Teaching Music

Do You Hear What I Hear?

For
several years running, my middle school hosted the Solo and Ensemble Festival
for our southeastern Michigan region, always held on the first Saturday in
December. That meant that thousands of middle school musicians, plus their
parents, piano accompanists and indulgent grandmothers descended on my middle
school for a day of nervous renditions of "Little Fugue."

There
are more than 40 middle schools in the region, so that also meant hanging with a
volunteer workforce of a few dozen orchestra and band teachers, pulling 12-hour
shifts on a Saturday. Every year, at least one of them would express surprise
at the wreath hanging on the counselor's door, the (ugly, scrawny) Christmas
tree in the office--and the marching lineups and drum assignments for the
annual Fantasy of Lights parade
posted in the band room. 

"How
do you get away with that?" I was often asked. At many schools in nearby
Oakland County, the student population is much more ethnically and spiritually diverse.
Many of my counterparts were doing winter concerts where the musical literature
was tightly scrutinized for religious imbalance and stealth piety. Ironically,
many of them were selecting literature based on mildly schizophrenic policies
that allowed them to play masterworks--such as For Unto Us a Child is Born--on the theory that they were
"educational," but forbade secular tunes like Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas because--duh!--the word
"Christmas" was in the title.

Most
school policy on Christmas music--and performance of other traditional and
ethnic holiday compositions--falls somewhere between muddled and nonexistent; a
fair number of directives get added when someone complains at a school board
meeting. And a large segment of school personnel and the general population
profoundly misunderstand the elasticity, purpose and intent of the First
Amendment. It's not about boldly defying the separation of church and state
(although some people want to fight that specious battle endlessly). Charles
Haynes, First Amendment scholar, expresses this beautifully in a must-read
article:

The First
Amendment solution is stunningly simple: Schools should plan holiday programs
that are educational in purpose and balanced in content. Nothing in the First
Amendment prohibits public schools from educating students about music,
religious and secular, as part of a comprehensive music program that exposes
students to a variety of traditions and cultures.

Haynes
also notes that one Merry Hyatt of California is now collecting signatures to
put a referendum on the November 2010 ballot requiring all public schools in California to include Christmas music
in classroom activities, every December. Haynes thinks that even if the
referendum passed (and I get a little queasy thinking about the mileage Bill O'
Reilly could get out of that one), it would be overturned on constitutional
grounds.

Really--does
this need to be a fight? We're a diverse country. Teaching children to
appreciate the range and beauty of cultural traditions is something we ought to
be endorsing in every public school, no matter which holidays a majority of
students celebrate. Most people who hail each other in this season, whether
they say "Happy Holidays" or "Merry Christmas"--or any
other greeting--are not proclaiming religious fervor. They're trying to be
friendly and social. Good cheer in dark times.

There
is not and never has never been a "War on Christmas." Everyone in
America gets Christmas, for weeks, whether they want it or not. The First
Amendment lets us sort this out, school by school, keeping educational integrity
uppermost. School leaders can serve as models of inclusive and respectful
citizenship--a more admirable goal than majority domination.

For
those who insist that all middle school bands play Christmas music, I propose a
mandatory winter holiday parade. A few years marching in sleet ought to make
any "War on Christmas" zealot think twice.

Best Concert Ever

In
his marvelous 1977 book, On Teaching, Herb Kohl suggests that
teachers should read the books their students love, and listen seriously to the
music that engages the young people they teach.

Teachers, Kohl says, cannot
expect students to eagerly embrace the literature and arts their teachers deem classic,
beautiful or essential for an educated person, unless teachers return the favor
and seriously honor their students' tastes and preferences.

You
might argue that Kohl wrote those words before Lady Gaga was even born--and was
younger himself in the post-Woodstock era when On Teaching was
written. But he has a point. Our aesthetic values and ideals begin forming when
we are children, shaped by the arts that surround us. The goal is broad
experience, learning to draw knowledge and pleasure from a wide range of
artistic sources. If nothing else, listening to the music our students love can
be seen as a useful exercise in anthropology.

