Post 68.

In the book "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed," Jared Diamond identifies twelve environmental problems that face humankind today. The first 8 have caused civilizations to collapse in the past.

1. "Deforestation and habitat destruction
2. Soil problems (erosion, salinization, and soil fertility losses)
3. Water management problems
4. Overhunting
5. Overfishing
6. Effects of introduced species on native species
7. Overpopulation
8. Increased per-capita impact of people"

Diamond identifies four additional problems that face society today:

1. "Anthropogenic climate change
2. Buildup of toxins in the environment
3. Energy shortages
4. Full human use of the Earth’s photosynthetic capacity"

In my book I suggest that becoming eco-literate requires we understand the ecological crises as plural. Though I did not use Diamond's book to theorize the structure of this plurality, David Orr, in his 1992 book, suggested three crises, which has also been suggested by Vandana Shiva. My point in Eco-Literate Music Pedagogy was, rather than suggesting there are exactly two, or three, or twelve crises, eco-literate citizenry cannot focus only on a single crisis, such as climate change, and ignore or even exacerbate another crises. As I didn't deal specifically with Diamond's twelve challenges in the book, lets look at three of them here from a creative teacher's lens.

1. Deforestation: Facing deforestation, students can be shown artwork and musics that celebrate forests. Since we will need to create more wildlife sanctuaries, students can artistically celebrate their local parks and even work toward their expansion, or work to improve habitats within those parks.
2. Soil: Many schools now have school gardens. It is important that students be connected to actual soil, learning about their bioregion's planting and seasonal cycles. (I even called my philosophy a "Philosophy on Soil" in the book). There are many ways to celebrate soil through music, including songs and visual artwork (use these interdisciplinarily). Get your students outside and talking about, singing, dancing, and celebrating the soil, because the next generation will help us overcome soil-loss problems previous generations have exacerbated.
3. Water: Water is life. American Indian groups led the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline beginning in 2016, suggesting this pipeline represented a threat to the region's drinking water. Beginning in 2014, Flint, Michigan has experienced lead in their drinking water. Honduras and other Central American nations have experienced a clean water crisis, which has led to increased immigration and climate refugees here in the U.S. When we teach our students about the needs of "the other" we need to include the ecological realities people face today.

Whether you teach music, art, and dance, or use the arts to teach in your classroom, young students can feel empowered when you provide opportunities for songwriting, painting, dancing, and other creative responses to the ecological crises. It is important that children learn the challenges, and realize ways to respond, resist, and change our communities and societies moving forward. (image link)

I'll end with a quote from Michael Silver's book, Voices of Drought: The Politics of Music and Environment in Northeastern Brazil: "Climate change and other forms of environmental decline will affect a greater range of human activities than we typically acknowledge. As natural resources become unavailable, new, sustainable materials will need to be used to produce (and reproduce) music. ... With changing weather patterns come challenges (or renewed activities of) forms of local ecological knowledge. If populations of birds, whose calls convey vital knowledge to farmers, migrate to more hospitable places or become extinct, local ways of knowing become obsolete."

It is my sincere hope that, in response to these great challenges we face, a creative pedagogical approach might help unearth solutions. Local knowledges are constantly evolving, and we must all play our part in living a philosophy on soil.

DJS

Post 67.

Representative Ocasio-Cortez introduced her version of the New Green Deal to the House in February 2019. What I find most compelling about this legislation is the way in which it understands the climate crisis as intersectional. Here are three important sections (quoted) from the Bill.

1. "Climate change constitutes a direct threat to the national security of the United States ... by impacting the economic, environmental, and social stability of countries and communities around the world; and by acting as a threat multiplier."
   
2. It is the duty of the Federal Government to secure for the people of the United States:
   
   1. "Clean air and water"
      
   2. "Climate and community resiliency"
      
   3. "Healthy food"
      
   4. "Access to nature"
      
   5. "A sustainable environment"
      
3. "Frontline and vulnerable communities ... to promote justice and equity by stopping current, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression of"
   
   1. "indigenous peoples"
      
   2. "communities of color"
      
   3. "migrant communities"
      
   4. "deindustrialized communities"
      
   5. "depopulated rural communities"
      
   6. "the poor"
      
   7. "low-income workers"
      
   8. "women"
      
   9. "the elderly"
      
   10. "the unhoused"
       
   11. "people with disabilities"
       
   12. "youth"
       

What do these three points say to me, as a music teacher?

1. Climate change is the cause and a multiplying factor in exacerbating the current ecological crises. In this document, Ocasio-Cortez and other House members link economic, environmental and social stability. There are people out there who want to separate the economic and environmental challenges from the very idea of social stability. Some even claim uprootedness is good. But, even if physical movement ought to be free, it is better for all if there are stable communities between which one might move. I have argued that it by being rooted in locations that we are able to respond to the ecological challenges. Social rootedness seems to be identified as a "good" in the New Green Deal, which is consistent with ecological scholarship. Because the climate crises are uprooting (extended droughts in Syria and Central America have caused and exacerbated the current refugee crises in the U.S. and Europe). As music teachers, we can begin by performing and creating music that celebrates the beauty of nature, the histories of the places where we reside, and the epistemologies of the communities our students are in. We can experience the other from a stable self, just like we can aid refugees when we reside in place ourselves.
   
