# Bullying and Victimisation in Classical Music Institutions...



## Guest

Hi,

I'm new here, and although I will be posting about other topics of interest, as a professional musician, I am particularly interested in the issue of bullying and victimisation of students by staff that goes on in music schools and colleges in the UK (and elsewhere).

The problem is that it is very hard to get anyone to talk about these problems; victims are often fully aware that their careers can be compromised by scandal, and some are even threatened to keep quiet on that basis!

If you know about these issues - I'd be very interested to get the ball rolling with a discussion.

You can also read my blog, where I am finally writing about what happened to me.

Thanks for reading - will be interesting to see what others think...

Clarissa
http://musiccollegesurvivor.wordpress.com


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## Sid James

It does go on, I have not experienced it in relation to music (which I have not studied at uni) but with other things. I mean there have been scandals here of lecturers at uni taking advantage of their position which leads to sexual harrassment and other things. 

Also, when at uni, if you didn't tow the ideological line of your lecturer, you could basically expect ****** marks. If you spoke out, ditto. I talk from experience, and its bitter experience. Problem is, other students are **** scared and when I spoke up, they would not publicly back me up. Similar to this forum in some ways, but I don't want to go on about that.

I've also read musicians memoirs, including reflections of their time in uni, and these things do come up. In terms of females, often males in power positions will use them for sex and that kind of thing.

Classical music is not more 'sanctified' than other fields like rock, hip hop, techno or whatever. But as your opening post suggests, there are big taboos around classical music, a kind of aura of it almost being like a thing untouched by the worse aspects of human nature. But that's basically la-la land, if people believe that (or don't want to face the truth, or don't know it), well, I don't see that as realistic.

Thanks for posting your blog which I will check out. I wanted to raise similar issues here in relation to books I've been reading, but with the current climate of the forum (a few bullies imposing their order on the rest of us) as in uni, I'm not willing to stick my neck out here when others will not back me up. Great democracy of ideas, ain't it? (not).


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## cwarchc

Clarissa,
I haven't experienced what you described.
I have read your blog. Thanks for sharing that with us.
You need to rise above it, I know it's easy to say - but more difficult to practice
Good luck with your future, you appear to be a balanced person.

Welcome to TC. On the whole, it's a great place.

Sid has been here a lot longer than I have and is more qualified to comment.
But here's a quote from Plato for you

Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy.


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## Guest

HI there,

Thanks for replying to my post on the forum and for reading my blog.

Unfortunately, as you will realise when you read more, this situation ruined a very crucial part of my professional start in the music industry, so as you say, it is VERY difficult to "rise above" it all. But I don't think it is actually a case of rising above it; it's a case of me needing to write about it in order to express what I've suppressed for many years. I'd also like to think that when it gets on a roll, it will encourage more people to speak out and join the dots between what goes on at drama schools, stage schools, music schools and arts colleges all over the place. Then it won't be so shocking that Jimmy Savile got away with abusing young men and women for many years - he is precisely the sort of person that wheedles their way into institutions like the BBC, schools, hospitals etc. This form of abuse, and any other abuse that involves victimisation and bullying is always perpetrated by people who need to feel in a position of power because inside they are usually totally fractured in some way...



cwarchc said:


> Clarissa,
> I haven't experienced what you described.
> I have read your blog. Thanks for sharing that with us.
> You need to rise above it, I know it's easy to say - but more difficult to practice
> Good luck with your future, you appear to be a balanced person.
> 
> Welcome to TC. On the whole, it's a great place.
> 
> Sid has been here a lot longer than I have and is more qualified to comment.
> But here's a quote from Plato for you
> 
> Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy.


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## Guest

Agreed with this - the sexual exploitation of students is an age old problem that is always a risk when you have young impressionable and (nowdays) quite worldly people mixing with figures of authority and professional panache...

But it is part of a wider problem of the power games that go on in educational institutions which are totally and utterly inappropriate. I for one think that it should be in the contract of all teachers that they won't have relationships with students under any circumstances, and that if they do, it should be a case of resignation or the sack... Just too much margin for a conflict of interest...

