I Am a Vehicle for Propaganda
I am a primary school music teacher.
What do primary school music teachers teach? Songs? Yes, some. Music theory? Yes, some. Recorder? Yes, some. Rhythm games? Yes, some. Empathy? Yes, some. Blatant flag-waving propaganda? Yes … some.
You might be surprised at how often I’m asked what I teach by my co-workers — I know I am. Every day at least one person will turn to me in the elevator, “So, what do you actually teach?” They’re probably just grasping for small talk in a very uncomfortable situation (the elevators are extremely slow and stiflingly hot.) Usually they make a guess before I can reply with my vague, unsatisfying answer. Usually their guess is, “You teach them songs, right?”
Usually I reply, “Um, well …”
Please understand that all I want to do with my students is show them that music is precision and hard work and academic; but also that it can be a social, mind-blowing, life-altering, infectious, wonderful, eternal thing. And that it’s open and welcoming. And that it’s for them. And that school has very little to do with it, because it’s about sound and people; not about study and students. I don’t know if teaching songs is the way to teach that. Ok, sorry, let me clarify: Teaching songs is not the way I want to teach that. Or at least, not the only way.
(Note: “teaching songs” means handing them a lyric sheet or a unison line music score and playing a CD with midi instrument accompaniment.)
But I am employed by a foreign government to get students to perform to a certain standard and to know a set amount of facts, and I can’t escape the songs. The very first bullet point in the syllabus is for students to learn National songs. Ok, Mr. Minister, O Mine Exalted Employer, so be it.
The only problem is that I don’t feel right teaching these National Day songs. They’re all about patriotism and Singpore-is-the-bomb and I’m-so-glad-I-enjoy-all-the-freedoms-Singapore-offers and Nowhere-is-better-than-here, and while I agree that, yes, Singapore is a pretty special place, and good for Singapore for putting on a business suit, I’m not Singaporean and I’m not a Singaporean patriot. Hell, I’m not very patriotic for my own country. I’m not even a fan of the whole idea of patriotism. But here I stand in my classrooms, pressing play buttons with cringing finger so that my girls can dissolve into song after song about “our one true home.”
I really didn’t want this to turn into a rant, but I’ll allow myself to be whiny just for this paragraph. The part that actually bothers me isn’t the fact that I’m teaching children to wave flags madly. I think that kids should experience the frightening joys of mob mentality at least once; the part that bothers me is that the vast majority of the enormous repertoire of these songs is almost completely lacking in musical value. I am totally going there. Paint me a snob. It’s the musical equivalent of eating cotton balls. I really, really don’t want make midi-accompanied, soft rock ballad clones a staple in my students’ musical diets.
To be fair, a couple of the songs are pretty good, and I plan on only making my girls sing those ones. They’ll learn the others by osmosis at flag-raising ceremony every morning.
In the meantime, I’ll do my best to teach music and geography as penance for having to teach blind pride in one’s country. I’ve already managed to teach the P6′s that “African music” is not a single genre. (And that “Africans” are not a single ethnic group.) And you thought American kids didn’t know anything about the rest of the world? Well, … enjoy:
I was playing 20 questions with some 11-year-old girls and I was being Germany. They knew I was a country in Europe. This is an EXACT remembrance of the conversation we had.
Girl 1: “Are you Paris?”
Me: “No. Paris is a city.”
Girl 2: “Is it? How about Florida? Are you Florida?”
Girl 3: “Nooo! Florida is in Mexico.”
Girl 4: “Mexico is where rats live.”
Girl 1: “Africa?”
Me: “That is a continent and it’s not in Europe.”
Girl 4: “I had a map once.”
Girl 1: “You’re England!”
Me: “No.”
Girl 1: “Ireland!”
Me: “No.”
Girl 1: “Paris!”
Me: “You guessed that already. Do you want me to pull up a map of the world? Will that help?”
Girl 4: “No. Don’t bother. We don’t learn about the world.”
Girl 3: “Yeah! I thought Canada was at the bottom of Australia until you showed us that picture.”
Girl 4: “The picture of a map!”
Girl 2: “Are you Italy?”
Me: “Good guess! But no.”
Girl 2: “Rome?”
Me: “Rome is a city in Italy. So no.”
Girl 4: “Isn’t Europe in Asia? Is this a trick question? Can I go to the toilet?”
