This paper discusses two films "Mr. Holland's Opus" and "Music of the Heart" that both celebrate the power of music in education and the need to support the arts in the educational setting for the benefit of all students.
Written in 2002; 2,688 words; 3 sources; MLA; $ 80.95
Paper Summary:
This paper explains that the films take place in different worlds in both time and place: "Mr. Holland's Opus" offers a long-term look at a composer-turned-teacher and his many successes over the years and "Music of the Heart" depicts a real teacher who brought music classes to a school in an urban area. The author feels that both films show how difficult it is to get young people interested in learning. The author regrets that music and other arts have a difficult time not because there are no teachers with passion supporting them but because administrators and parents often have to be dragged kicking and screaming into supporting these subjects because music education is often seen as entertainment unless the child is going to be a musician.
From the Paper:
"This is especially evident in "Music of the Heart" in which Roberta Guaspari applies for a job teaching violin at an East Harlem public school. The students in this school are from the ghetto and are not being given the best our schools have to offer. There is insufficient funding for the classrooms, the teachers, the materials, and so on, and this is one reason why the school has no music program--music is seen as an extra rather than a necessity, and there is no funding available for the program. In addition, though it is largely unstated, the powers-that-be clearly do not believe music training is of any value to young people from this background, either because these students are seen as incapable of learning the subject, or because the subject would do little to get them the kind of vocational job the administration believes is their lot. The parents as well doom their own children to a life without the sort of musical sensibility Roberta brings to them--one mother complains that all Roberta is teaching her children is the music of "dead white men." There is a racial concern on both sides, with the white power structure seeing young black children as less capable, and with black parents fearing what the white power structure will make of their children."
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