My
late mother-in-law--may she rest in peace--was convinced that my husband was at
Woodstock in 1969, and concealed this fact from his parents for decades. It's
not true--he was actually in Ann Arbor, safely grinding away at another boring
summer job. But in her mind, he was just the kind of rebellious hippy youth who
would hitchhike across the country to listen to all that racket. 

Craig
Wilson, in USA Today, makes the case that the music at Woodstock was glorified racket, pretty much--the
half-a-million-strong experience, the mud and the enthusiasm being the classic
and essential parts. Only a handful of the musical performances at Woodstock were
truly memorable and lots of musicians turned in marginal work, possibly because
electrocution was a distinct possibility at any moment.

Wilson
goes on to say that few would call Woodstock the best concert ever--and that what
makes a live performance unforgettable is probably a combination of arbitrary circumstances,
judgment and brilliance, an alignment of the listener's personal stars. In the
past 40 years, I have been to literally thousands of concerts. One of my life
regrets is not keeping a list of all the concerts I've seen (although a list of
all the concerts I've played would certainly be longer and--perhaps
surprisingly--less interesting). Perhaps a meticulously kept list would spoil
the spontaneous response to this question:

Best concert
ever?

For
me, as a formally trained musician, the answer would necessarily be divided
into two distinct captions--art music and popular music. I've seen most of the
major symphony orchestras in the U.S., and a number of Famous Classical
Musicians live. For dazzling talent, I would choose Cecilia Bartoli, at Hill
Auditorium. For pure listening pleasure, nothing came close to seeing the
Empire Brass at the Wharton Center. For artistic excellence and
heart-in-the-throat richness of sound, my favorite "classical"
ensemble is the Cleveland Symphony (although hearing them in Severance Hall may
have something to do with it).

On
the popular music side, I offer a top five: Richard Thompson at the Michigan
Theatre in Ann Arbor, an evening chock-full of irony and artistry. For pure
fun, the Subdudes at the Ark in Ann Arbor. Randy Newman, solo at the piano, at
the Royal Oak Theatre (we were in the front row, I was nine months pregnant,
and I remember hoping fervently that all the research about what babies could
hear in the womb was true). First runner-up: a tribute concert for Lowell
George, at the L.A. Forum, back in 1979. Nearly all my favorite musicians were
on the program, which went on for hours. When I got in line for popcorn, Laraine
Newman was ahead of me. I have kept the T-shirt for 30 years, even though it's
size x-small.

My
all-time favorite concert has to be seeing Stevie Wonder at Cobo Hall in
Detroit, back in the 70s. Stevie Wonder is always exciting and fresh, but he
was home that night, musically and emotionally. Our seats weren't that great,
but I was caught up in the feeling of being part of Stevie's family and his
generous passion. Signed, sealed, delivered: best concert ever.

Image: NYC_Comet, Flickr Creative Commons

Springtime for Hitler

 A  few weeks ago, in a fit of pique, I posted a
message at the  Celestial Teacher's
Lounge (a.k.a. the Teacher Leaders Network Forum) describing a particularly
vociferous and opinionated group of education bloggers and commenters as  ____ Nazis. As in--the Soup Nazi, so
entertainingly depicted on Seinfeld.

My
peace-loving friend and uber-blogger Ken Bernstein gently chided me for
careless use of a pretty hard-core epithet, pointing out that such name-calling
is not an invitation to thoughtful dialogue. It took me about five
chastised-but-bristling minutes to admit that he was right: He who uses the
most vile and inflammatory language is not the most influential. Loudest, perhaps--but
not the most truthful or accurate.

And
since that exchange, the nation has had the opportunity to hear a whole lot of
illogical, incoherent blah-blah about Hitler and health care--hunh?--and
witness Shepard Fairey's iconic poster of Obama adorned with a toothbrush
mustache.