Clarissa



Sid James said:


> It does go on, I have not experienced it in relation to music (which I have not studied at uni) but with other things. I mean there have been scandals here of lecturers at uni taking advantage of their position which leads to sexual harrassment and other things.
> 
> Also, when at uni, if you didn't tow the ideological line of your lecturer, you could basically expect ****** marks. If you spoke out, ditto. I talk from experience, and its bitter experience. Problem is, other students are **** scared and when I spoke up, they would not publicly back me up. Similar to this forum in some ways, but I don't want to go on about that.
> 
> I've also read musicians memoirs, including reflections of their time in uni, and these things do come up. In terms of females, often males in power positions will use them for sex and that kind of thing.
> 
> Classical music is not more 'sanctified' than other fields like rock, hip hop, techno or whatever. But as your opening post suggests, there are big taboos around classical music, a kind of aura of it almost being like a thing untouched by the worse aspects of human nature. But that's basically la-la land, if people believe that (or don't want to face the truth, or don't know it), well, I don't see that as realistic.
> 
> Thanks for posting your blog which I will check out. I wanted to raise similar issues here in relation to books I've been reading, but with the current climate of the forum (a few bullies imposing their order on the rest of us) as in uni, I'm not willing to stick my neck out here when others will not back me up. Great democracy of ideas, ain't it? (not).


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## kv466

I can't really say that I've experienced any of this for myself but I know that the best way to not have to ever care about what any of these 'superiors' have to say is to play at a level so high and great that you don't need them nor care at all what they think or what they can do. (long run-on, I know) There is no greater feeling than to be so good at what you do that not even the mightiest person against you can bring a single bit of harm to you. To be truly free of any crap out there; sad to see there is so much of it in music, especially classical.


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## Praeludium

Thanks for this blog.
I'm studying in a conservatory - a regional conservatory, we're only a few dozens of serious students - and I have never had to deal with this kind of things. There are some little wars between teachers, but I haven't heard of student bullying. 
I hope that if I'm able to study with the teacher I want next year, I won't experience the kind of thing you describe in your blog... 
There are places I wouldn't want to study in (and wouldn't be accepted anyway), without even having been there. Competition alone can make some schools bad places to learn... If on the top of that you add bullying (couldn't be bullying a result of an overly competitive athmosphere ?), it must be unbearable.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

A Life Unexamined by my idol and mentor Richard Gill.


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## GraemeG

I like Richard Gill. I played under his direction 20 years ago in a performance of Haydn's _Creation_ and I can remember it to this day.
GG


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

GraemeG said:


> I like Richard Gill. I played under his direction 20 years ago in a performance of Haydn's _Creation_ and I can remember it to this day.
> GG


I'm going to see him for a composition workshop with some other composers and a group of musicians in November. So excited!


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## Sid James

^^CoAg, I loved Richard Gill's blog, and he said it so well, his last few sentences struck me as relevant to all aspects of life (and I'm a person who does NOT put up with bullies, online or in real life). They are not the norm, they are actually an aberration from the norm (apt how he mentions Hitler). The people in history who actually did good risked their lives for justice and peace. People like Mandela, Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Aung San Suu Kyi and so on. That 's the flip side of what Gill is saying.

Same in music, its the collaborative musicians who get people's respect. The reason is simple - they give respect so they get it back. People like Simon Rattle and Claudio Abbado have been doing this for ages. Others from the past who worked like this where Ernest Ansermet, and Australia's Charles Mackerras. The dictatorial ways of "that little Hungarian Nazi" as one London player kind of jokingly reminisced about Georg Solti are no longer acceptable. I think Charles Dutoit was actually sacked for bullying in recent years.

This is widening the topic of this thread, but there's nowhere else I can put them. Again, the current climate of this forum is not conducive to making threads on this topic if a bunch of bullies come on it to intimidate.

& notice how Gill does not use fancy weasel words to get his point across. This is the type of writing I like, direct and to the point.

