The word creed comes form the latin word credo, or the verb credere, which means to believe, trust, or entrust. It is distinct from pledge and oath, which imply a promise or a solemn guarantee.

Living by a creed means to rest your trust in something, while pledge or oath mean to actively protect or make something happen by will.

A pedagogical creed, therefore, is the naming of a philosophy of education that an educator could then entrust their work to. More than a mission statement or a method of teaching, when declared a pedagogical creed is what each person takes to be true about the state of education. Day to day teaching arises from a trust in that truth.

In Strings Class, a music education course designed for non-string players I co-teach at Ithaca College, Professor Nicholson has presented several pedagogical creed from incredible thinkers on education.

He shared the pedagogical creeds of John Dewey, Paulo Freire, and MLK Jr. along with his own.

Today I want to use this space, a blog where I regularly get my thoughts out of my mind and into words purely as a self-reflecting process, to articulate my own creed. It will change, certainly, but this is the way it lays in my mind right now.

Here it is…

I believe morality merely imitates wisdom— the wisdom that all of life is one, unified whole.

I believe the role of education, therefore, is the cultivation of that wisdom. While an educational environment of efficiency, competition, and right/wrong will produce results, they will be hollow, missed opportunities for human development. True wisdom can only arise in an educational environment of love, integration, and spaciousness for wonder.

I hope you take the time to affirm what you think is true about music education. Once your ‘why’ is clarified, it is incredible what sort of ideas bubble to the surface and which decisions effortlessly make themselves.