Ha
ha. Not.

But
is this...wrong? Does it mean that Jon Stewart should never do pointed satire
on Hitler-mustache stickers (available for images of all the people you
currently dislike)? Was Barney Frank out of bounds, when he compared a
discussing the health care bill with the town-hall "Nazi policy" protester
to talking with his dining room table? As a person who includes The Producers among her favorite movies,
should I be embarrassed by my  reaction
every time I see Springtime for Hitler:
uncontrollable giggles? Is it possible to let satire and post-modern irony dull
us to the fact that some things are always immoral?

Is
it ever OK to pull out what Jon Meacham calls the Hitler card? And is it also worth
considering that one person's evil incarnate is another person's private hero?

A
few years ago, my 8th graders went on a kick where everything and everyone they
didn't care for at the moment became "gay." He's so gay, her shirt is
gay, everyone who plays in the band is gay, the principal is really, really
gay. And so on. One day, I called out some hapless kid who used the word in
class, leading to one of those moments when the room goes breathlessly silent
and everyone's focused on the exchange:

Me:
Please don't use the word gay as a pejorative--a nasty label. Not in this
classroom.

Kid:
Unh. Everyone else says it (defensively).

Me:
(silence, meeting his eyes--letting the inanity of that remark hang there)

Kid:
Well, they do.

Me:
And how do you feel when kids say that being in the band is gay--using that
word to mean that you and the other 65 people here in this room are uncool
nerds?

Kid:
I don't care (even more defensive).

Me:
I can only speak for myself, but I care very much about that. And I see this room as a safe space for everyone who wants to take band. If we start
calling each other names, we won't care as much about each other. The class
won't be as much fun, and the music will suffer.

Kid:
But what if someone really is gay?

Me:
Then that person needs to know that they're definitely welcome in the band
room.

At
lunch, one of my colleagues said "I hear you had the gay talk in second
hour today. I'm sick of hearing the word, too--good for you. I hope you don't
get any phone calls." I didn't--but I wasn't worried about it. I doubted if
any parent could muster much of an argument.

Ken
is right. We attach monstrous labels to people with whom we disagree at our own
peril, running the risk of weakening our resolve to see and resist evil--and
muddying distinctions between right and wrong. Those of us who work with
children, whose filters for irony, sarcasm and paradox are not fully developed,
should be especially careful.

I
visited Dachau concentration camp in 1977, the day before I flew home from a summer spent
backpacking in Europe. It was a drizzly, gray day and I had the place nearly to
myself--so perhaps that's why it was possible to stand in the empty yard and
hear, plain as day, faint but chilling echoes of the shouting and the screams. The
word that came to mind, in that terrible place, was sacrifice. A word whose
roots mean: to make sacred.

Image: David Farrington, Flickr Creative Commons

It's an ADD, ADD, ADD, ADD World

 Just
got home from a mini-vacation visiting Beautiful Daughter in Scottsdale
(Arizona in the summer! It's a really dry heat!)--and a respite from All Things
Internet, which is good for the soul. And the very first blog I read upon
returning was the irresistible guilty pleasure of It's Not All Flowers
and Sausages starring Mrs. Mimi. I adore Mrs. Mimi, because she
represents truth and the American way in education--and because no other blogger
makes me laugh out loud with every post, like she does. Or at least, no other
bloggers make me belly-laugh intentionally,
as opposed to the sarcastic snorting engendered by many Serious Policy World
reads.

Mrs.
Mimi's posts are generally full of cute kids, au naturale, and screwed-up power-hungry
adults--just like the real world. This one was about a field trip where the big
yellow bus drove past a Calvin Klein billboard--let your imagination create any
smoldering male zipper-down image--and got stuck in traffic in front of a semi-naked
Lady GaGa covering the side of a building.  Mrs. Mimi points out that all the interesting
facts and images planted in her kiddos' minds during the field trip are now eclipsed
by this sleaziness at the lowest pandering denominator. Sleaziness that's a constant
in their lives, by the way, unlike trips to the museum which occur rarely. Her
kids laugh and hoot at Lady GaGa, because they think that's what they're
supposed to do.

