written by Andre Moses President, Pan in Schools Coordinating Council
In so many cases the right and wrong of a situation has little to do with the arguments in themselves, but has all to do with how the framework for the discussion is presented. The suggestion that we must choose between A Pan in the Classroom Unit and A Multicultural Unit is based on the assumption that either we cannot have both or we don’t need both.
PAN IN THE CLASSROOM A LONG TIME COMING
When the Pan in the Classroom Unit was established by Cabinet Note in 2002 it represented a triumph for over two decades of advocacy. This advocacy began to take form in 1981, with the formation of Pan Trinbago’s first Pan in Schools Committee under the chairmanship of Andre Moses, the current President of the Pan in Schools Coordinating Council.
The committee included the late Alma Pierre, the first curriculum officer for Music in the Ministry of Education, who had journeyed to the panyard, with music sheet in hand, to work with Diego Martin Merrytones for the Steelband Music Festival. Alma, having established an organic connection with the indigenous steelpan instrument by virtue of her sibling relationship to the legendary Lennox Pierre, who joined together with Lieutenant Joseph Griffith, a policeman musician of Bajan extraction, to chomaticize the then rudimentary steelpan instrument.
Jerry Jemmot popularly called Uncle Jem in steelband circles, another policeman musician and legendary conductor of Trinidad All Stars, was also a member of this Pan Trinbago Committee, as was the very unrecognized and unheralded pannist, steelband activist and historian Selwyn Tarradath.
THE STEELPAN AS THE NATIONAL INSTRUMENT
Lennox Pierre used to make the point that taking music lessons and learning to play the piano or the violin, as he did, was a middle class custom and practice. Working class families had neither the money nor the opportunity to send their children to music lessons and so playing a musical instrument was restricted to an exclusive grouping defined, by and large, by social class, except perhaps for those who came out of the music programmes in the orphanages.
With the birth of the steelpan in the years after World War II, according to Lennox, working class children from communities in north, east and south Trinidad and eventually from Tobago now had an instrument that they could “afford “and “music lessons” consisted of trying to reproduce the songs that were played on the radio, by ear rather than via the music sheet.
The national panorama began in 1963 with 24 registered bands although only 21 bands actually took part. By 1996, some 32 years later, the number of registered bands had increased by four hundred percent to 105 bands and as a consequence the number of steelband musicians increased exponentially.
The Junior Steelband Panorama began in 1976 with only two participants, Belmont Fifth Dimension and Providence Pan Vibes. By 1996 participation had increased to approximately twenty bands and more and more young people were gravitating towards the steelpan and its music.
By this time the instrument was in the communities, in the school, in the church, in the university, in the music festival, in the Diaspora and on the world stage.
The Steelpan was conceived in the post emancipation struggles for self government and nationhood, it was incubated in the Trinbago womb from the African drum to tamboo bamboo to metal “instrument” and its birth was announced to the world on VE Day and VJ Day which signaled the end of World War II.
Its DNA said its parents were Trinidad and Tobago. It was ours, from conception to birth, and when the NAR Government declared it the national instrument in 1991, this was merely a case of late registration of birth, because by then everyone recognized and acknowledged whose child pan was.
FROM PAN IN SCHOOLS TO MUSIC IN SCHOOLS WITH PAN AS THE INSTRUMENT OF CHOICE
Pan, meaning the physical instrument, has been in schools since the 1950’s. Invaders Pan Pioneer and musician Nervin Saunders, had introduced the steelpan to his students in Las Cuevas Primary in the late 1950’s. College boys like The Pouchet brothers Junior and Edwin, Curtis Pierre, Ray Holman and Darcus Howe from the likes CIC, Fatima and QRC had made their way into the panyard in the 1950’s and 60’s.
The Junior Panorama had started in 1976 and the Schools Steelband Music Festival in 1981. By 1991 the steelpan had been declared the National Instrument yet the steelpan instrument in particular and music in general was still on the fringes of the national school curriculum.
The steelpan and its music was restricted to being an extracurricular activity during which students would “learn a tune” for some school function or some school competition.
