Brenda Dillon serves as education consultant for Roland Contemporary Keyboard Division and associate editor of Roland's Keyboard Educator. Her background includes experiences in academia and the music industry. Her formal education includes bachelor and master degrees as well as doctoral work in music from the University of North Texas. After teaching music at two Dallas community colleges, Brenda served as Dean of Fine Arts at Brookhaven College. Throughout her teaching career, she presented workshops at state and national conferences, authored numerous articles, co-authored two books, and consulted on projects for several piano manufacturers. She has served as chairman of several organizations, including the National Group Piano Symposium, the Texas Group Piano Association, a keyboard committee for MENC, and as cochair of MENC's Music In Our Schools Week. Brenda Dillon's formal association with industry began when she became Executive Director of the National Piano Foundation. Her experience includes coordinating NPF's Research Project with McGill University in Montreal and writing kits for educators, technicians and retailers (Piano Marketing Essentials, Teaching Bigger Fingers to Play, a SPELLS Action Kit -- Study of Piano Enhances Learning and Life's Success). The latter was developed for a market development program sponsored by the piano manufacturers and was presented to retailers, technicians and educators in 50 cities throughout the U.S. Brenda Dillon presently serves as associate editor of Keyboard Companion.
Brenda Dillon
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Plano, TX 75024
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Growing Up Digital by Don Tapscott (McGraw-Hill) focuses on the Net Generation, the generation of children who will be between the ages of two and 22 by 1999. Why is this generation important to piano teachers in the next century?
First of all, the next few years will likely be a time of transition for piano teachers. We will have a foot in the past for students who want and expect traditional piano lessons, but we will need to have a foot in the future for the Net Generation. Who are they, and how do we prepare to teach them?
Don Tapscott tells us that the Net Generation - 80 million strong - are so bathed in bits that they think it's part of the natural landscape. Two-thirds of them use a personal computer at home or at school. They now represent 30 percent of the population, as compared to the baby boomer's 29 percent. A primary difference between the two is that boomers have embraced computer and information technology, but they have done so under duress. Their world was shaped by television, a passive and controlling influence.
The Net Generation is rapidly substituting computer activities for watching TV. A recent Nielsen poll found that wired homes watch 15 percent less television. In 1995 virtually no homes were wired. However, by the year 2000, over 40 percent of American households will be connected to the Internet. It is predicted that American children will be watching approximately 100 hours less television a year than they do now. When these children were asked what was more fun - television or the Internet - 92 percent of them chose the Internet.
The reason for this change is that computers are interactive and television is broadcast-driven. The latter is unidirectional, the choice of programming is in the hands of a few, and it is often "dumbed-down" to the lowest common denominator. Television comes from the top down and is done to you, not by you. Computer users can inquire, discuss, argue, play, shop, critique, investigate, ridicule, fantasize, seek and inform. For the first time, children are taking control of a communication revolution. Television may be prime time, but computers are anytime.
Another consideration is that we are shifting from a generation gap to a generation lap, where kids are outpacing and overtaking adults on the technology track. Society has never before experienced this phenomenon of having the knowledge hierarchy so effectively flipped on its head. When it comes to using technology, the Net Generation initially focuses on how to work it, rather than how it works. They expect things to happen fast, because in their world things do happen fast. The computer has changed from a tool for information management to a communications tool. Digital kids are learning about peer relationships, about teamwork, about being critical, about how to have fun online, about friendships across the miles, about standing up for what they think, and about how to effectively communicate their ideas.
What does this mean for teachers? How many of us are facilitating interactive learning environments? Peter Drucker, a leading authority in the business world, shocked the post-secondary world in the March 10, 1997 issue of Forbes magazine by writing, "Thirty years from now, big university campuses will be relics. The impact of the digital revolution is as large a change as when we first got the printed book. The university won't survive as a residential institution. Today's buildings are hopelessly unsuited and totally unneeded."
This view does not coincide with John Naisbitt's HighTech/High Touch prediction in Megatrends, published in 1982: "The more technology we introduce into society, the more people will aggregate. Shopping malls are now the third most frequented space in our lives, following home and workplace." Naisbitt believed that "the more high technology around us, the more the need for human touch."
Tapscott, in a more middle-ground view, writes, "Teachers have legitimate concerns about their role as the learning model changes from broadcast to interactive. The irony here is that if they don't change and transform their classrooms and themselves to the new model, they face even greater threats to their job security. Society will find other ways to deliver learning and bypass them."
Tapscott is a promoter of "learner-centered" education that improves the child's motivation to learn. "Rather than listening to some professor regurgitating facts and theories, students discuss and learn from each other with the teacher as a participant. This does not suggest the teacher is suddenly playing a less important role. The shift is from teacher as transmitter to teacher as facilitator. Learning is becoming a social activity facilitated by a new generation of educators. The teacher doesn't compete with Jacques Cousteau, but rather is supported by him. A teacher is equally critical and valued in the learner-centered context, and is essential for creating and structuring the learning experience. Much of this depends on the subject; no one would suggest, for example, that the best way to learn the piano is the discovery mode."
This last sentence is especially interesting, as Tapscott mentions that he writes music. If he believes learning to play the piano isn't best done by the discovery mode, what portion of the music learning experience is best done interactively? If the information in his book is accurate, we can expect piano students who not only embrace technology, but who demand it. We can expect students who not only understand lifelong learning; it is a way of life for them. We can expect brighter students, as recent studies found that children are registering average raw intelligence scores that are 15 points higher than those reported on tests 50 years ago. They will expect customized learning rather than learning designed to meet the needs of a specific age or grade in school. We can also expect more students. Between 1996 and 2006, public high school enrollment is expected to increase by 15 percent and college enrollment by 14 percent. Even without considering retiring teachers, 190,000 new teachers will be needed.
With the exception of future students demanding technology, all of these predictions are beyond our control. What isn't beyond our control is our willingness to shift from being a transmitter of broadcast learning to a facilitator of interactive learning. This begins with attitude, and attitude is totally under our control.
It's been said that the only people who like change are babies with wet diapers. However, the challenge for us as piano pedagogues is to adapt to the changing environment, while not losing what makes us unique and necessary. Human beings have an innate desire to make music and we now have even more avenues to participate as a partner in that process. The Net Generation may approach us in a different way and may express unusual learning goals compared to our past students, but the bottom line is that they also have that innate desire to make music. Piano teachers who are open to this generation and their technological bent are going to thoroughly enjoy teaching in the next century. For an even greater rush of adrenaline, consider what it will be like in the year 2999! That's an article I would like to read.
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