Many years ago, when I was a fairly new dean, I sent an email to my faculty colleagues asking what three texts they thought every student should read before they graduated college. I promised to share the results. A number of replies began with language like, “I don’t believe in canons, but here are my three choices…”

My goal was to demonstrate how decentralized our views were, but I underestimated how true that was. About sixty people responded, and the most “votes” any text received was seven. Incidentally, it was Plato’s Republic.

Many cultures and communities have canonical texts, music, art, or tropes that shape their identities and values. That shaping is in small part who or what is included, and in large part who is excluded. We can learn a lot about a time and a group of people by examining their sorting process and observing what they find to be of greatest, or most convenient, value.

Some canonical works that have stood the test of time have done so for intrinsic reasons. The Western Civilization courses of previous generations suffered from what was left out, but some of what was included is truly transcendent. The Republic continues to be deeply meaningful, and learning how it influenced successive generations’ ways of thinking is part of that meaning.

Understanding the “great works” can be a window into understanding and appreciating new works. As a musician, the canon I was taught decades ago came from composers who were dead, white, male, and mostly European (especially German or Austrian). Still, the best of those works remain windows into the capacity of creativity and the depths of what it means to be human.

As I have broadened my listening, I have learned more and more not to judge new and different kinds of music against the techniques and architecture of the foundational works of my training. I appreciate the different ways music that is new to me achieves the ineffable qualities of greatness that my canon (the works from my initial education that have stuck with me and those I have accreted through a lifetime if listening and study) has shown me is possible.

I truly believe my long and abiding communion with the symphonic works of Beethoven has enhanced my understanding of the brilliant new works of composers like Terrance Blanchard, Augusta Read Thomas, and Tan Dun. Every time I play the keyboard music of Bach (no matter how poorly), I am a little better prepared to celebrate the intricacies of West African drumming and Balinese gamelan music.

I recently visited the High Museum of Art in Atlanta on a day when the museum was teeming with student groups from elementary and high schools. It was rewarding to be surrounded by their wonderful collection, and it was fun to see the wonder the young children had for works across a wide spectrum. Their tastes were far more catholic than most adults. Sadly, nearly all the high school students I encountered never looked up from their phones.

We can learn a lot about being receptive from children. A number of years ago, my wife was teaching music in an elementary school. One of the favorite pieces of her youngest students was Morton Subotnik’s Silver Apples on the Moon, a 1967 example of musique concrète (a work of recorded sounds, in this case electronic). They were intrigued by and open to a piece most adults would complain about because they hadn’t developed the limited tastes that narrow playlists and canons can create.

There are plenty of debates going on today about curricular canons. Some state governments have eliminated DEI education, and Florida has removed Sociology from the eligible courses to fulfill general-education credit.  

Some who resist expanding our educational horizons believe this will devalue what they have learned, but truly embracing historically marginalized perspectives and histories helps us to recontextualize what we have come to believe, and it can provide us with opportunities for wonderment like those avant-garde-loving children.

There are national organizations advocating for specific curricular content. ACTA (American Association of Trustees and Alumni) publishes a grading of the general education programs of 1,100 colleges and universities. Their scoring is based upon whether seven specific courses meeting “carefully defined criteria” are required of all students at the institution.

Only seven institutions met all of their criteria, but many of the remaining institutions, including those that were given an F, offer rich, thoughtful, and transformative general education programs that just don’t happen to align with a narrow, hidebound view of what all students should learn.

In the past few decades, we have begun to come to terms with a more complete version of our histories, and we have seen pushback from many who find these truths uncomfortable. We can learn much more from understanding the real discomfort and pain of those whose stories had not been told.

I am thrilled that Nikole Hannah-Jones will be a guest speaker at Susquehanna in the Spring. Her work on the Pulitzer Prize winning, The 1619 Project, has helped many of us to recognize more fully how incomplete and biased much of our history education has been.

My formal education was remarkably hegemonic. As I have encountered new voices and new stories, I have begun to develop a richer appreciation of the complexities of our past and our present. That has included understanding that many of my historical heroes were deeply flawed individuals.

Those are valuable and important lessons. Just like the heroes of Greek tragedies, some of the greatest achievements of our past have come from some of our most complexly imperfect forebears. Understanding this doesn’t negate their achievement. It does affirm that they possessed and struggled with the human frailties each of us confronts.

What can we learn from a fuller telling of their lives, good and bad, that will help us to become better, and how can we celebrate and benefit from understanding the daily heroism of the countless individuals who navigated the wrongs of history and whose stories are waiting to be told?

Without all of our stories, none of our stories is complete.