This quote by Mr. Gill says it all, and it does not just apply to music:

_Thus, dear friends in music, why do we need bullies in our lives?

We don't. We need to stand up to them and tell them that their behaviour is
completely unacceptable.

We need to be united against the pretenders and the fakers who only care
about themselves and not about music. _


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## clavichorder

kv466 said:


> I can't really say that I've experienced any of this for myself but I know that the best way to not have to ever care about what any of these 'superiors' have to say is to play at a level so high and great that you don't need them nor care at all what they think or what they can do. (long run-on, I know) There is no greater feeling than to be so good at what you do that not even the mightiest person against you can bring a single bit of harm to you. To be truly free of any crap out there; sad to see there is so much of it in music, especially classical.


Oh how I'd like to get there with composing.


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## Sid James

^^Its the same in any field unfortunately, clavi. I mean I remember a history tutorial at uni, one of the students was saying that Communism was better than Fascism. I mean probably as the better evil of the two, not better in the normal sense of the word. But this did not match my experience, far from it. I was thinking 'what's this guy saying, its total b---s----.' But of course most uni lecturers and academic staff are left wing, so they would gloss over that. Well back then they would, but now with the opening up in recent years of Soviet archives we know more about what happened there. & it was, if anything, worse than we thought. So much was covered up. But even given these facts, some 'true believers' never admit the failings of their ideology. 

I mean online you have people that still actually believe in the ideology that Boulez was spinning back in the post war years. It was harmful for music as a whole, it put many people out in the cold. But since he's certain hard core modernists poster boy, he gets off the hook. Thats similar to the "passionately entrenched" views you speak of. & funny how some of these people preach to others about things like flexibility, but are they themselves 100 per cent flexible or fully without bias? I would think not. Nobody is.


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## Cnote11

Uh, try to separate communism from the Soviet Union, please. Kind of a basic concept.


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## Cnote11

.......................................................


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## Sid James

Cnote11 said:


> Uh, try to separate communism from the Soviet Union, please. Kind of a basic concept.


I don't like your tone, but what I was talking about is how it played out in practice, not about the theory. I have come across people, who are true believers, or apologists for the Soviet regime, or other regimes of the sort. But fact is that with the Russian invasion of Hungary in 1956, many people in Communist parties in the West tore up their membership cards. They became disgusted of the ideology as a whole. In the UK, I understand that the Communist party there basically folded due to 1956. It was the crushing of freedom, so too where other things like the putting down of the Prague Spring in 1968.

So that's what I'm saying. This student in that tutorial obviously did not know about these things, or maybe did not care. The lecturer taking the tutorial did not correct him, if my memory is correct. In fact, I think he kind of legitimised the view that exteme leftist ideology is somehow better than extreme right ideology. But of course, I shut up, I was only a first year student. Later I got more vocal, but as I said, other students where too intimidated to back me up, even though in private they supported me. But that's worth nothing, isn't it, if people are off record? & that's how bullies operate. They get support from 'the silent majority.'

Don't worry, I've learnt my lessons. Still am, from both extremes of ideology, both online and in real life. 'Put up or shut up' is what they're saying. So basically, say anything, as long as you agree with 'us.' That's an Orwellian definition of freedom if there ever was one (hint: its not real freedom, its phony).


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## Cnote11

How what played out in practice? It isn't like the Soviets actually implemented anything close to communism, as defined by Marx at least. Nobody has bothered, actually, yet he and his theory are constantly lampooned as somehow inherently evil. I'd argue myself that what communism is predicated on is far more friendly than what fascism is. I wouldn't exactly call it extreme leftist ideology in all cases, either. Also, I think you're a tad paranoid and perhaps have a minor persecution complex. I realise there ARE issues concerning personal ideology and interpretation within universities. For example, my fiancee's philosophy tutor told a student in her class that he would fail them if they ever tried to argue against absolute morality in one of their papers. However, I do think you're making a bit much of it, Sid. Your posts often have a flair for drama.


