Piano or television?

Jul 28, 2018 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

If you are poor and had a choice between buying a television or a piano, which would you choose? It is not hard to imagine what the majority of persons would choose. They would opt for the television.
This, however, was not the choice of a very poor family in China. That family opted to buy a piano even though they did not have a television. They bought the piano as an investment in the musical talent of their daughter.
Today, she is a world class pianist. The sacrifice that her parents made, their decision not to buy a television, but instead to invest in her future, has paid off.
There is hardly a home in Guyana without a television set. Even the poorest of homes, have televisions, some of them flat screen televisions.
But how many homes have pianos? Not many. Even the homes of the rich today are usually bare of the old grand piano sitting in a corner waiting to be played.
Music is not a high priority in most homes and schools. The ‘high’ arts – literature, music, dance, paintings and drama – are not held in high esteem in our educational curricula.
Children are graduating from school without a rounded education. Information is being drilled into their heads. But they often lack the analytical skills and the ability to express themselves clearly and concisely. The present generation is often seen burying their heads into their cellular phones.
Many of them lack social skills such as carrying on an interesting conversation. Extra curricula activities are becoming a rarity since children have neither the time – being burdened with extra lessons – nor the interest to participate in these activities.
Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine was hoping to change all of that before his removal as Minister of Education. He had raised concerns about the number of subjects which some students were writing at examinations. He had made a call for a more rounded development of our children through a more rounded education system.
One of his ideas was the promotion of choirs in schools. In other words, he saw the promotion of the ‘high’ arts as being absolutely necessary to ensure a more balanced educational system.
Unfortunately, he was unceremoniously removed from his post as Minister of Education. And that ended his dream of school choirs and with it, perhaps, the sort of reform of our educational system, which was needed to ensure that our school graduates do not become information machines.
With Roopnaraine’s removal as Minister of Education, President David Granger may have killed more than the former Education Minister’s vision of school choirs. He may have deprived our children of having an education curriculum, which provides greater balance.
The emphasis these days is on science and technology, as it ought to be. But the baby should not be thrown out with the bathwater.
Liberal arts and ‘high’ arts should be just as emphasized in our school system because they have a proven impact on intellectual development and more importantly on the development of the critical skills needed for innovation in today’s world.
Fareed Zakaria, who hosts his own CNN show and is also a columnist for the Washington Post, two years ago defended the value of a liberal arts education. He recalled that the founding fathers of the United States had encouraged teaching of a broad range of subjects. This he argued allowed for the United States to create a diverse economy and to become a leader in the world of education.
He said, “It’s never just technology that makes you so successful, it has to be how humans use technology because that is the crucial element. If you don’t understand how human beings are going to use it, then you’re not going to understand how to sell it.”
President Granger recently bemoaned the degrading of the teaching of history at the University of Guyana. He called for the teaching of history to be accorded its rightful place in our educational system. He did not state why but it obvious today why many large corporations in the developed world are looking for students who have qualified in broad range of disciplines.
They are looking for the innovative minds – those notwithstanding their knowledge and technology, have had exposure to both the liberal arts and the ‘high arts’.
If this cannot be provided in the schools, parents should at least try to provide it in the homes.
So perhaps, the next time you are in a department store and see a keyboard on sale, it may be wise to consider buying that for your child rather than the video game, the smart phone or the IPAD.

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