Revisionist History and an Unnecessary Book

During my last visit to Chapters I found an interesting book called Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World. The premise of the book is that Winston Churchill, who I will not dispute as a war monger (although I believe a necessary one), dragged the UK and the USA into the Second World War. The author argues that this act ultimately destroyed the balance of power, which favoured the west. I will look at several of his arguments and assert that anyone who has taken a grade 12 history class should be able to debunk them.

Mr Buchanan argues that had cabals in the British government in 1906 not decided to support France in the event of a German invasion that this could all have been avoided.

This is a rather broad and reductionist statement. 1906 was a very important year for other reasons too. Great Britain was about to totally destabilize their military dominance and start the first arms race with the launch of HMS Dreadnought. The Dreadnought was a precursor to the modern battleship and, like the launching of HMS Warrior before it, made most other warships (including those in the Royal Navy) obsolete. This gave a rising young power the chance to catch up and rival the British on “home turf” – the world’s oceans. German leaders, both political and military saw this as an excellent opportunity to compete with the great empire. Germany had for many years now been competing economically and colonially with Great Britain to establish its dominance on the world stage. In reality, Great Britain, France, and Germany had been sabre rattling for decades before the outbreak of WWI, each looking for a chance to undermine the other.

Any grade 10 history student should be able to tell you that the First World War was caused by a combination of “isms”: nationalism, militarism, and expansionism, crossed with a comedy of errors and miscalculations. Each of the major nations were either striving to create their own empire or prevent theirs from falling apart. It was only a matter of time before a conflict would break out. It seems simplistic to argue that it was the British that caused these events to take place. Furthermore, it was the German invasion of neutral Belgium that caused the British to declare war on Germany in 1914 – not the invasion of France.

Mr Buchanan cites the Treaty of Versailles in helping to lead to the events that became the Second World War. This is one of the historically accurate arguments in his book – true enough that several people at the time of its signing also felt that it would lead to another war. Unfortunately for Mr Buchanan’s arguments, it was not so much the British, but the French that insisted on the brutal measures taken in the Versailles treaty.

To blame Churchill for the Second World War is very odd. He was the politician in Great Britain that was warning of Nazi Germany, the build up of its forces, and the violations of the Versailles Treaty. If people headed his warnings and enforced the treaty the war, and the rise of Nazism may never have happened. As one will find though, no one wanted to hear the warnings, they were too afraid of another war. Out of this fear came the West’s policy of ignorance and appeasement toward Germany. In England, Churchill was shouted down and ostracized as a war monger for his views; though prophetic they seem to us now. The protection pact with Poland sealed that fate as it was obvious that Hitler needed to be stopped and that he was poised to invade Poland. To say that Britain should have sued for peace rather than fighting, alone for some time, an “unnecessary” war is a giant leap in a thought experiment. It seems easy for someone 60 years later and on the opposite side of the Atlantic to say these things. Had Great Britain, and later the United States, not intervened, the death sentence for tens of millions of Jews and Slavs would have been sealed. Hitler’s aim was to wipe out the Slavic populations of Eastern Europe as to make room for the more agrarian life style he envisioned for his perfect German society. Hitler makes these aims very clear. Furthermore, why would Hitler stop at the English Channel anyway? It was nothing for him to go back on treaties when they stood in the way of his dominance – look at the non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union.

I find it somewhat alarming that My Buchanan is willing to sacrifice half of Asia and all of Europe in his quest to find a better solution. In all fairness, he may not be aware of these facts, thus making it less alarming. This is why the study of history can be somewhat boring sometimes. We strive to take the facts and assemble a picture that we can then analyse and study. Just as in modern science when one fits facts to support outcomes rather than draw outcomes from facts the results are skewed and inaccurate.

It seems that Mr Buchanan should stick to what he’s good at - losing presidential elections.

A Music Teacher Again

As of 30 March 2009 I will be a music teacher once again. JK-8 music to be specific. I am very happy and think that this will be quite the learning experience.