FORMATION OF THE PAN IN SCHOOLS COORDINATING COUNCIL
Initially it was the steelband and community activists, like Mc Donald Redhead with St Francois Girls, and Pan Trinbago the governing body for steelband that championed the cause for Pan in Schools. However, with the advent of the School Steelband Music Festival in 1981 teachers in general and music teachers in particular became much more involved. This involvement spawned the formation of the Pan in Schools Coordinating Council (PSCC) in 1999. By then, the dialogue had changed and music literacy was now a central issue on the Pan in Schools agenda.
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PAN IN THE CLASSROOM UNIT
To this end the newly formed Pan in Schools Coordinating Council submitted a proposal in the year 2000 entitled “Pan in the Classroom” to the then Minister of Education, Kamla Persad-Bissesar, which was favourably received. Two years later, in 2002, Cabinet approved the setting up a unit in the Ministry of Education with the same name as the title of the PSCC proposal, “Pan in the Classroom”, this time under the watch of Hazel Manning, since by then the government had changed hands.
STRUCTURED MUSIC EDUCATION IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS FOR THE FIRST TIME
Ten years after the formation of the Pan in the Classroom Unit the Ministry of Education has placed one thousand five hundred and thirty-six sets of steelpan instruments in some (96) ninety-six primary schools. And more importantly, music tutors operating under the auspices of the Pan in the Classroom Unit, used these steelpan instruments not to “teach the children a tune” but to implement the primary school’s music curriculum. This music curriculum existed in theory, but in practice very often there was no one to implement the curriculum because the primary schools do not have specialist teachers and the various class teachers are very often not qualified to deliver a music curriculum.
PAN IN THE CLASSROOM GENERATES TREMENDOUS EXCITEMENT IN OUR NATION’S CLASSROOMS
It is very hard to describe in words the level of excitement and empowerment Pan in the Classroom generated in primary schools:
From Bethlehem Girls R.C. to Tranquility Primary in Port of Spain & Environs,
From Arima Boys Primary to St. Michaels A.C. (Maracas A.C.) in East St. George,
From Cunapo R.C. to Sangre Grande SDA in the North East,
From California Government to Madras Government in Caroni,
From Siparia Boys R.C. to Icacos Government in St. Patrick,
From Brothers Road Presbyterian to Mayo R.C. in Victoria,
From Fifth Company Baptist to Guayaguayare R.C. in the South East,
From Scarborough Methodist to Black Rock Government in Tobago.
Our primary school youth now had an outlet for the “music in their head”, they had an instrument that allowed them to express it and they had the tools in terms of music literacy to operate in any musical environment, steelband or otherwise.
And this excitement was not restricted to the children as is evidenced by the countless testimonies from grateful teachers and parents who have welcomed the dramatic changes in attitude and discipline that had been occasioned by their children’s involvement in, and commitment to, the Pan in the Classroom programme.
CSEC MUSIC TAKES OFF
Music in secondary schools has always been on the fringes. Music was a subject to do in the lower school before you choose your “serious” subjects to do at Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) level. To study music at the CSEC level you had to play an instrument which “disqualified” the vast majority of secondary school students.
Pan in Schools and more recently Pan in the Classroom have changed the dynamic considerably. Students now have an instrument which is available, which is part of a structured programme, and which allows them to fulfill a fantasy.
Additionally they saw the graduates of their school’s steelband music programmes becoming gainfully employed as solo artistes, as studio musicians, as arrangers and composers, as teachers and as music producers and as a consequence they began to see music as a viable career option.
Pan in Schools graduates like Liam Teague, Ardin Herbert, Seion Gomez, Yohan Popplewell, Michelle Huggins Watts, Andre Wight, Cheo Cato, Amrit Samaroo, Duvonne Stewart, Kern Sumerville and so many others are collectively inspiring a new generation of students to opt for careers in the steelband industry.
Consequently more and more secondary students are opting to do CSEC music and also to enroll thereafter in a number of tertiary programmes offering a variety of degree options in the area of music.