Sometimes,
the carefully planned lessons, carefully chosen books, and carefully spoken
words at school are just not even close to enough, to counterbalance the powerful attraction of our vulgar, ADD world.

And
that's a shame--because forays into the real world are often the juiciest
opportunities for real learning. In spite of the possibility (OK, the
certainty) that things will go wrong, getting out of Dodge has always been my
favorite learning strategy. I have taken 135 8th graders into a smoky dive of a
jazz club on Rush Street in Chicago (at noon, with the bartender slinging
frozen pizza and pitchers of coke), to watch the house band play a blues set
then offer my best drummer the opportunity to sit in on "Summertime."
We played a concert for old men in wheelchairs at a Veteran's Home in St.
Louis, and another on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, as jets flew overhead.
We've seen symphony orchestras in seven different cities, and at least as many
musicals. Preparing the kids for a field trip is much more than raising money
and laying down rules for the bus--it's curriculum.

Here's
an exciting field trip destination: Cleveland. Cleveland actually does
rock--and it was far less expensive than New York or Washington D.C.. The
centerpiece of our visit to Cleveland was a day at the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame, one of my favorite places on earth. It was a hard sell to get the kids to
agree to Cleveland (their first choice was New Orleans), but the opportunity
for unlimited time wallowing in Rock and Roll finally clinched the deal. I went
on a visit, solo, a few weeks before taking the 8th graders, to scope out new
exhibits and give them a recommended day plan of activities. There was a list
of must-sees--Mystery Train, a short film on the roots of rhythm and blues, and
the exhibit on Motown. And there was also a traveling exhibit on sex and drugs
in the rock culture, featuring lots of nasty language, bare skin and the
occasional corpse.

While
I may have let my personal children see the exhibit, with some prior
information and lecturing from Mom, I knew it was not my prerogative to let
other parents' 8th graders see the presentation. So I told the students that it
was there, it was inappropriate, and they could see everything else. Then I
posted rotating parent sentries at the theatre door. A few kids approached and
were checked by the chaperons, but most didn't even try. There were plenty of
other things to see and do. It was a fabulous day.

Before
leaving Cleveland the next day, we visited the zoo, an activity we added at the
last minute to give kids a chance to release some energy before the long bus
ride home. Cleveland has a world-class zoo, with an amazing Rain Forest. It was
in the Rain Forest, at the orangutan exhibit, that I came around the corner and
found half my students watching two orangutans very publicly expressing their desire to make more orangutans. One of the
chaperoning dads--a minister--turned to me and said, "And here we were
worried about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame."

And
so it goes.

My Small (Minded) Town

I'm
not ashamed to tell you that I was a dyed-in-the-wool band geek. My geekdom
lasted far beyond high school (where our uniforms had little red satin capes), into
college and through my entire teaching career, a panorama of tall fuzzy hats, pants
with stripes down the sides, and white bucks that required the kind of polish
they make for baby shoes. I have marched in at least 200 parades. I also know
what it feels like to have a piccolo adhere to your lower lip, via frozen
saliva.

And--I
have a certain animosity toward people who ridicule student musicians, or underestimate
the efforts of school bands to provide music for community occasions.  Kids who join the band and stay with it over
several years just love to play. They like the rush of making music with their
friends--and as they grow older, they become part of a time-honored cycle of performances
and commitments that student musicians fulfill for school and community:
football games, pep assemblies, the nursing home at Christmas, Honors Night, commencement.
There are special traditions--the hot cadence a talented drummer wrote back in
'88, or gathering outside the band room to play the Alma Mater before
graduation. These are meaningful and healthy activities for kids, a way to
share their talents with the wider world, to be responsible, and part of
something good.