As one can see, this blog has been in mothballs for some time. I have resolved to once again start blogging - this time with a more broad scope - my adventures in the classroom, musical musings ;-) and general rants about things which I find interesting. Hopefully you find them interesting too.

Redemption

Well then,

This was much better - although I looked like an idiot for the grade 9s today instead. Twice a grade 9 corrected me with something I put on the board! Do you think I made that same mistake in the second grade 9 class? I often wonder how many time does one have to look like a complete tool before the achieve enlightenment? well that was two times for me today, and I don't feel any more enlightened...

As for the grade 11/12 class - redemption.
I had written out on staff paper what I had wanted and the improvisation exercise went off like a canon, no not like Pachabel whom I hate. Interestingly enough the students presented their voice fugues today, which is a form of canon... Even my associate teacher commented that the students really seemed to enjoy the improv! I just need to be more organized and in the 'zone' when I teach.

Hopefully I have more good news to report later in the week.

But I'm supposed to be perfect...

Practice teaching one again...

Because of what is called Musicfest I wasn't able to start practice teaching until yesterday. Musicfest is where all the high school bands in the area come to compete to get either a gold, silver or bronze (or thanks for comen' out) level. My school was practicing for it all last week so it was a slow integration for me. But yesterday the debacle began. It must have been a long time since I have been teaching because I was very nervous. Although, I must say that the day began on a very good note, literally. I got to run the senior band rehearsal. We rehearsed the March from the Second Suite in F Major by Holst. I must admit that I was very impressed. Some of the lesser experienced players had trouble but the will and capability to do it was there! And the students even seemed excited to be playing it. at the end of the rehearsal one of the students even thanked me.... I felt very good.

The two grade 9 classes I teach in period three were not so bad. My pacing was a little too fast for their level; ironically the pacing of my classes were too slow last semester =P So what I have to do is slow down for them and add some more technical exercises.

The place where I had my greatest difficulty was with the 11/12 music class.
Was it difficulty or was I just disorganized. I was having them use the first 5 notes of the G minor Scale. Then I was trying to have the play the G Minor I and V chords so we could use the notes to improv over the chord progression I-I-V-V-V-V-I-I and that failed miserably, I forgot how to transpose all of the sudden and sounded like a babbling idiot when I couldn't tell the bari sax what key she was supposed to be in! Then what else? I started the class with a great Buddy Rich video as a sort of hook into jazz... what brilliant questions did I have about the video? Lets see: how does this differ from the music you listen too?
Which music? I didn't even give them something good to talk about! What a waste of a great hook. I almost even gave them the wrong dates for Scott Joplin - can someone please hold my degree for me while I try and re-earn it, or at least try and deserve it?
These kids are smart and you have to keep on your toes... The only saving grace (no not that grace, remember the Richard Dawkins banner!) was the really good trumpet player from the senior band rehearsal was walking past me after that last class. She thanked me for the rehearsal that morning and said she had lots of fun. Talk about a pick me up right when you needed one. (Disclaimer: I am not fishing for sympathy, just venting - it's what blogs are for)

Practice Teaching Redux

Well here I am once again....
Matt the practice teacher returns. The students all find it so odd that someone is there to practice on them. They always seem to either be very happy or very sad that the current teacher they have may be leaving, which is the first impression. Then after it is explained that their current teacher is my supervisor one hears the appropriate either sigh of relief or moan of pain. I know that after a number of years when I have a practice teacher there will be both reactions so I best just get used to it.

You may say, "my those are weird clothes Matt wears to school" if you look at the picture. That is because I am not at school, rather I am at a cadet music clinic in Lanark I did a while back. Working with cadets is fun and interesting to me because it reminds me that there are still kids who sit and listen and do what their told and call you sir! Then again, teaching high school kids reminds you that there are still free spirits and thinkers. And there is always going to be those who don't care (they just don't last as long in the cadets).

My first two days have been very fun... seeing as how I haven't really done anything. This school really does not seem stressful at all... not that the last one was. I think that I am just a bit more relaxed this time around. I even got a full nights sleep before my first day this time...... something must have been wrong, perhaps St. John's has frozen over hahaha, just kidding.

