The Ethics of Care and the Private Woodwind Lesson

Jeremy's family was getting ready for the concert. It wasn't that he was tired of watching his father conduct. He loved his father and he loved the concerts. But people were always asking Jeremy the same question and that question didn't seem to have an answer....They weren't even inside the concert hall before the doorman smiled at Jeremy and asked, "Well, young man, do you think you'll be a conductor like your father?" ¹

Children like Jeremy, situated in the world of established music-making, are routinely subjected to stereotypical expectations, often not seen for who they are themselves, but for the qualities of their situatedness. Jeremy, as a result, found himself continually bombarded with this question which spokein fortissimo tones that the inquirer was impressed by the stature of his maestro father, but really did not seem to care to see the young boy as a person in his own right. The dreaded question, that he so frequently faced, festered in him, shouting of his own lack of personhood in its flagrant assumptions. But what voice did he have? After the concert:

a lady in a long gown and a huge strand of pearls came in next [backstage]...."So this is your little son," she cried. Jeremy blushed as she kissed the top of his head and squeezed his face so that he looked like a fish. "Tell me, young man, are you going to be a conductor like your father?" ²

Of course stories such as Jeremy's in which individuals suffer because others have not been truly caring, are not unique to the world of music. Such thoughtless pleasantries are nothing more than symptoms of the widespread absence of knowing and care experienced in day-to-day living. While Patricia Benner and Suzanne Gordon suggest that there are few people who would wish to be perceived as uncaring persons, there are often spoken platitudes about care, especially about large institutions, that seemshallow and meaningless. ³ Take, for example, a hospital whose slogan claims it is caring, but is only really interested in research or profit, or the doctor who quadruple books patients for appointments all the while insisting that he really does care about his patients. The obstacles to true understanding about care include the view that care is merely a sentiment that need be expressed, but not the thoughtful planning out of means to create ample opportunities to enact deeds of caring. ⁴ In day-to-day situations of modern living with big corporations, governments, and institutions, there may be individuals who claim to care, but there are no features in these organizations' blueprints that ensure and take responsibility for providing care. Care must extend beyond sentiment into action.

In the name of superior curriculum and specialist teachers and programs,tiny rural schools were abandoned and students were moved into bigger and bigger schools. As schools and educational institutions have greatly increased in size over the past century, teachers have found it more and more difficult to connect to the larger and larger number of students found on their class rosters. Beyond their class lists how can teachers really be responsible for the sea of faces for whom they cannot even supply names? In The Students are Watching, Theodore and Nancy Sizer ask:

Do [current] conditions in the school allow each student to be known well?...Anonymity is the curse of good teaching and inevitably contributes to corner-cutting. If no one knows the students in a high school, it is easy for them to drift through. ⁵

Benner and Gordon cite the shop program in a vocational school as an ideal setting in which teachers have the opportunity to develop caring relationships with their students since the settings are informal, class time is significantly extended, and the teachers work with the same students over several years. ⁶ Special education teachers as well usually...