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## Huilunsoittaja

To go back to original topic...

There is an interesting phenomenon that has gone on in music schools for decades, and it's the phenomenon of "I'm always right." That is, the teachers become totalitarian and dogmatic in their views to the point that they won't let their students make any other musical decisions without them. If you don't do exactly what your professor says, you will be disapproved, arbitrarily judged, and possibly driven insane with frustration and despair that you'll never please them. I know I've had that situation. But the bright side is, I finally found a compromise in my current situation, with a professor who said I can start making my own decisions now as long as I take his ideas into account. For the longest time, it felt like bullying because it was meant to break me down rather than build me up, to impose certain ideas on me that I couldn't approve of, or wasn't satisfied with the reasoning for. But as I said, my situation has resolved well, which has made me happy. We are on excellent terms, me and my professor, as of now.


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## Lukecash12

Huilunsoittaja said:


> To go back to original topic...
> 
> There is an interesting phenomenon that has gone on in music schools for decades, and it's the phenomenon of "I'm always right." That is, the teachers become totalitarian and dogmatic in their views to the point that they won't let their students make any other musical decisions without them. If you don't do exactly what your professor says, you will be disapproved, arbitrarily judged, amd possibly driven insane with frustration and despair that you'll never please them. I know I've had that situation. But the bright side is, I finally found a compromise in my current situation, with a professor who said I can start making my own decisions now as long as I take his ideas into account. For the longest time, it felt like bullying because it was meant to break me down rather than build me up, to impose certain ideas on me that I couldn't approve of, or wasn't satisfied with the reasoning for. But as I said, my situation has resolved well, which has made me happy. We are on excellent terms, me and my professor, as of now.


It's just the same everywhere else in higher education. I find it funny to note that the organizations that are typically made up of smarter people, tend to be full of douches.


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## Sid James

Cnote11 said:


> How what played out in practice? It isn't like the Soviets actually implemented anything close to communism, as defined by Marx at least...


Well they did not try to implement Marx directly, it was more Lenin's reformulations of Marxism for the Russian context that was applied in the USSR. It had to be adapted to Russian conditions. Marx was thinking of WEstern Europe, which was different from Russia in mid 19th century (eg. much more industrialised). Same with China, Mao rejigged Marxist theory to apply it there.

But this shows there are many versions of Communism, sometimes at odds with eachother. The Spanish Civil War was basically lost because the forces of the left where too divided amongst themselves (conflict between more democratic leaning leftists and more authoritarian leaning/Stalinist leftists). So they lost their battle against Franco's more united rightist forces.



> ...
> Nobody has bothered, actually, yet he and his theory are constantly lampooned as somehow inherently evil...


There was positive and negative to come out of Marxism. I mean workers united, formed trade unions in the late 19th century (incl. here in Australia, and we where never 'Communist'). So that led to the Labor movement, and so on. It lead to rights for workers, pensions, better working conditions, and so on. So I don't paint it all as bad. But I basically believe what Ghandi said. Any ideology can be twisted for bad ends. & yet people like him showed the common human things, not the divisive things. & that's the way to go, away from extremism of any sort.


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## Cnote11

I can agree to this


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## Sid James

Lukecash12 said:


> It's just the same everywhere else in higher education. I find it funny to note that the organizations that are typically made up of smarter people, tend to be full of douches.


I had to realise, and it was difficult, that having an education does not necessarily mean a person is, eg.:
- Pleasant to work with (or study under)
- Good at communication/people skills
- Fair or open minded, kind hearted or well mannered, etc.
- Will practise what he preaches

So it boils down to attitude. As some philosopher said 'knowledge is power.' But the things like those above attached to the knowledge can be equally important. So maybe I should not expect highly educated people to have positive attributes. In some ways it goes against a reasonable assumption, that education makes people better. Well it ain't necessarily so, by my experience. But most people are okay, only a minority are bullies, but they can have devastating impact, unfortunately (unless people unite and do something about it!).


