Opinion: Playing by numbers

My days of preparing students for grade exams, often at the behest of pushy parents or schools, remind me of a scene in Spring Awakening. In this musical, set in 19th-century Germany, precocious teenage rebel Melchior Gabor writes furiously in his journal, despairing about his school’s obsession to measure one student’s ability against another, saying: ‘The progress of the students reflects back only on the rank and order of the faculty.’ Without spoiling the plot, this approach ends up having devastating effects.

I used to teach a student who didn’t practise and I very much got the sense that he played cello ‘just because that’s what you do’. His mother approached me after he scraped through his Grade 1 cello exam. Ignoring the fact that he scored a low pass, rather than take any opportunity for reflection and improvement she said, ‘It’s great that he’s got his Grade 1, but we need to get him to Grade 5 as soon as possible.’…