So
I was surprised to see a nasty letter to editor in the local daily, criticizing
the high school band in the next town over for wearing their summer uniforms
(shorts and band T-shirts) on Memorial Day (which was warm and sunny this year).

Several hundred people were in attendance to watch our
show of respect for the fallen men and women of our armed forces. This was also
a time to give respect to those who have served and are currently serving our
nation. My discernment (sic) is the fact
that our high school band did not show the respect deserved of these men and
women. Marching down the center of Main Street in tennis shoes, little orange
shorts and white T-shirts just doesn't do it.

Naturally, this was
followed by the usual range of low-information comments on the slug-like nature
of kids today, and why bands don't swing their instruments and high-step any
more. (Answer: marching styles go in and out of fashion. The question was the
equivalent of asking why cars no longer sport those attractive fins.) Some
people defended the band, and thanked them for showing up-- for 60 years in a
row--and playing in the Memorial Day parade. All in all, however, it was
discouraging.

My bands played the
local Fantasy of Lights parade when the temperature was in the single digits,
and Homecoming in a freezing sideways rain, but summer parades are often the
toughest. I was always happy, waking up on Memorial Day, to see cloudy,
50-degree weather, because I knew heat stroke was not going to be a problem. Wool
uniforms are hot and heavy, and plastic hats trap heat. Students are reluctant
to drink  sufficient water, because they
can't drop out of a mile-long parade to use the porta-john. Wearing lightweight
clothing was an eminently practical choice--a decision that had nothing to do
with respect.

On Memorial Day, high
school trumpeters got up at dawn to meet members of the VFW and play Taps in dozens
of little country cemeteries across the county. Band parents transported trailer
loads of marching gear, flags, chairs and stands to parks and parking lots, and
teachers conducted the Navy Hymn and America the Beautiful once again. And in
the midst of their final exams, graduation, prom and regional sports events, high
school band geeks showed up--once again--to march down Main Street in honor of
those who sacrificed to make such a small town parade possible. Showing up,
rain or shine, year after year. That's respect.

Image: Flickr/Creative Commons/dbking

Imagine There's No...Imagination

Two
weeks ago, I spent a Saturday traveling to the century-old District Library in
Jackson, Michigan, one of more than 2500 beautiful public libraries--on three
continents--funded by industrial magnate and innovative philanthropist Andrew
Carnegie. The draw was a workshop on using research in writing, plus a luncheon
keynote featuring one of my favorite authors, Diana Gabaldon. Gabaldon took
questions after the workshop and the keynote--and both times, someone in the
audience asked her who Jamie (a character running through most of her novels)
looks like. As in--which living person, preferably a star, served as model for
your hero?

Both
times, Gabaldon gently demurred, saying that while she had an image of Jamie, readers should create their own vision.
This was not an answer that pleased the audience; there was the sense that they
wanted a name--or better yet, a color photo. And at my table, a Gabaldon reader
confessed that she starts all books by turning to the last pages--to see (her
words) "who died and who got together." Only with that concrete information could she start reading.

There's
plenty of evidence that students in this media-saturated world are losing their
capacity for rich imagination.  One of my
favorite instructional strategies in teaching middle school music is structured
role play. Assigning students a character to inhabit-- rock star, entertainment
lawyer, singing monk-- is a powerful way to force them to "think
different." There's always a subgroup of students who resist, claiming
they don't know what to do or say-- "Can't you just write it down, so I
can read it?" Explaining divergent thinking--or the endless possibilities
for changing one's narrative-- isn't always helpful. They're looking for the right
answer.

Turning
kids on to different kinds of music--every music teacher's #1 goal--is an
exercise in developing the imagination, particularly for band and orchestra
teachers who can't use lyrics as a means of illumination.  I remember one stunning moment back in the
80s, rehearsing a sensitive passage with my 8th grade band.  A young man raised his hand and said it might
be easier to play the piece if we knew what it was about. I replied that people
didn't ask Beethoven what his fifth symphony was about, but he persisted,
saying "You know, like on MTV, where you can see what songs are
about?"

