I made a music video that expresses my feelings toward Public School.

I can't watch the video at the moment, but let me address some points as a public school teacher of 9 years:


A tad bit hyperbolic, no? One of the most Evil creations, ever? I do agree that there is some "brainwashing" or at least indoctrinating going on. That I'm with you on. However, it's certainly not "fascist" brainwashing...it's liberal indoctrination.


Well, that's not really school that teaches you that...it's society and the norms we've established. And, who's to say one can't make money at something he's good at while employed by another person? Is Donovan McNabb one of these brainwashed suckers you speak of because he's employed by the Eagles?

You're also not looking at the issue practically. People need to make a living. Sometimes working for someone else, at least temporarily, is the option. There are also fields that one pretty much has to work for someone else, such as mine. Where else can I teach the number of kids I do? Where else can I do that AND make the money I do?


That's a very vague statement. I'd like to know what, specifically, that means. For example, how are they neglected? What does "what their life [sic] could have been" mean?


Unsupported. In fact, I can anecdotally point to students who have done well in spite of their circumstances.


Specifically?


You're comparing the American system to the tools of Hitler's Germany. Wow...Godwin's law in the first post of a thread. Take some sort of medication.




While it has MAJOR problems that I plan to write a book on someday, it is not "as bad."


How would you know what's happening inside their minds....in minds other than your own?



How many people? Hmmm.


So you object to conformity. I see. Well, I certainly understand the criticisms of compulsory education. I certainly understand the "not caring" part. Take a look at my high school math grades.


Well I suppose I don't really need to see the video, because I've been there. I can understand your problem with the symmetry and conformity, etc. I have many of my own criticisms of public high schools, believe me. That said, you're just using words without really understanding their meanings...or at least you're not thinking about those meanings. It's quite, well, irresponsible, actually. "Terrifying." I would not say it's terrifying. I believe nearly all public and even private schools use some sort of grouping system as you've described. It's FAR WORSE (according to your standards) in Japan. In fact, in that system it would be you that was the problem. Guaranteed.


I will try and watch it later. Not sure it's necessary. You sound quite upset and dare I say even disturbed though. Best of luck...hopefully you find what you're looking for in life. It's been my experience that people with your views change as they get older. Sometimes they even become teachers.

Good for you then. Really! I think that you taking this kind of initiative at your age (high school, I assume?) is great. I had many of those same qualities and views in high school.
I have actually started a book (that I work on occasionally) about the problems in our system.

I'd be interested in a more specific response to my questions though. Also, I was obviously making a tongue-in-cheek comment with the "becoming a teacher" thing

Care to mention any specifics?

Incidentally, why didn't you write and produce original music for the video?

I know I may just be cat, but I'm also, you could say, a musician.

Here's some unsolicited thoughts.

I have found that musicians driven by money benchmarks tend not to reach them.

Unlike you, I think school is a good thing, not a bad thing. The problem is that too many schools suck, not that school itself sucks.

I work with some pretty impressive musicians, and honestly I have to say that some are highschool dropouts! However, I would say that they are the exceptions. School helps far more than it hurts and most of the successful musicians around me either were pretty damn good students or at least met each other at school. Be every bit the rebel you want, but if you don't think you can further your musical career by going to school, you're making the biggest mistake you can make.


Much of the work of a producer is similar to being a teacher.


But do you admit to them being boring? That's the cardinal sin of any musician. Boredom. If you write and produce things that are boring, you might as well go home. Maybe get a job writing background for the Home Shopping Network. But aside from that no one wants a boring little bore. School helps you not be boring.

What about you isn't boring?

I'm planning on laughing hysterically.

Well, that explains a lot concerning your 'attitude' toward schools in general.

On the music side, keep going, and keep writing. Publish, Publish, Publish. I think you find that most of us "musicians" run in deep stealth mode around here, but I'm sure you'll get lot's of responders to the thread.

Paz

Well, I would like to comment. First, I think you have a nice direction there. Not sure if you're aware, but I teach music. I've also got a masters degree in applied music and have taken several composition classes. Now, some points:

1. In think since you have not experienced public school first hand, you really must acknowledge you have a somewhat warped (pardon the word) viewpoint. To someone that was home schooled, I can imagine much of what you saw looked extraordinarily limiting and structured. You also see the bad in the system and ignore the good...and there is much of it. I'm not saying you're not entitled to an opinion. I'm just saying I think you should acknowledge that it's a relatively "shallow" opinion concerning personal experience.

