Connecting The Dots: School Music and British Columbia's Economic Future

By Dr. Len Henriksson

University of British Columbia Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration

Hardly a day goes by when we're not presented with information about our public schools. It's a hot topic. It's a big part of our Provincial budget. And everybody is an education expert.

As any kid will tell you, school isn't always easy. What is it that "keeps them going", especially when the going gets tough and they're old enough to drop out? The world we live in is complex. More and more, we live in an era in which dropping out invites onerous consequences. For the individual, these may include reduced life satisfaction and employment opportunities, and more generally, a lost ability to respond constructively to the stresses of modern-day living.

For society, there are the mundane outcomes such as one more person on the welfare rolls. More broadly, there is what economists call an "opportunity loss": the value of whatever incremental contribution that individual could have made that has been forgone. So I don't mean that the dropout can't contribute anything; only that some opportunity has been lost.

Intuitively, we can probably all grasp the notion that one important contributor to retention is when the student can say, "I belong here! There's something interesting and rewarding here for me!" Go talk to any music teacher. Chances are they'll tell you that they've got students who would have disappeared long ago if it weren't for that all-important "hook" that keeps them there.

We often hear complaints about the reading, writing, mathematics, and budgets. You know, those concerns were around when we were kids too. What is so easily lost sight of when we become overly-infatuated with standardized test results (or the "three R's") is the value of music and other "soft" disciplines. As I've just said, music education helps keep our students in the building, where they learn the algebra and the English. And it can help motivate the kids to maintain their performance in these subjects. There may also be some neuro-biological cross-pollination effects that neuroscience is only now beginning to understand.

So music helps move the process along in public education. What about outcomes? There's no doubt that our employers need graduates with basic literacy and numeracy skills. But one reality my students at UBC face every day is just as compelling at the school level. Beyond the "basics", employers need workers who can adapt to new situations, present themselves well, and work effectively in teams.

These are not qualities you will ever see listed school-by-school in the Province newspaper because they can't be measured with one-shot written test scores. But talk to the Employers Council of B.C. They'll give you study after study that proves just how important these qualities are. We need to preserve and nurture opportunities to build those "soft, fuzzy" skills. Show me an average student who began to grasp the teamwork, social and presentation skills in your school music program and I'll show you a student who has an edge in my university business class. Show me a brilliant student who never found those skills and I'll show you a student who will underperform in his or her career.

Music and Victoria's economic future: Victoria hosts millions of tourists every year. Where are the future tourism development opportunities? That's a key question, because if we take the time to think about it today, we can make sensible investment decisions for tomorrow. Part of the answer lies in looking at demographic trends in the market around us. It's important, because as we all know, different age groups in the population have different spending patterns.

The baby boom generation is aging. They will occupy a larger proportion of the market as the years pass, and there will be more and more of them. And as people age, they look for a different set of tourism-related pursuits. They have more time for "historical/cultural tourism" than they did in their younger days. They'll be more affluent, more likely to use commercial accommodation, more likely to shop, and more likely to stay longer in the places they visit.

Will they come to Victoria? They might, but the competition will be stiff. Whatever we offer, it better be good. How do we make sure that our cultural fare matches up? Well, every farmer knows that if you want a great crop and not just a good one, you plant in the spring, not in July. That's how it works in music too. To be sure, lots of teens and adults begin from scratch. But over and over, we find that the best musicians began at an early point in their lives.1

Jobs: Here in British Columbia, there are thousands of people making their career in the music industry. The arts and heritage industries employ about 28,000 people; more than logging, fishing, mining or agriculture The Canadian music industry employs approximately 50,000. The industry has been growing at a rate of about 15 percent annually for the past five years.

To be sure, some of our graduates will find jobs in science and hi-tech industries. But while there will be a growing need for experts in computing sciences, mathematics and sciences generally, these are high-end professions which will absorb only the brightest and highest achieving students in these disciplines... For the remaining majority of students in school, a curricular imbalance will rob them of opportunities to invest their time in other more meaningful studies related to other occupations or life goals.

Summing up: All this is to say that arts and music education are not frills. Don't let somebody tell you that the talented kids find private instruction. Many can't afford it. And could we please dispense with the old saw that kids don't need music until the secondary level? We'd get a good laugh if that argument were put forward for math, spelling, or sports. It doesn't fly in music either.

For our kids, music and the arts can help make life worth living. And as I've suggested, they are major contributors to who we are as a community and where our provincial economy is finding its future. So the challenge is to keep the tradition and the music alive. Let's make it happen.