That
comment sent me on an enduring quest to embed the ideas of imagination and
inspiration (literally, "drawing breath") into my classroom pedagogy.
Musicians use a range of non-visual and non-literary tools to represent
emotion, story, purpose and occasion. Part of musical imagination is
craftsmanship--having the knowledge and skills to create. But another part is
the willingness to be playful, to recombine familiar elements into something
new, to take a risk or wait on inspiration. My students had some rudimentary
knowledge and skills. What they didn't have was permission to honor or evaluate
their own interpretations and images.

As
much as I would like to pin my worries about diminished imagination in children
on MTV and a thousand other always-on media sources, I can't. Media, whether
brilliant or boring, is only the product.  Imagination is a process. A process fed and
honed by comprehension and competence--but also the ability to delay
gratification, to fool around with ideas. The women at the library who wanted
to see the definitive picture of their fictional hero, or know how the story
turns out before reading, were lacking the capacity to suspend fulfillment and
tinker with possibility. They wanted the answer.

Einstein
is famous for  declaring that imagination is more important
than knowledge. Here's the rest of that quote: "For knowledge is
limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the
entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

Imagination
is a real thing. It belongs in every vision or proposal for what our children
should learn, preparing for their 21st century lives.

Nice Homework, if You Can Get It.

Things
Teachers Relish: Quiet. Order. Denim skirts. Lounge arguments about homework.

It's
an evergreen topic, without much concurrence in the field. A recent discussion
on the Teacher Leaders Network uncovered distinct contrasts in beliefs and practices
around homework. Some of us have students who are motivated by grades. They
have their own high-speed computers, a quiet place to work, parents with
college degrees who expect a teacher to assign (and grade) homework. Some of
our students have none of the above--and find homework assignments somewhere
between meaningless and impossible. Their homes are not set up as a place to
extend school learning. And punishing them gets you nowhere.

Homework
policies begin as assumptions: grades motivated me so they will motivate my
students,  homework teaches kids responsibility,
students choose not to do their homework. Policies are usually shaped by compromise,
as teachers hit on a reasonable amount of homework--what the culture will bear.
The key is assigning something important, that will add value to the learning,
and perhaps become a habit. Something that can't be cranked out in school. Fun
is a bonus.

"Homework"
in my class usually meant practicing an instrument. Unlike many of my
band-teacher colleagues, I was never big on mandated, graded home practice
records. Too easy to fake, too many parents who would sign off on practice that
never happened--and too unstructured, with no clear learning goal and no
feedback.  And too inequitable. Some
kids' parents hated their blasting away during the cocktail hour or when
second-shift dad was sleeping. And one day, I discovered that militant bus
drivers were not allowing bigger instrument cases on the bus, because they took
up as much space as a small child. And you never cross bus drivers, in a
district where 90% of the kids have long bus rides.

I
finally hit on a few ideas that made home practice more desirable and flexible.
It strikes me that most of these ideas could be adapted to other kinds of
school/home work.

  • First,
    I made it possible to get an A or A- without home practice records. Structured
    practice could be used to improve your grade, but you didn't have to have it.
  • Second,
    for kids who could get rides, the band room was open for practice virtually
    every day after school and during lunch and homeroom. Practicing with friends
    or the likelihood of your teacher noticing you and listening for a minute
    provided incentive to work hard for a short burst of time (which is an
    excellent model for homework).
  • Third,
    credit was granted for students who played "mini-concerts" for the
    folks at home. What constituted a credit-worthy mini-concert varied from rank
    beginners to more advanced players. When mom signed off on a mini-concert, she
    had to explain what she heard and offer comments and suggestions; this had the
    added benefit of providing parent feedback (usually glowing, but not always)
    and an audience for new musical learnings.
  • Fourth,
    Monday became "humanities day." We didn't rehearse using instruments
    on most Mondays. With administrative help, I negotiated with bus drivers to
    allow kids to take horns home on Fridays only, and bring them back Tuesday
    morning--which gave kids four days to practice at home. And believe me--most middle
    school band teachers would be thrilled if their students practiced four days a
    week.
  • Finally,
    I started promoting other opportunities for kids to play--at church, solo
    festivals, for the kindergarten class next door. The 7th grade social studies
    teachers helped cook up a "history of America in song" opportunity
    where our students could learn an American folk tune and get credit in both
    classes for researching its place in American history, delivering a short commentary,
    then playing the tune for their class. A win-win.

