as the world unfolds, but even more
critically, we have to develop a strong
moral compass and cultivate positive
attitudes within them to empower them
to navigate the unknown, the uncertain,
the unpredictable, the “don’t know what”,
and empower them to lead purpose
filled lives that can make a positive
difference in their families, communities,
organisations, and the nation.
What they need are the attributes like
• honour to live by the virtues
• courage to try the new and the
unfamiliar,
• self-confidence to deal with the
unknown and the unexpected,
• humility to learn and to acknowledge
difficulty and failure,
• integrity and trustworthiness to
be able to work with and relate to
others, and a capacity for leading
and communication as they make
their way into the future with a
spirit of innovation, creativity and
discovery backed by tenacity and
determination.
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But there is a huge problem here,
because the qualities of courage,
self-confidence,
humility,
integrity,
trustworthiness, and so on, cannot be
learnt from lectures and the black (or
white) board, but has to be developed in
the course of “learning by doing.” They
are the products of experience and not
of hearing or seeing. in building up their capacity to work
with others, to think about others, and
honour others in daily interaction.
As teachers, you can decide either that
these qualities have to be developed
by “someone else,” or you can decide to
address the question, “What different
ways must I adopt to develop these
future competencies in my students,
ways that are different from traditional
classroom teaching which will be more
effective in developing competencies,
which have to do with character and
living?” An advantage you all have as art
and music teachers is that you are
already further along in preparing your
students for their future than you may
have realised.
How can we learn to see things and
think things and feel things differently,
in order to discover and create these
new ways for building the young up for
a future of satisfaction and creativity?
Thinking Different
As an example of how we should be
perceiving things differently, I know
someone who is a professor of music in
a university in Hong Kong who told me
that it is actually not such a good idea
for children to start learning music on
the piano because the piano is a very
individual-centric musical instrument.
He would strongly recommend that
children start with the violin, or even
the recorder, because while these
instruments do require the individual
skills of playing them, they are primarily
instruments to be played in an orchestra
or group.
Students of these instruments will thus
learn the need to work with others, to
be sensitive to what others are doing
and blend in, and to recognise that the
beauty of what they do lies in harmony
and teamwork rather than their
individual self.
So to music teachers, you should be
recognising the importance of what
you are doing to not just be about the
capacity to recognise and read musical
notes or play instruments proficiently,
but as your contribution to their lives
You are helping them develop: courage
to try the new and the unfamiliar, self-
confidence to be themselves and to deal
with the unknown and the unexpected,
humility to learn and to acknowledge
difficulty and failure, integrity and
trustworthiness to be able to work with
and relate to others, and a capacity
for leading and communication as
they make their way into the future
with a spirit of innovation, creativity
and discovery backed up by tenacity
and
determination,
honour
and
purposefulness.
These qualities for success in work and
life go beyond the skills and techniques
to produce works of art and deliver
works of music. They are the values and
attributes that would give them the keys
for success in a VUCA world. You may
not have been aware of these keys in
your possession.
Now that you know, I hope that you
would henceforth conduct your daily
lessons with new enlightenment and
new motivation.
Honour Talent
One argument that has frequently been
put forward is that you are principally
in the business of developing talent, at
least talents in fields of art and music.
What you do here, to some extent,
depends on whether you consider
the talent to be a matter of nature or
nurture. Contrary to what many people
may think, the challenge is greater for
teachers who believe that talent is a
matter of nature.
If you believe that talent is about nurture,
you would be thinking of good and clever
ways for teaching, and hopefully you
would have developed ways to motivate
your students to learn and to practise
not just the techniques and skills of art
and music, but the deeper things of life
and living.
We all know the story of The Animal
School, written by George Reavis when
he was the Assistant Superintendent of
the Cincinnati Public Schools back in
the 1940s. The story goes as follows:
“Once upon a time the animals decided
they must do something heroic to meet
the problems of a “new world”, so they
organised a school. They adopted an
activity curriculum consisting of running,
climbing, swimming, and flying. To make
it easier to administer the curriculum,
all the animals took all the subjects.
“The duck was excellent in swimming. In
fact, he was better than his instructor. But
he made only passing grades in flying
and was very poor in running. Since he
was slow in running, he had to stay back
after school and also drop swimming in
order to practise running. This was kept
up until his webbed feet were badly worn
and he was only average in swimming.
But average was acceptable in school
so nobody worried about that, except
the duck.
“The rabbit started at the top of the class
in running but had a nervous breakdown
because of the extra remedial work he
needed to do in swimming.
“The squirrel was excellent in climbing
until he developed frustration in the
flying class where his teacher made
him start from the ground up instead
of the treetop down. He also developed
a ‘charley horse’ – a muscle spasm –
from overexertion, and then got a C in
climbing and D in running.
“The eagle was a problem child and
was disciplined severely. In the climbing
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