[CAUT] CAUT credential vs. academic program?

[Israel Stein]

At 11:00 AM 11/11/2007, Ron Nossaman wrote:


>Yes, they're the very people who say this is how it's done because 
>this is how I was taught, and will resist further education to their 
>dieing breath.

Hmmm... Sounds very much like the guy who figured out the best way to 
"improve" a Steinway sostenuto system and refuses to hear any 
reasonable objection from those who have to work with those things 
every day. Yeah those people who learned in school to weigh various 
options and fit the solution to the problem just don't come anywhere 
near that level of genius.

People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones...

>They were too often taught incompetence, and have practiced it with 
>dedication and diligence ever since. Plenty of these people have 
>educational certification of some sort or another, which is 
>apparently no dependable indicator of capability in practice. 
>Realistically, I don't think people can be taught anything. They can 
>be exposed to information, and either learn or not, as they are 
>either capable or willing. The information can come from a 
>structured "educational" environment, or through the curiosity and 
>personal research efforts of the student. Capability is the easy 
>part (we can all learn), it's the willingness that's tough. Those 
>unable or unwilling to learn can still be trained, or programmed, to 
>do fairly complex tasks without understanding what they're actually 
>doing. I expect we all fit this category in some instances. The fact 
>is that anyone incapable of learning without being taught is doomed 
>to run their programming forever because they'll never overcome 
>their education - or rather someone else's education that was 
>installed in them. Also, credential and qualification are not 
>synonymous and never were.

And anyone incapable of receiving instruction and seeing the value in 
others' knowledge is doomed to run their own programming that they 
have installed in themselves through their often erroneous 
conclusions. As for example the rather ignorant description of the 
educational process we find above. In my close to thirty years 
experience in first formally learning and then occasionally teaching 
piano technology I have not seen anyone trying to "install" learning 
in someone else. You expose people to knowledge. You guide them when 
they go astray. You show them possibilities. If anyone has ever been 
to any of the classes that I organize you will see that students are 
given the opportunity to discover what there is to be learned and 
provided answers to their questions as they arise - from a variety of 
instructors, each with a different perspective. hey learn with their 
eyes and hands - not with their ears. And with the available 
guidance, they manage to figure out things that eluded them for years 
- you can see the light go on... Your description of the educational 
process above, Ron, is typical of the myopia of many of the 
self-taught who never see anything but the inside of their own brain. 
Fortunately for us all, many of the self-taught understand the value 
of knowledge they can receive from other and seek it at every 
opportunity - rejecting what does not work for them and assimilating 
the rest best they can. And yes, sometimes they too get it wrong. 
Don't get me started about the value of follow-up...

>Information doesn't just spring out of nowhere. Someone somewhere 
>must have an original thought or observation to start a learning 
>process that there is no one to teach at the first generation. So 
>the notion that someone can't learn without being taught is indeed 
>nonsense. It has to start somewhere.

And I wonder how many people spend months and years reinventing the 
wheel to learn the basics of the piano craft and screwing up 
countless clients' pianos in the process (thereby contributing to the 
low esteem and the low pay that this thread started out about) when 
they could learn the same in maybe a year's time - given some 
competent instruction - or a couple years' apprenticeship, and then 
go on to develop a much higher level of skill and expertise from a 
firm foundation. Perhaps on to some innovations of their own. I 
wonder how far David Stanwood would have gotten with his system if he 
would have spent all that time and energy trying to teach himself the 
basics of how to tune and regulate pianos - instead of learning it 
all from Bill Garlick in about 7 months (that's about how long it 
should take for a person of normal intelligence willing to put in 
some time - it ain't rocket science).

  It still seem to me that the widest variety of methods and 
approaches I was exposed to - without being told which is the best - 
was in my time at the North Bennet Street School. From a variety of 
teachers - with diametrically opposed approaches. Some of them I 
still use. Some I have rejected as inappropriate for the 
circumstances in which I find myself working. Some don't fit the way 
my mind, eyes or hands work. That is the value of a good formal 
education - exposure to a variety of knowledge, in an atmosphere of 
feedback, discussion and analysis - leading to understanding rather 
than just "rote training".

Most (not all) of the stuff I hear and read from some of these "self 
taught" guys (and Mr. N is one of the worst in that regard)  suffers 
precisely from this lack of varied perspective. They see things from 
one pair of eyes - their own. Never engaging in the give-and-take 
that a true student/teacher relationship is based on, from which both 
learn. Perhaps that's why some of these folks have such a jaundiced 
view of the educational establishment - they seem to universalize 
their own miserable experience which may have been caused in part by 
their own unwillingness to perhaps listen to someone else's voice but 
their own...

Israel Stein