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## Cnote11

Academia can't be too intelligent with some of the trends it is running with at the moment


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## Lenfer

Sid James said:


> ^^Its the same in any field unfortunately, clavi. I mean I remember a history tutorial at uni, one of the students was saying that Communism was better than Fascism. I mean probably as the better evil of the two, not better in the normal sense of the word. But this did not match my experience, far from it. I was thinking 'what's this guy saying, its total b---s----.' But of course most uni lecturers and academic staff are left wing, so they would gloss over that. Well back then they would, but now with the opening up in recent years of Soviet archives we know more about what happened there. & it was, if anything, worse than we thought. So much was covered up. But even given these facts, some 'true believers' never admit the failings of their ideology.
> 
> I mean online you have people that still actually believe in the ideology that Boulez was spinning back in the post war years. It was harmful for music as a whole, it put many people out in the cold. But since he's certain hard core modernists poster boy, he gets off the hook. Thats similar to the "passionately entrenched" views you speak of. & funny how some of these people preach to others about things like flexibility, but are they themselves 100 per cent flexible or fully without bias? I would think not. Nobody is.


I don't think Communism on it's own is evil I can't say the same about Fascism which I think has some built in evil. Communism as we've seen it though in practice does not tend to be without evil. I don't think Communism can work in the type of world we have whatever you are left-wing or right-wing.

Not all academics are lefties I think it's pretty 50/50.


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## Sid James

Lenfer said:


> ...
> 
> Not all academics are lefties I think it's pretty 50/50.


I can't measure that here. I don't think its a problem for them to be on the left though. Most are centre left, or centre right, I'm assuming. Most people here, academics or not, are moderate, not extreme. But its less about politics and more about attitude, imo.


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## starthrower

A good friend of mine who lives in Cocoa Beach, Florida is an astrophysicist. A super nice, friendly, and humble guy. He told me that there are plenty of petty characters working at Kennedy Space Center. And he wasn't saying this in a bitter, mean spirited tone. But one of disappointment.


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## Lukecash12

starthrower said:


> A good friend of mine who lives in Cocoa Beach, Florida is an astrophysicist. A super nice, friendly, and humble guy. He told me that there are plenty of petty characters working at Kennedy Space Center. And he wasn't saying this in a bitter, mean spirited tone. But one of disappointment.


And that's where most of us arrive when we've played the game for a while. It's not shocking. In fact it seems perfectly natural. But it sure is a sad affair. Of course, there are many sadder affairs. While I might like to mumble about some people I've worked with, professors I've had, and so on and so forth, I know I got a much fairer shake than other folk.


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## PetrB

Sid James said:


> It does go on, I have not experienced it in relation to music (which I have not studied at uni) but with other things. I mean there have been scandals here of lecturers at uni taking advantage of their position which leads to sexual harrassment and other things.
> 
> Also, when at uni, if you didn't tow the ideological line of your lecturer, you could basically expect ******* marks. If you spoke out, ditto. I talk from experience, and its bitter experience. Problem is, other students are ***** scared and when I spoke up, they would not publicly back me up. Similar to this forum in some ways, but I don't want to go on about that.
> 
> I've also read musicians memoirs, including reflections of their time in uni, and these things do come up. In terms of females, often males in power positions will use them for sex and that kind of thing.
> 
> Classical music is not more 'sanctified' than other fields like rock, hip hop, techno or whatever. But as your opening post suggests, there are big taboos around classical music, a kind of aura of it almost being like a thing untouched by the worse aspects of human nature. But that's basically la-la land, if people believe that (or don't want to face the truth, or don't know it), well, I don't see that as realistic.
> 
> Thanks for posting your blog which I will check out. I wanted to raise similar issues here in relation to books I've been reading, but with the current climate of the forum (a few bullies imposing their order on the rest of us) as in uni, I'm not willing to stick my neck out here when others will not back me up. Great democracy of ideas, ain't it? (not).