2. Ocasio-Cortez's New Green Deal identifies certain duties of government. Of interest to me as a music teacher is climate and community resiliency and access to nature. In my grandfather's generation there was a great public movement to create new parks. Biologist E.O. Wilson calls for half of the earth being converted into some sort of wilderness preserve to stem the species-loss crisis. Protected spaces can be a point of pride for rural, urban, and suburban communities. Local, state and federal efforts can be made to create new parks that serve as points of pride and homes for wildlife. Perhaps as music teachers we can sing and have our students write songs that recaptures this ethic of conservation and park creation.
   
3. This list of frontline and vulnerable communities provides an extensive list of intersectional identities. Music teachers can help by creating solidarity; recognizing how our students are vulnerable (even oppressed in Freirean terminology). For instance, where do we open space in our pedagogy for indigenous, rural, elderly, and the unhoused voices? Musics? Our teaching practices can be made robust by expanding the voices we bring into our classrooms.
   

On a final note, John Bellamy Foster connects the history of Ocasio'Cortez's effort with the efforts of Bernie Sanders, and Jill Stein before her. He challenges the New Green Deal approaches: "None consider the full level of waste built into the current accumulation system and how that could be turned to ecological advantage. Instead, all of the plans are based on the notion of promoting rapid, exponential economic growth or capital accumulation—despite the fact that this would compound the planetary emergency, and in spite of the fact that the real successes of the Second New Deal had much less to do with growth than economic and social redistribution."

So, I end this post with a comment and question. The New Green Deal seems like a strong piece of legislation that will move us in the right direction. It will not put the ecological challenges entirely behind us, but it will get us moving in the right direction -- toward a sustainable and regenerative culture. But, can legislation do what Foster wants, and address the waste that is intrinsic to capitalism?

DJS

Post 66.

Back in 2016, Daily Mail published a map of the U.S., with rivers showing how water connects us all. When I saw this, I saw a body with veins. Mother Earth on whom we live. This particular map was created by Fejetlenfej, a geographer using open-source QGIS software. We are interconnected. A poor person in rural Kansas and another in urban New Orleans share a vein--share life--in a very real, material, tangible way. The spiritual and material are one. And though this map seems to respect national borders, our shared circulatory system doesn't. Texas and Mexico share water. New York and Ontario. Without clean water we die. Water is life, and sustainable water practices are essential.

Nearly billion people lack access to clean water, and 2.5 billion lack adequate sanitation, according to CDC. For many, this means increased disease and death. But what can we do as teachers? Many songs discuss water, and can open space for important conversations about issues around water pollution, clean water access, sanitation, and our interconnectedness. Artists & Climate Change website includes an article on the Algonquin Water Song. Here's an extended quote from the article:  "Our water is under siege from pollution, climate change, mismanagement and corporate environmental disaster. Without clean water, we cannot live. In Native American, and many other Indigenous cultures, women are the Keepers of the Water, and men are the Keepers of Fire. In recent months, many brave women who are Water Protectors have captured the attention of the world whether at Standing Rock, attempting to stop the pipelines, or Flint, Michigan, demanding clean water for their children, or ever-increasing battlegrounds of environmental disaster. The Elders have understood since the beginning of time that clean water is essential for the survival of all living beings, and they continue to fight for Mother Earth’s most precious resource. Now, they are asking women to join them for one minute a day to sing to the water. It is incumbent for all of us, especially the women, to help them raise awareness and protect the water for future generations."

What songs might your students know about water? What cultural traditions might they bring to school? What water traditions do their families practice? How can we help students love the water, and truly understand how precious it is? What are some popular songs, band, choir, or orchestra pieces that open conversation around these important water issues? Comment below.

DJS

Post 65.

In the far north, as ice forms and cracks it produces musical sounds. In a video on Singing Ice, Jonna Jinton--who moved to rural northern Sweden eight years ago, and now documents her experiences on YouTube-- talks about the sounds made by ice. "It feels a bit spooky to walk down to the ice at night ... being surrounded by these loud, strange sounds. It's like the sound of an ancient spirit awakening under the ice, roaring out in the night."

What might music education be if we included the singing ice in our classrooms? How do our experiences with ice--our global understandings and local experiences--change in the face of melting glaciers, or the pollution caused we cause in our home freezers? In an article in South Atlantic Quarterly, Matthew Burtner suggests music is well-suited for understanding and depicting climate change. Following this model, we could guide students to compose their own musical stories of ice - program music that relates individual experiences with ice, which are dependent upon local weather and climate, as well as global challenges. Informances (informative-music-performances) are great ways to not only help students learn music and social challenges embedded in musics, but also to teach communities through musical action.

There is also written music that might be used to open conversations about ice and ecological issues. I can't help but think of Jinton's Singing Ice when I hear Bruce Sled's wordless SSA composition, Ice. Similarly the piece for young string orchestra, Ice Mountain by Stephen Chin, can open space for conversations about ice. Depending on where you live, perhaps the best thing is to take a field trip to a frozen pond or lake, where students can record their local soundscapes in the winter ice. Returning home, the students can arrange these recordings into a cohesive composition to share in concert. Their compositions may not be as beautiful as Jinton's, or Sled's, or Chin's portrayals, but education is about process over product; and music education is primarily about education.

DJS