A Golden Drop of Sun

There's
a nifty YouTube video making the rounds among teacher types. I have a pretty
high threshold for being charmed, but this infectious little bit of fun made me
stop obsessing about the stimulus money for education, Arne Duncan, and all the
rest of my worldly cares. If you haven't seen it yet (hint: Julie Andrews pays
a visit to Centraal Station in Antwerp, Belgium), take four minutes and treat
yourself, here.

 

If
there were ever a right time to have faith about the innate goodness of man, demonstrated
by his willingness to drop self-consciousness and prance around in train
stations, it's now. Don't want to get all Anne Frank here, but there's a lot of
free-floating anxiety out there (justified free-floating anxiety)--and it's refreshing
to see people of all ages having a blast, singing and dancing in public. Gives
me hope.

 

As
a music teacher, I seriously wonder about bloggers who engage in verbal death
brawls over the question of whether creativity can be taught. Even without a
randomized trial evaluating the precise measurable impact of strategies
designed to expand thinking-- isn't it worth the attempt to create an
environment where the hatching of new ideas is nurtured, and kids' brains get
to go out and play?  Somebody with a
creative idea got to live out their fantasy in the Do-Re-Mi video. Just
watching it made me confident that we--the teaching profession--can make a
convincing case that life is no good without imagination. Even for investment
bankers.

 

Bill
Moyers recently interviewed Bill Black, the former regulator who cracked down on
banks during the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s. It's a sobering piece.
Black makes it clear that the economic crisis was data-driven, that data being
the precise measurable results of loosening constraints against excess risk, and
permitting more creativity in leverage strategies and compensation packages.

Moyers: I
was taken with your candor at the conference here in New York to hear you say
that this crisis we're going through, this economic and financial meltdown is
driven by fraud. What's your definition of fraud?

Black: Fraud
is deceit. And the essence of fraud is, "I create trust in you, and then I
betray that trust, and get you to give me something of value." And as a
result, there's no more effective acid against trust than fraud, especially
fraud by top elites, and that's what we have.

I
keep thinking:  the most intelligent guys
on the planet just led us into global economic collapse by inventing a clutch
of economic and financial parlor tricks that made them very rich. Smart bankers
who hustled 1580s on their SATs and came out of our best, most competitive
universities went straight for the nation's fiduciary jugular. Experienced
policy lions convinced colleagues to scrap commonsense regulations that had
been protecting Americans for decades. Their sleight of hand maneuvers sucked
money away from millions of ordinary, hard-working Americans, the ones who
got unimpressive scores on their college board--if they took them at all--and
went to trade school, Regional State U or straight into the workforce. Boring folks
in boring towns, who believed that paying down their ranch house mortgage was
like tucking money into a sock for their kids' future.

 

I
also keep wondering what those financial-market whiz kids were like in first
grade. Did they ever have to wait their turn in line for the merry-go-round?
Were they ever in the Sparrows reading group, not yet proficient enough to be a
Bluebird? Were they ever humbled by a math problem they couldn't understand? Did
anyone ever explain the concept of "to whom much is given, much is
expected?"

 

And--did
they ever joyfully pretend to be a needle pulling thread?

 

That
will bring us back to Nietzsche, who said: "Without music, life would be a
mistake."

Image: jfrancis/flickr creative commons

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