Editorial

"Of course we are idealists. That is what makes us crazy enough to be teachers." That is what a group of elementary teachers told me while we stood on top of a mountain outside of São Paulo, just as we were getting ready for a "sound-scape" experience designed by R. Murray Schafer. I was in Brazil to participate in the Brazilian Music Education conference and also to continue my research on the role of educators and their institutions in creating positive social change. As Ernest Boyer and others have argued, educational institutions have responsibilities that reach beyond the classroom, laboratory, studio, and library to the world outside of the institution's four walls. The questions that I am seeking to answer relate specifically to the role of the university in the local community and society at large. The elementary teachers on the mountain top were clear: they were teachers because they wanted to build a better world.

One of the professors I interviewed in Brazil, Jofre Silva, instructor in design at Anhembi Morumbi University, spoke to me just as he was returning from an event staged by his students. Together they had remodeled second-hand clothing into fashion statements for women who were living with breast cancer and had organized a fashion show, complete with makeup artists, photographers, lighting, catwalk, and headwear (since many of the women were still undergoing chemotherapy). The purpose of the show was to give these women an opportunity to reclaim their confidence, hope, and sense of self-worth. He was glowing from the experience of witnessing his teaching at work addressing a local need.

Magali Kleber, professor of music education at Universidade Estadual de Londrina, had researched for her dissertation the role of Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) in using music in socially disadvantaged areas, and is now taking the role and practice of music education into the nearby slums as part of the quest for transformation and social justice there. At first, these extremely disadvantaged children and adolescents were difficult if not antagonistic, but as she persists in making music with them with the help of the students from her university classes, she sees chaos turn to order, hostility to cooperation, and negative self-perceptions to positive ones. In a similar vein, Brenda Brenner at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music gathers students from her violin methods classes to work with elementary-age children in the local public school that is known for providing the greatest number of free lunches in the county. She sees the same kind of results here in the US as those Professor Kleber witnesses in Brazil.

These dramatic and occasional instances of connecting with local needs have dual benefits: local needs are addressed and the encounters are powerful learning experiences, where what is learned in class is applied in real settings and what is learned in the real setting informs and enriches what is learned in class. We can hope for more of this kind of experiential learning combined with social change.

As I talked further with the elementary teachers on the mountain top I asked them what they were doing to build a better world. None of them was going into the slums with choirs and musical instruments. They were not thinking specifically of poverty, homelessness, abuse, gender or race discrimination, healthcare needs, or environmental crises. Rather, they spoke about helping their students to read, write, numerate, and behave well. And especially to think critically and creatively. They focused on the fundamentals of doing their job well so that those they taught would be effective and responsible citizens.

They told me a story of a man who was fishing by the river. He saw a boy run past him and jump into the river where he was immediately in danger of drowning. He leapt in and saved the boy. Then another child ran past and also jumped into the river. Again, he abandoned his fishing and dived into the water and saved this child. A third child also jumped into the river and he rescued him as well. Then he packed up his gear to leave. Someone asked if he...