ABSTRACT
In 1939, educational psychologist James Mursell presented a paper by the same title as this chapter to mathematics teachers in which he railed against authoritarian impulses and tendencies embedded in schools that stifled student thought and creativity. This chapter explores and critiques some of the same practices in our own time that have similarly stifled music students’ agency and creativity, rendering them overly-dependent on teachers for direction and self-improvement. Education is conceived as primarily involving skill development and preparation for future work rather than preparing students to have vital experiences in the present while shaping their own destinies. The bulk of the chapter examines how neoliberal education reform has bred an impatience among undergraduate music education students for the big ideas driving all education and a sense of personal helplessness unless told by their teachers precisely what and how to do assignments. There is little interest or tolerance among many for the kind of open-ended conversations involving ambiguity, controversy, and personal risk that are requisites for the exercise of personal agency and democratic citizenship.