There is not one specified event in that blog post to even let the reader determine if this student was 'bullied,' or had run into a teacher with a grudge, a more basic personality conflict, etc. As it is, though something like may have actually happened, I find it hard to swallow, and there is, too, to the blog, a very 'American-Oprah poor me' flavor to the narrative.

Sh_t DOES happen, and academia, it seems, in every institution will have at least one embittered teacher who became a teacher only after their dreams and hopes of being a performer or composer failed: often it is those frustrated teachers who can resent that a young student may have the full potential to be a success.

But I want / need specifics, please, before I will automatically go down the 'Poor you. Academia is unfairly oppressive.' channel.


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## millionrainbows

At the small junior college I attended, the music department was dominated by teachers who were all Church of Christ. This affected everything.


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## Cnote11

I found your post rather hilarious, millionrainbows.


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## PetrB

millionrainbows said:


> At the small junior college I attended, the music department was dominated by teachers who were all Church of Christ. This affected everything.


Never go to a parochial school or any institute dominated by those institutions, unless you want to foremost study religion. All their courses tend to be 'tainted,' as in the context of history, "religion first, history second," etc.

If you want to study music, go to a MUSIC school, not 'the music department' of a religious denomination affiliated or 'bible school.'

Years after your fact, of course -- just tossing it out to younger readers or those who might be parents of young musicians....


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## PetrB

millionrainbows said:


> At the small junior college I attended, the music department was dominated by teachers who were all Church of Christ. This affected everything.


Somehow, I doubt if that theory / comp department was a hotbed of serialism, set theory, or the new complexity


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## Sid James

PetrB said:


> ...Sh_t DOES happen, and academia, it seems, in every institution will have at least one embittered teacher who became a teacher only after their dreams and hopes of being a performer or composer failed: often it is those frustrated teachers who can resent that a young student may have the full potential to be a success...


It can be like that, yes, or things like this as well
- Inability to communicate
- Ramming ideology down other's throats
- Saying one thing and doing another

...and so on. A bit like this forum at times, at its worst moments. Which shows that the most educated people can descend to the level of apes. History shows this too.



> ...But I want / need specifics, please, before I will automatically go down the 'Poor you. Academia is unfairly oppressive.' channel.


I won't give specifics of my own experience but Helen Garner's book about these things going on in Australian universities did put this in the spotlight back in the 1990's. Guess which people where upset about even the fact that this was published? Academics! (no prizes for guessing!). Its the same old story, time and time again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_Stone


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## PetrB

Where else in life? Anyplace someone is in an upper echelon position but themselves are bitter and frustrated that they did 'not get to where they wanted to be.'

Without apology, in a modern world, with uni, private, public, all costing so much, one would hope the students would be much more savvy as to what they are getting. The young lady's presentation was vague as it gets. Was there a difference of opinion, ego conflicts, sexual harassment, actual or implied? We don't know. What there is now after the fact, is a publicly published blog, with no specifics, and a whinging whine that someone blocked her at a time critical to her professional music career.

Students readily make complaints, to the department head, or over that head if the problem is the department head. They CHANGE TEACHERS within the same uni, THEY TRANSFER TO ANOTHER SCHOOL.

The 'Fact' this party's 'career path' was utterly derailed by one person, well, sorry, it t'warn't. Something else derailed this person, interaction with another maybe one part of it, the other, something 'interior.' Now we have the sob and blame game blog. I don't know which is more repellent, the actual trampling upon and abuse of students by petty embittered staff, or the subsequent public formats of complaints from the wounded .

P.s. ...a salient and rather unpleasant truth: 
If one cannot hack the worst vicissitudes which a Music College, University department or Conservatory environment can and do quite regularly present, you will not survive the least of the vicissitudes which regularly occur in the career of being a professional classical musician.