The band here is good, the drummers are drummers.... although there is a "drum line" programme here. It looks pretty neat. A geography teacher who played in the Fort Henry/Fort George groups gets the students together for a real drum line practice. So she invited me to the one next Monday. It should be interesting. I will have to brush up on my rudimental playing - fun.

Lucky me, I get to do a 7 day unit on Jazz. I think I am going to have a lot of fun doing it. I have lots of resources and my friends have even more. This also gives me a chance to show off my Buddy Rich DVD that I bought. Perhaps I should get a couple more DVDs, they were pretty cheap at HMV when I was there last. But also, I should probably stop spending soooo much money.

I must say, I haven't yelled or been mean to anybody yet so yea me!

But tonight is cover letter night so I must be on my way. Once I get into the action I am sure I have have much to post about, but too little time to actually write anything.

Oh, BTW.
I posted the Richard Dawkins banner on here because I think more people have to hear what's being said there. He is a biologist and a world renown lecturer. Although he and his colleagues are a bit fanatical, reason and science must be heard and understood.

Back to some music!

Well it has been some time.....

I have finally brought myself back to writing here. The only thing stopping me has been laziness, so lets hope that I can shake this off for a while.

My last practice teaching placement was a great experience. This ended much better than my last one. On the last day of my second last placement a visiting teacher had told me that I sounded mean sometimes. Now I must add that I had prodded them to tell me how I did... This was not what I was expecting to hear. She said that i was short and snippy with some of the students, even those who were very well behaved. I get easily flustered and that is where that comes from. It also comes from knowing so many people who are like that and emulating them. This brings me to a startling realization that now there are probably some cadets out there who are officers or seniors that are emulating that type of action... So now I not only have to fix my own way of doing things, I might just have to correct the ways I have taught other people.

That was, however, the only negative comment I got on that placement so I imagine that I am not all that bad. I did let it drag me down for a while till Amy smacked some sense into me.

My last placement, as I said was very good. I really enjoyed the school I was at and the students I taught. In my last class I did a PowerPoint presentation on the music of the early Mass. It went really well along with my musical examples. I was in a public school, and some of you may be wondering why I was teaching parts of the mass. Well here I go:
The Christian Church was really the first major institution to codify and standardize the notation of music. Also, much of the music before the 20th century was inspired by religion. They all seemed to accept this answer and I think we had a good class.

Now that is all over… as are my holidays. We start school again on the 8th of January.

This Christmas I asked for and received some really neat recordings and DVDs, so lets talk about them.

First I decided to start of the season by buying myself some presents. This year UNITEL decided to release some interesting footage. I found Herbert von Karajan in Rehearsal and Performance on Amazon.ca. In this DVD there is footage of him rehearsing and performing Schumann Symphony No 4 and Beethoven Symphony No 5.

This DVD is very interesting because this is the only footage/recording of him rehearsing an entire work. It is quite the rehearsal. Lots of talking. It is interesting to see a conductor talking so much in rehearsal, as today the stress is on less talking, more gesturing. After all, talk is cheap. Rather when you are paying musicians and conductors money to rehearse, time isn't cheap and talk is money. Regardless, this is valuable as a learning tool to see how it IS or was done. The performances are great. Actually it is this footage of clips that are posted at
http://www.karajan.org/en/biography/ms/video.asp


If you have a chance you should check them out.

Anyways, this is probably long enough of a post. I guess I will discuss the presents that other people got me next time. Now that means I have to post again soon.

I hope everyone is having a great holiday season!

Warm and Fuzzy

Today at parent/teacher night a mother found me to tell me about her daughter who isn't even in one of my classes. She was in the senior wind band that I had a chance to rehearse for 20 minutes on Wednesday. She told me that her daughter came home after that and said that she learned a lot and was so excited! She said she just had to find me and tell me... =)
I had to write it down so I could remember this when I'm down and out.....