2. Speaking a career musician-educator (in other words, a musician that teaches as opposed to a "music teacher" only) and occasional performer: I advise you to get a degree in composition or at least study privately with an established film composer. You will need this education to become a successful film composer/conductor/producer. I'm sure you have talent and know what you want to hear, but take it from me, that's not enough. You need someone who can teach you the various techniques, such as:

a. How to develop an appropriate melody/find the voice of your film.
b. How to alter and expand a melodic line.
c. A full blown Western Harmony (Music Theory) course or courses.
d. Meaning of common compositional terms such as: Augmentation, diminution, quartal and quintal harmony, 20th century techniques, non-western instruments, octatonic scales, serialism, pointillism, impressionism, etc.
e. A solid understanding of music history from Medival times through present day.
f. The importance of peer review and association with other young composers.


That's off the top of my head. I certainly don't mean to suggest you can't been successful in some music field without that knowledge and experience, but your likelihood of success is much higher as film/TV composer if you do have it.

Ah, macgeek2004-6, aka too many more to name. I'm not sure having 10+ banned accounts on each forum in the apple rumors community is really the path to making 100m/yr.

Forgot how sad that music is. Couldn't watch the whole thing.

I was wondering how long it would take for him to get called out...

I am sorry to hear that you were homeschooled your whole life. I'm not a big fan of that as I think much of what is valuable in school is mixing with chums. People I went to school with are everything from rock stars to dead, and what a shame it would have been had I been cloistered away from them. Going to some hybrid program at comm college sounds OK, but are these really your peers? After you graduate why not go to a decent liberal arts college where you can hang out with other people like yourself, talk about how much you hate school, learn even more reasons why you hate school, meet people who will form a critical part of your future, and enhance your chance of success in music or any other field.


Purcell! Were your parents playing Purcell around the house?!

It's great that you have a good ear. That's important. It can also be a double-edged sword: if you can pick stuff up easilly by ear, it spares you from having to learn on a much more intense level. There's a difference between impressing your family and friends, and developing talent.

Whose piano performances of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven (and Purcell) do you respect? Have you ever studied these composers with a great teacher? Have you played anything by Bach beyond Preludes and Fugues and Inventions? Have you played any Beethoven Sonata that hasn't been translated to Muzak? Have you had any critical feedback or real training? Have you ever analyzed the music you've played? How? Have you ever performed publicly? Have you ever performed with other people?


What do you mean classical style? That's about 1000 years of music. Do you mean everything is diatonic scale? How long were the pieces? What instrumentation? What's the form? Were the instruments transposing? Were they scores ever read or performed? By whom? Did you ever notate them in Sibelius or Finale? Did you ever realize them with a sequencer and samples? C'mon. Details!

By new-age I take it you are repeating the same pleasant-sounding phrases again and again. Pleasant. Boring. Yawn. But it's nice you stumbled on an easy musical trick. BTW, ever see koyaniskatsi?


That's like saying "I can shoot a ball into a basket, I can dribble the ball, I am fast on my feet. I should be in the NBA." Uhhh. OK.

Writing out a full orchestral score has little meaning if it sounds bad. Or is boring. Recording new multi-layer music into a sequencer has little meaning if its sounds bad. Or is boring. Which isn't to say Yay for you. But this gets tired pretty fast if you don't move beyond it. It's like saying "I can write letters on a piece of paper. Therefore I am a writer." Well, if you're talking about writing a great book other people will want to read, you will need to know more than how to write letters on paper. All of the composers you mentioned above studied beyond belief. What about you?


What does that mean?

You want to get a job as an A&R rep for a label? If you do, your music career is over.


That's not the route. You need to go to music school and learn about composing, arranging, orchestration, scoring, and you have to be really really good at it, and then you work as an assistant, do student films, work your way up, and even then, you're competing against musicians who are highly talented, highly trained, highly connected, and many of them highly humble.

Did you just watch "fame" or something?

You can act, write, sing, dance, sail, produce, fly...

The whole point of school is you get to try out all this stuff. You can dabble in it and if it piques your interest, you can get all intense and serious about it and work with other people you like. Why would want to avoid that?


Choose and study or fail!

this is actually a common experience in film scoring. Unless you are a celebrity composer, a director will typically put down a scratch track of pre-recorded music that goes with the original cut prior to the film composer creating original music. The problem is many directors fall in love with the scratch track and that's what they want. The composer has to either mimic the style of the original - yuck - or come up with something so compelling and different as to convince the director to choose that over the temp track. So, having provided a temp track, why not try to write something original?

