El Sistema
One of the most exciting initiatives in educational reform today hails unexpectedly from the slums of Venezuela, where in 1975 economist, composer, and conductor Jose Antonio Abreu launched El Sistema, a free program in classical music for young children from highly impoverished backgrounds. Thirty-five years and 800,000 students later, El Sistema is the national jewel of Venezuela, a world-acclaimed program being emulated around the globe.
From the outset, Dr. Abreu has seen himself as much a social reformer as an advocate for music education, and it is El Sistema’s dual purpose that propels the program and its international imitators. In Abreu’s view, musical training can help to overcome the disadvantages of poverty and inequality, not merely by developing otherwise-untapped intellectual potential for success in school, but by unlocking and instilling the self-confidence to succeed.
In particular, Abreu argues, the ensemble nature of classical, orchestral training affords children opportunities to acquire valuable social skills that are frequently lacking in poverty-stricken environments. The values and sense of community “virtually non-existent in the crime-ridden, drug-infested barrios of places like Caracas” are embedded in orchestral training and performance: teamwork, responsibility, mutual respect. With ensemble/orchestra as the central paradigm of instruction, children are embraced in a new community from the outset, rather than practicing alone until they are good enough to join in.
Finally, through classical music, an anathema in the slums, children find themselves transported to another world with all of its possibilities and promises.