Bachelors of Music in Education vs Bachelors of Education in Music
One of the things covered in our Skype chat with Hidegard Froelich was the difference between the education at schools who offer a degree in Education with a specialization in music, as opposed to schools that offer a degree in Music with a specialization in education. The former focuses primarily on making someone a teacher, and the second focuses on making someone a true musician and performer, who can then teach their art to others. This distinction went into my decision in choosing colleges during my senior year. Growing up, I was always surrounded by art and a decent art history background, as my mother went to art school and received her Master’s degree in aesthetics. In high school, I had an art teacher who had received her Bachelor’s degree in education with an emphasis in art, and was working towards her Master’s degree. I found her art background to be severely lacking. In many aspects, I felt I knew more than she did about the subject, in terms of both general knowledge and small details. I had several pet peeves about her, including her poor pronunciation of famous artists and works. Inges (Ayng) was pronounced ‘ihnghes’ and any self respecting artist knows to pronounce Michelangelo’s ‘David’ like ‘DahVEED,’ but apparently not this one. I felt cheated out of my education with this woman, who clearly had no passion for her subject. She may have had a passion for teaching, but the requisite knowledge to teach the subject was lacking, which frustrated me. This is something I took into account when I picked schools like Westminster Choir College, Ithaca College, and Indiana University as schools I wanted to attend. All three of them offer Bachelor degrees in music with specializations in music. University of Hawaii at Manoa and Adelaide, for example, focus more on the teaching than the music. While they may be fine schools, I decided it was better to be safe than sorry, and decided to attend a school whose goal was to train musicians – to make sure that their students are fully trained in their art, and also educators, who can pass down their knowledge to the next generation. I think this is a much more effective means of training, and apparently my opinion is shared. More and more schools are offering Bachelors of Music Education now, as an effort to get more trained musicians in the classroom.