I am a cat, and therefore you may not take me very seriously.

But I can't take you seriously either because you haven't said anything specific that is impressive to anyone who really knows about music. For all I know, you may be talented albeit green. But you are so much in a vacuum you don't even realize it. Which isn't your fault. But you need to get out of it if you want to do this stuff and not just talk about it.

"Applied music"?

In what way is music applied?

Is that a way to describe music in the service of another art form (e.g. film music)?

Does that mean there is some music that is purely theoretical?

There is, of course, that piece by John Cage that takes something like 10,000 years to perform, each note performed every hundred years. I suppose that's kind of theoretical, although it is currently in performance...

Yes, I'm sure perfection was achieved. As advice, I would suggest that you print this thread out when it concludes and place the copy in a safe. Ten years from now you can re-read it and I guarantee that you will notice that many changes have taken place in your relationship with the universe. Reality has a tendency to either blunt or sharpen the edges of the sword you wield.

SDW's advice was reasonably sound. I am however reprimanding myself for the "deep stealth" comment. No milk and cookies before bed for me tonight!

Sir Hellgate, please post a link to some music for me. No vids, just music. I would love to hear it.

Paz

(wiping away tears)

I plan on starting to pay back $100,000 by the time I'm 25.

As someone who's watched you surface and resurface and rererereresurface on a certain other discussion board, I can say with much confidence that while you may one day amount to something, it'll never be $100m a year.

I also have this slight feeling being told by one's mom that microwave ovens and WiFi networks will destroy your brain is slightly more indoctrinating (or maybe just freaking dumb?) than attending public school.

I have a Masters Degree in Trumpet Performance. Usually "applied music" means performance. In fact, I'm using the term that is not really used at this point. Now it's just called "Master of Music in...."



Sorry dude!

Well, I watched the video. You'll find it quite ironic that You tube is blocked at my school

Anyway, my thoughts: I think it's not so much that it shows what a "brainwashing machine" is, but rather that the video was made with the intent of making it look like that. In other words, it's deliberately creating that perception, or trying to.

I say "trying to" because it both succeeds and fails. There are three kinds of clips in that film:

1. Clips that succeed in your goal of portraying Public Education a certain way. One example is the school bus scene near the beginning.

2. Clips that can be interpreted different ways based on experience and POV. For example, you show elementary children "being brainwashed." I see a group of children actively engaged in learning. Really.

3. Clips that fail to communicate your POV because the kids don't look as you describe them. Closer to the end, you show kids leaving high school. They look happy, they have a bounce in their steps. They shake hands with a guy in a suit...not sure who that is supposed to be. Unless you are going for "I have to get the hell outta here ight now, yeeehaw," I don't see them as supporting your point of view.


As an aside, elementary classrooms where I teacher don't look like those. They are bright and colorful and generally encourage creativity as much as possible. There are problems at the elementary to be sure, such as an over emphasis on assessment, but the point is the appearance here. I'm not just talking about physical objects (black boards don't exist for example, we have white boards...which makes a bif difference...or so I've found). I'm also talking about the appearance of the kids. Many classrooms have kids actively doing whatever activity. I know my own classroom probably looks like a circus. If you saw what happens in my school, I think you'd have a very different point of view. And my school's not alone...it's just a good, modern school.

While his post comes off as being a bit condescending (sounds as if it was written by someone without much "life experience"), I tend to agree with a lot of it. I think "indoctrinated" is a better term for it than "brainwashed" though. (Check your dictionary, they're different.)

Kids who aren't tought differently, either at home or by truly great teachers (there are many), tend to come out of the public school system ready to go sit in a cubicle 9-5, 5 days a week, collect a meager paycheck and buy things on credit. Sorry if you don't like it, but that's what I see.

They learn to spend 8 hours a day in a "school" to get about 2+1/2 hours worth of education. And then they are expected to do "homework" every night for yet another hour. Where do the public school kids ever get a chance to socialize ???


I hear that a lot... it's not a valid argument against homeschooling. My kids actually socialize more than their "peers" that go to the public schools. They do various extra-curricular activities throughout the neighborhood and are constantly in contact with friends their age. Both "school" kids as well as other homeschooled kids. BUT... They also have contact with kids older and younger than them by several years (not just passing in a hallway, but actual interaction.) They are also able to interact in an intelligent way with the many adults they are exposed to on a daily basis. (Hopefully they'll retain this talent as they enter their teenage years. )
How about field trips?... go to a museum on Friday with a bus full of kids where there are another 20 busses full of kids already there?... Or go to that museum on a tuesday morning with the family, when no one else is there and they get a full personalized tour from a docent who doesn't have anyone else to deal with that day? Or call ahead a month before you visit the state capitol on a Wednesday afternoon and actually get to meet your senator or congressman in a situation where they'll take 10 minutes to actually TALK to the 4 kids visiting them??
Homeschooling's not for everyone ... many parents were indoctrinated themselves to such a degree that they don't think it's a viable solution. But, having used both systems, I can say with certainty that homeschooling is a MUCH better way to educate children than today's public school system.