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## Sid James

^^Well I can see what you're saying, however the situation is that universities have worked to address issues of bullying, intimidation and favoritism, etc. So too have corporations, which realised that tolerating bullies in many cases leads them to lose customers and can effect morale of the workplace (eg. colleagues that have to work with the bully). So what I'm saying is that its out in the open now, and that's good. The old ways of thinking about this, which was basically about blaming the victim (eg. you've got to put up with it because that's how things work around here), are being questioned. In a high school here, the principal 'named and shamed' students who did repeated bully behaviour at the weekly assembly in front of all staff and students. Not subtle, but neither are some cases subtle here of victims taking their own lives as a response to put an end to the suffering caused by bullies.

So I am broadening the topic, but it can be related to music schools too. A number of scandals have occured in universites here, incl. in music faculties/conservatoria.

& same in other areas of music, conductors who work like bullies are tolerated much less now than before. Its seen as a psychological problem. So the bully is encouraged to seek help, not only the victim (and in corporations in America, many of the big ones actually pay for the bully to receive treatment).

But I think most of this bad behaviour - bullying and all the rest - it goes unreported. I myself never put up with it, but as I said on my first posts on this thread, most other students where too scared to speak out against it. We're talking grown people here, some mature age students who where reduced to tears due to such behaviour! These people where not blushing flowers and had had many experiences in life. What I'm saying is that its not normal, its unacceptable. If universities are bastions of political correctness, lets actually do things correctly in practice, let us be inclusive and open in practice, not just in theory and on paper.


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## PetrB

Wrong is wrong, wherever is happens. I, like you, have never had a problem with being intimidated by the snarkier of professors (the occasion of which brings me back to high school, with no such 'finds' later), or employers for that matter, and it has not blocked me in my progress, nor gotten me fired.

My prime 'issue' is with political correctness, or more accurately, the misuse and application thereof, and that some vague and incorrect sense of what that is is in the air.

Since you were not there, I can tell you that there are many an occasion where a student is so intransigent in holding to what they think, what they believe their talent affords, that the only way to get through to them is hammer away until they are in tears. This of course, should not be done arbitrarily, must be done selectively and carefully. A lot of teachers would not bother at all, but let the student, that semester or years later, find out for themselves that they retarded their own progress by being so pig-headed and resistant.

The politically correct vogue has led to children threatening to call child services and report their parents as abusive, simply because the child is not getting their way.... That is easily transferred to a college student making a complaint against. Statistically, then, you will have what seems like an ocean of 'victims of abuse' where in reality it is only a much smaller percent of students who have had the bad experience.

Part of this emotional climate shift due to Politically Correct thinking has students complaining about the most basic and constructive criticism, their 'feelings hurt.' In the undergraduate level and above, both the student's life-line meter and the money meter are running, ticking away. There is no need nor time to pat their backs about what is done right, and every need to correct that which is not. Now there is a generation who 'do not get that' and feel hurt or neglected, quite personally, when they are not consistently praised on what is right - which is what is expected, anyway.

Currently, in the states, there are grad students entering the workforce who are finding their work returned to them as 'unsatisfactory.' Those workers then _-- get this, it is rich --_ went into a pout, their feelings hurt: what they did not do is say, "Right, what do I need to do to correct it." Further, the condition is endemic enough that a side industry has sprung up, adviser-counselors who tutor those workers so their work is satisfactory, _while at the same time stroking their injured feelings and repairing their bruised egos._ Clearly, something has gone way too far -- to the ridiculous. Some of those student complaints you speak of are of exactly the same nature....

All this contributes to and racks up the 'statistic' of how much 'bullying' is going on, both in schools and the workplace.

It IS a problem, but nowhere near the alarming proportion in ratio to the general noise being made about it.

P.s. if you are broadening the topic enough, it no longer belongs in the classical music category


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## Ramako

I recall my parents talking about a student who caused a massive amount of trouble here, and I think threatened to sue the university if they didn't give him a First. This guy had autism, and he made demands to the effect that if the exams were to be 'fair' he basically had to write them. This didn't happen. This is how wrong PCness can go. He sued members of staff for bullying him etc. because of his disability. But this is one person in an entire university, or at least a set of subjects over several years. And he was notorious. It would, I think, be much easier for this to go unnoticed the other way around, depending on the institution in general.


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