education reform movement

Education reform is one of America’s most pivotal topics. But after 30 years of school reform with mixed results, are we lacking ideas? Or do we lack ways to effectively communicate those ideas? Arthur Brooks shows you the secrets to talking about your plans to make America’s schools a better place.

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Partial transcript:
What I’m going to tell you in the next 15 minutes is how each of you can be as skilled as the composer of that piece of music that we’re listening to right now.

Now, what is that music? That’s the second Brandenburg concerto in F major by Johann Sebastian Bach. It was written in about the year 1710, when Bach was about 25 years old. It was written for the Margrave of Brandenburg, a man by the name of Christian Ludwig. Christian Ludwig was a prince from the House of Prussia. This was written for him by Bach, and was one of a number of compositions that you’re probably familiar with. If you like classical music at all, you know that piece. You know Johann Sebastian Bach.

What you don’t know is how incredibly productive Bach was as a composer. That’s one of more than 1,000 pieces written by Bach – incredibly productive. The pieces fell off his pen – cantatas, orchestral suites, chamber music, keyboard pieces. It’s awe inspiring what he was able to do. He also, by the way, during his productive life had 20 children. That’s productive. (Laughter.)

Now, he was dedicated to more than just his compositions. He was dedicated to his family, and you’d think he would be given all these children that he had. And many of his children grew up to be more famous composers in his time than he was. Probably principally famous at his time was Johann Christian Bach, one of his older children, who went to become one of Mozart’s early teachers, as a matter of fact.

Bach wasn’t that famous as a composer during his lifetime. He was pretty well known as a teacher. He only became sort of the rock star of classical music 100 years after his death. He died in 1750. In 1850, Felix Mendelssohn, a later composer, discovered his manuscripts and showed his friend and said, you have to hear this. This stuff is really great. During this time, he was known as a good teacher and a good father.

Now, you might be asking yourself, why do I know so much about Bach and or maybe you’re asking yourself why the heck are you talking about Bach? Well, I’ll tell you.

This is not my first career. I didn’t start out as a think tank president. It’s not even my second career. Before this, I was a college professor, but I started out my career spending 12 years as a professional French horn player. I made my living playing chamber music that I wound up in the city orchestra of Barcelona for a number of seasons.

And when I was in the Barcelona symphony, I listened to a lot to Bach. I played a lot of Bach. Bach is my favorite composer. I took great inspiration even on my worst days from listening to the great music of Johann Sebastian Bach.

And I want to tell you something about Bach that had a particular impression on me that sort of changed my life. See, I was reading a book about Bach in the days that I was in the orchestra, and, you know, he was recording some of his thoughts for posterity to a biographer. And the biographer asked him a very simple question at one point. He said, why do you write music? It’s an odd question. It’s not how do you write music or where do you get your inspiration. Why do you write music? Maybe somebody has asked you that question. Probably not. Why do you what you do. But that was the question posed to Bach.

And here was his answer. Actually, let me tell you the answer you’d expect. You’d expect a 30-minute boring exegesis about composition from a professional composer or a glib materialistic response like, it’s a living, right? That’s what people say. That’s not what Bach said. Here’s what he said, quote: “The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.” That is his answer.

Now, that had a huge impression on me. Why? I asked myself, what would my answer be? What do you play the French horn? Why are you a college professor? Why are you a think tank president? What would your answer be to that question?

How to make the case for education reform