Oberlin Celebrates a Century of Music Education by Marci Janas '91
			"Music for every child, every child for music." Most music teachers are familiar with this sentiment, made famous in the early 1920s by Dr. Karl Wilson Gehrkens, a 1905 Oberlin College graduate and president of the Music Supervisors’ National Conference (known today as MENC, the National Association for Music Education). Gehrkens was a pioneer — an essential and primary force behind the development of Oberlin’s music education program. He built upon the first music education class taught at Oberlin: a 1902 course in public school music taught by Professor of Singing William Jasper Horner. In 1921, Gehrkens established a full, four-year course leading to a "bachelor of school music degree" at Oberlin — the first four-year, college-degree program in music education in the United States. On November 9, 2002, the Oberlin Conservatory of Music will celebrate its century of music education with a daylong series of lectures and workshops sponsored by the Conservatory’s music education department. Music education faculty members and distinguished alumni will lead discussions and lectures acknowledging Oberlin’s historic role in music education in the U.S. A book by Willard Warch, Our First 100 Years, commemorated the Conservatory’s centennial in 1967 and noted the significance of that first course (actually two separate classes) known officially as the "Supervisor’s Training Course in Public School Music." One class provided "a thorough drill in sight singing," and the other presented "in a systematic manner the best teaching methods, together with the materials for each successive grade." According to the Oberlin course catalog for 1902, the instructor for this course was "actively engaged in the public schools, thus affording all who enter this department an opportunity of seeing methods in operation." The Conservatory’s articulated mission was for its students to be "not only trained musicians and well prepared to teach, but also those who believe that the ways of all true art lead to a fuller life." Notable among Oberlin alumni who are "trained musicians and well prepared to teach" are such leaders as Dr. Carolynn Lindeman ’62, a professor of music at San Francisco State University, noted author, and president, from 1996 to 1998, of MENC; Eileen Cline ‘56, past dean of the Peabody Conservatory of Music; and Herbert Henke ’53, emeritus professor of eurhythmics at Oberlin and a Dalcroze specialist. Other former Oberlin faculty members who have made important contributions to the profession include the late Clifford Cook, who taught at Oberlin from 1943 to 1971. Cook was instrumental in bringing the Suzuki method of string teaching to the U.S. He became intrigued with the Suzuki method in 1958, when he saw a film of Shinichi Suzuki’s Talent Education Institute students in concert. He showed the film to a gathering of string teachers at Oberlin, began using the method himself, and in 1964 brought Shinichi Suzuki to Oberlin to instruct other music teachers in the method. As for Dr. Gehrkens, Warch wrote "he won the respect of generations of students, and the perfectionism that made his Music Notation and Terminology such a fine book led to his appointment as music editor of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary [1930 edition]." Today, Oberlin’s music education faculty consists of Associate Professor and Director of Music Education Joanne Erwin (strings), Associate Professor of Music Education Jody Kerchner (choral/secondary), Professor of Music Education John Knight (band), and Professor of Music Education Peggy Bennett (elementary/general). Lee Wood, teacher in music education, coordinates field experiences for the department. They handle the entire scope of the preparation of teachers, since Oberlin has no other undergraduate education major. All levels of music education are taught — from preschool to adult. All of Oberlin’s music education faculty members are active as performers in the field, leading community ensembles in addition to conducting music outreach programs and teaching classes. Each is also an active scholar in his or her respective area; Erwin, Kerchner, and Knight have collaborated on Prelude to Music Education, a textbook forthcoming in fall 2002 by Prentice-Hall. The book is designed for use in college introductory music education courses and covers a broad range of topics; each chapter begins with a scenario of a classroom based on the authors’ combined 50 years of public school experience. The Oberlin Conservatory of Music, founded in 1865, became part of Oberlin College in 1867. It is the oldest continuously operating conservatory in the United States and the only major music school in the country linked with a preeminent college of arts and sciences.
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