is rarely used in the sense umslopogaas suggests. Vocational means being directly related to employment.

[umslopogaas]

Thanks all, for those clarifications. Clearly the English language, as usual, has enough flexibility to encompass more than one meaning!

I am aware that "vocational training" can, for example, mean a training in woodworking, which could lead to a profitable career that had nothing to do with deistic religion.

[P. G. Tipps]

My dictionary says "vocation" is "a calling, a calling by God to his service". It appears to have a specifically religious dynamic. But surely, many musicians are passionate about music, but care little or nothing for God?

Absolutely correct on both counts, sir! Though some do find God through music.

Sadly, dictionaries appear to have gone out of fashion these days, not least on this forum, which probably explains why there is so much needless confusion around.

Music is no more 'a vocation' than supporting Tranmere Rovers but simply one of the Great Arts, arguably the very greatest of them all?

But then again one might be hopelessly biased in promoting that particular argument!

[umslopogaas]

Thanks PGT, I assure you that my Chambers English Dictionary has never gone out of style here, and is indeed very well thumbed.

I also own, thanks to my grandfather who was a book collector, "Dictionary of Classical Antiquites" and "Etymological Dictionary of the English Language". The former is particularly amazing, look up anything and you find many facts you never even dreamed.

[french frank]

Sadly, dictionaries appear to have gone out of fashion these days, not least on this forum

I assure you, I was using a dictionary to refute the claim that a 'vocation' was, necessarily and exclusively, concerned with religion. No more than a table has to have four legs. Or a pen is an instrument for writing. Or a baton is a stick which conductors wave about. Or conductors conduct orchestras.

Music could certainly be a 'vocation', for the religious and non-religious, for those able to earn a living out of it.

[Dave2002]

Not necessarily, according to the OED which equates it with 'calling' (meaning 9) where vocare = to call. Thus: "The means by which a person makes a living; a profession, trade, or occupation". I suspect the feeling is that not many school students are likely to have the natural talent to make a living out of music.

What I think was one aspect in this case was the school attitude: the music teacher left so that was a convenient reason to drop music. If the English teacher had left that would have been a reason to … except in that case it wouldn't have happened. Music is seen as 'optional' in some schools.

More likely I think is that the teacher has left/is leaving, and getting a replacement will be hard, and so an "opportunity" to save money is being taken. Most probably there isn't enough money to fund the school properly - due to cuts - so one can hardly blame the head for that. He's probably trying to make the best of a bad job - it doesn't follow automatically that he's a philistine.