THE STEELBAND INDUSTRY A VIABLE OPTION FOR ECONOMIC DIVERSIFICATION
Today’s world has begun to take serious note of this “new” steelpan instrument and the emerging industry that is growing up around it.
American Universities are investing Research and Development dollars into an investigation of the Science of Pan Tuning.
More than (30) thirty colleges in the United States have recognized the steelpan is ideally suited to music education and have consequently introduced it into their music faculties.
Cuba recently welcomed the Pope with the sounds of steel. The Japanese, the Nigerians have sent personnel to Trinidad and Tobago to be trained as Pan Tuners.
And meanwhile our steelbands have continued to crisscross the globe. Pamberi Steel Orchestra has been contracted on foreign tours almost every year since 1990 and has been producing recorded material for the foreign market including working on music for a Japanese animated film. Renegades has been touring France on an annual basis over the past few years and Exodus has recently toured China.
The burgeoning markets of Brazil and India await this new musical phenomenon while in the land of its birth we seem to want to actualize the old adage “Nearest the Church furthest from God”. While the rest of the world is poised to exploit the economic potential of the steelband we are working to dismantle the foundation for our continued hegemony in the steelband industry by disbanding the Pan in the Classroom Unit. By the time we “wake up and smell the coffee” just as with the patenting of pan, those with more vision and foresight than us, would have already adopted and exploited our unappreciated progeny, the steelpan.
LEAVE THE PAN IN THE CLASSROOM UNIT INTACT
By any yardstick the Pan in the Classroom Unit has been an unqualified success. Rather than being dismantled it should be expanded to establish a solid foundation for diversification through this non-energy sector industry.
In fact the Pan in Schools Coordinating Council is projecting that as energy receipts dwindle over time “A Ministry of Pan” will seem to be an increasingly less farfetched and a more and more viable option.
BUT INCLUDE ALL THE OTHER MUSIC TRADITIONS ON OUR SCHOOL CURRICULUM
More steelband music should not mean less parang or less of our East Indian Music or less Classical Music. Nor should more steelpan mean lessguitar or less harmonium or less piano. All of the above derive from our varied historical antecedents and therefore all of the above should find a pride of place on our school curriculum.
While football may be the most popular sport in schools, “Have we sought to exclude cricket or basketball or track and field or volleyball from our school co-curricular curricula?” No we have not. “Have we sought to amalgamate all our sporting disciplines in one “maco” multisport “pelau” with one centralized administration?” No we have not.
Ms. June Bacchus- Ifill’s music classroom at San Juan Senior Comprehensive in the 1980’s nurtured Los Alumnos de San Juan and H2O Flow and a Champion Schools Steelband all at the same time. Music in that classroom was not constrained by any artificial boundaries.
The logical decision must be to keep this very successful model and build the capacity in other areas. Merging all these varied musical traditions under one central unit will not work. Just as a football coach cannot coach athletics a guitar tutor cannot implement a steelpan curriculum. Let us not turn back the hand of the clock with Pan in the Classroom program, history will not forgive us.
Replies
One should note that on the Panorama DVD, several band representatives proudly mentioned that many of their younger players were able to read music.It appears that many of our young panists are becoming musically literate.
This is a direct result of the Pan in the Classroom project.
Obviously there is more to music literacy that the ability to learn a Panorama tune, but it is commendable, none the less.
I wish I had that opportunity in my days at school!
On behalf of all on the Steelpan Initiatives Project of the Steelpan Development Lab at UWI I endorse any move to maintain and expand the Pan in Schools programme. I also fully support the full use of all instruments of all genres in all schools.
Over the years, the Lab, has provided much support to the programmes (there were two), often in the form of lectures on music technology and site visits. We have seen the entusiasm of students as they engaged the learning process, an enthusiasm that further fueled our R&D efforts. Our work with any programme that involved pan education demonstrated to us the subtle power of pan as an educational tool in music- why we are among the last to capitalise on this, I have absolutely not a clue.
