EDITOR'S NOTES

IN MEMORY

Eunice Boardman

(1926 – 2009)

And then we come to Eunice Boardman who, in my view, is the overall most brilliant and most competent graduate of the University of Illinois doctoral program. And she has certainly fulfilled my confidence in her because she has been highly successful and has provided, I think, top quality leadership, not only in elementary school music, but also in teacher education. And then, she has done, in recent years, an absolutely smashing job as Director of the School of Music at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is, I think, probably the best and most consistent thinker in the field of music education over the last twenty-five years. (From an interview with Charles Leonhard, conducted by Barbara Bennett, May 19, 1988)

REFLECTIONS FROM EUNICE BOARDMAN: A TEACHER OF TEACHERS

I’ve spent a good portion of my professional years seeking answers to two sets of questions and, simultaneously, considering possible implications of one set of answers for the other. The first question, or rather set of questions, has to do with unraveling that enigma called music. What causes us to recognize this cluster of sounds as music, that cluster as language, another cluster as noise? Why did something that outwardly seems so useless, become so pervasive in all cultures, even in a society so empirically, so pragmatically based as that in which we now live? Is there a hierarchy of musics, with some better, more effective, more powerful than others? If so, upon what bases is it possible to determine the nature of that hierarchy? Such are the questions that must concern anyone for whom music is an important force in their life.

A second set of questions which, for me, have been equally demanding have to do with the nature of learning. How does an individual learn? What do we it mean when we say, this individual is learning, that person has learned? What is involved in this mysterious process that enables an individual to move from a known (the has learned), through an unknown (the is learning segment), to the acquisition of a new known (and thereby a new interpretation of has learned)?

As possible answers to each set of questions have emerged, I continually consider the significance of those answers, for me in my role as teacher. For as a teacher of music, whose task is to help individuals to learn music (whatever that may mean) I must recognize that my answers to how do people learn cannot be separated from what is music? Answers to those two seemingly separate sets of questions must be seen as indivisible parts of a single theory which then must determine my answer to a further set of questions, what does it mean to teach? By theory, I mean in the true sense, a set of principles extrapolated from a context, which forms the basis for decision-making. And by teaching, I mean creating an environment in which learning—musical learning—can take place. – July 19, 1996

In honor of the mentorship given over the years by Eunice Boardman, this encomium is offered by the Editor in gratitude.

Gregory DeNardo