Besides, by being homeschooled, my kids get to do all their computer based work on a Mac!!


As for the video, while it was just a edit of stock footage, he certainly put it together much better than I could have done. (At least, I couldn't have done it that well without a lot of practice and self-education first.) All the way through it I kept thinking "proles"... was quite pleased to see the Orwell reference at the end!

I know you based on the plenty of assertions you've made. If thy weren't supposed to represent who you are, you were either wasting your (and everyone else's time) making them, or you deliberately tried to come off as a fool, which only makes me think less of you.

I at least endorse you: not so much the opinion in entirety, but at least the fact that you said what you wanted to say. You'll gain wisdom in time, and in all likelihood will find your opinions changing, but don't ever succumb to the blandness of what you are told must be so.

proof that your schooling has brainwashed you. The irony!

dont worry it wasn't directed at you!. There is afterall a first time for everything.

You agree with the tirade against public schools and for homeschooling because you are a homeschooling parent yourself. Oh...


You don't know that since you have no "control group" i.e. a comparison of your kids in public school vs. your kids in homeschool in order to evaluate the difference.
Sounds like one big family vacation! Nice, but if you watch those "Family Vacation" movies, there's a reason why the father says stuff like you are saying right now, and the kids are grimacing in the back of the car.

"Indoctrinated" is a word that you use for a belief system with which you do not agree, but don't consider your own views equally "indoctrinated" or the possbility that going to a school run by professionals and full of peers is better than moping around the kitchen all day with mom and a math book.

Indoctrination is an interesting concept... but viewing all public school followed by college followed by careers as one big indoctrination is such tired, boring, laundry. My own view is that there are many paths, but you severely limit those paths for your kids by keeping them in your kitchen all day, funky field trips notwithstanding.

The tragedy is when someone who has talent and promise is unable to develop into their chosen field because they misinterpreted preparation as "indoctrination."


That is so general as to be meaningless. You may be an excellent teacher to your kids, but on the other hand, they may be better served by a more critical thinker.

A bad school is a bad school, and it may be better to teach them at home than at a bad school. But there are great schools all over the place, and it's a shame when a kid doesn't have the encouragement to go to one because their parent is a zealot.


As a cat, If I were homeschooled, it is highly doubtful I would ever use a Mac let alone a computer. If I were homeschooled, chances are I wouldn't even be able to clean my own litterbox.


An obvious reference, following an obvious diatribe. There's nothing original, startling, or rebellious about any of this. It's hackneyed. It's boring. And that, for anyone who wants to be a musician, is the cardinal sin.

Not bad.

The arrangement is its best feature, your knowledge of the instruments reveals a good ear.

As a musician, there's a number of things I would say, but i don't want to criticize you here, only encourage you. If you want to succeed in music beyond a music camp that has a reputation for being fun but soft, you need real training...

Feel free to answer the questions above if you can.

Home schooled your entire life but you are an expert on public schools.

Late

Well, actually, I do. They did attend a public school for a couple years. It was one of the top rated school districts in Texas. (I don't have a clue where that would put it on a national level.) The kids were bored. They were neglected as student because they were "easy" for the teachers.
THEY asked to come back home...

As for the "great big family vacation"... we do those too, but the trips mentioned above were not vacations, they were "field trips" that focused on education. But the vacations wouldn't be possible in a public school, because TX requires a minimum number of days in class (regardless of how quickly they ace the standardized tests.) Going on vacation for 3-4 weeks at a time kinda destroys their attendance record.

Not being cats, the kids actually like going on road-trips.

Education makes you stupid... yadda yadda yadda.

Teenage angst, angst angst...

Fuck the system, the system, the system.

Become the system.

Mock teenagers.

I made a music video that expresses my feelings toward your mom.

Who cares about homeschooling. Answer the music questions if you want to have a real conversation and not just be dismissive and smug.

People who actually want their children to get an education.



while I DO believe that, I really said it just to yank your chain ... a little fun here.