We are sitting on a gold mine, one that we still have a thread of opportunity to shape, grow and exploit.
We should not, in 2012, be still having this conversation.
Those who were present at the Steelfest conference can attest to my presentation done on the Pan in the Classroom programme (PICP) which shared the content and methodology of the PIC Programme.. For those of you who are not familiar, allow me to educate: The PICP is about teaching the Ministry of Education's music curriculum using the steelpan as the instrument of choice and as a teaching tool. Fundamentals of music and musical concepts as well as music theory are taught. As far as possible these concepts are demonstrated on the steelpan. Peformance, singing, creating, composing, reading and writing music are also part of the curriculum of which the steelpan is at the centre of it all.
Opportunities are also provided for students to demonstrate their skils and express themselves on the instrument; such as in non-competitive environments e.g. concerts in education districts, performance at school assemblies and functions. There are also competitions such as Junior Panorama, Junior Steelband Festival, Music Festival and Pan for Blue (Point Fortin Bourough celebrations).
So you see, the Pan in the Classroom Programme is a formal, well-structured MUSIC EDUCATION programme. Many testimonies have been given as to other impacts the Programme has had on students such as increased self-esteem, reduction in violence and academic improvement.
Anyone who says differently might be speaking from behind clouded lenses or political bars. I know.... because I am part of the Programme.
Now the question is: should this be allowed to be dismantled?.........
Hi Josephine (coz),
Thanks for your definite input. it is important to get an on hand and present perspective of the situation as it unfolds. The majority of us in the diaspora will just react when we hear unpleasant things about the pan and the dismantling of the Pan program as presented is one of them. So we appreciate the direct information.
Despite the different points of views expressed on this Forum everyone really wants the best for the Pan and will protest and continue to fight any types of injustice perceived or real..so stay on the forefront
Regards
Salah
My thanks also to sister Josephine, for elucidating the mission of the PICP. It conforms with the comment posted before on this very topic: that unless the pab was being used to teach musiv, them it was "spinning top in mud". Also the efforts of Dr Copeland's lab efforts to educate students, both technlogically and financialy, is to be lauded.
With such supporters as you both, and others, and with the continuation ofthe ICP, the pan should be secure from loss/degradation.
Peter
Andre:
With all due respect, in my view the issue is NOT pan in the classroom, but rather what you use the pan to teach ... if you are not using it to teach music, then you spinnin' top in mud, and the pan is just there for decoration. Learning to jam without at least the rudiments of music is futile, especially given the global spread of pan nowadays - unless you are preparing students to beat pan in Trinidad only.
Peter
Peter,
I think you may have missed some facts in Andre's presentation. If you peruse the sub heading "Structured Music Education in Primary Schools For The First Time", Andre identified that placing the steelpans in primary schools was "not just to teach children a tune but to implement the primary school's music curriculum" and again in sub heading "Pan In The Classroom Generates Tremendous Excitement In Our Nation's Classrooms" - " dramatic changes and discipline" have been noted by teachers and may I include improved academic performance. As a Coordinator in the Pan in the Classroom program, I can testify to what Andre has mentioned in his article having witnessed first hand the mega positive impact the program has had on the nation's children.
Kevin Millien
First of all Kevin it is good to deal with someone who is directly involved to get a true perspective of what is going on. But I have also spoken with others who are involved and they do not paint the best picture nor the same picture. I know Andre and certainly respect his works and observations and i am glad that people like him are involve .
But the bottom line of the discussion is in the topic of the discussion
"Dismantling the Pan In The Classroom Unit Is Tantamount to Turning Back The Hands Of The Clock"
Salah you will get all kinds of spins and perspectives from all kinds of people with different agendas. Like in every organization this program is not immune from some teething problems and I am not pretending to deny any negatives but I do speak of what I have personally witnessed. It is the only perspective I can speak from and I certainly don't mean to stray from the topic at hand. Best Regards
Like I said my brother it is good to have someone who is directly involve in the process to share their views on this Forum ...this helps to cut the chase ...nuff respect
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