Alfred, you jerk.

So here I am explaining to yet another 6-year-old that using the word “Indian” to talk about Native Canadians is not OK. Gee, thanks, Alfred’s Basic.
I started using these books very recently because they were more freely available than the Faber and Faber ones. They were on the shelf, and I needed books for my new students. So I sent a bunch of kids home with these (and their parents paid good money for them). As we went on, we stumbled every once in awhile on a culturally insensitive and poorly-written piece, which I would skip, until eventually we got to “Indian Song”.
Picking up those books is the biggest mistake I’ve made as a teacher, and I’ve told the parents and the kids that we’re switching back to Faber and Faber ASAP.
I don’t know how a multinational company whose job it is to make teaching materials has managed to be so gigantically thoughtless in their production, but I’m sure they have the resources to do better.
The material is so blatantly racist that I can’t in good conscience expose a kid to that in their lesson. But Alfred’s isn’t the only one — another music teacher and blogger posted a similar rant about the Bastien series in 2012.
The long-standing fight for respect and dignity for Native Americans and other marginalized groups in the media and in sports seems not to have reached beginner piano method books.
This is such a problem that I couldn’t even grab a book from a widely-used publisher off the wall and assume that it wouldn’t contain racist slurs, stereotyping, and insulting illustrations. I should have checked. But out of all the problems I could imagine (not introducing flats and sharps soon enough; repetitive or boring pieces; dumbing down the theory too much), this was not one of them.
This needs to change. I teach kids whose parents are from all over the world, and this shit confuses them. They need to feel like their cultures are being treated with care and respect. Music is more than just notes on a page, it’s a record of our various heritages.
I am not only switching my kids to Faber and Faber (which has its flaws but is mercifully free of slurs and offensive caricatures), but I’m going to see if there’s anything I can do to get Alfred’s (and hopefully Bastien) to change. To that end, here’s the meat and bones of this post:

“Dear Alfred’s Publishing Company,

I am a Canadian music teacher who has recently stopped using your Alfred’s Basic Piano Library in lessons because some of the materials are racist and culturally insensitive. I started using your books very recently because they were more freely available than other brands, and I had never tried them before. I thought perhaps a new perspective would be useful, but I have stopped after selling just a few to my students, and will be switching them over to another brand as soon as possible.

The multiple “Indian Song” iterations are inappropriate, especially in the Canadian context, as the word “Indian” to designate indigenous peoples in Canada is a slur. I am aware that the word “Indian”, especially “American Indian” has a different history in the U.S than in Canada, and is considered acceptable by some Native American thinkers and activists. However, I have had to explain to multiple small children that that word is considered racist in Canada as they skim through the book and ask questions. Consequently, I skip over that song. In addition, and regardless of our respective countries’ differences in language, the illustrations accompanying that song (usually with teepees and/or with a person dressed in a caricature of traditional indigenous attire, complete with a few feathers) are insensitive at best. They bear a striking similarity to stigmatizing and disrespectful images of Native Americans that organizations like AIM are currently fighting to have removed from media and sports teams.

Second, the various “Mexican stamping dances”, illustrated with pictures of brown people stamping their feet near various sombrero-type hats are impossible to teach to any child without feeling as though some explanation of that imagery is required. It is mind-boggling to think that in a country where there are so many immigrants from Mexico, your company has been unable to respectfully integrate Mexican musical traditions into your beginner-level books. I have also skipped over those pieces for all my student’s sake, but especially for the sake of the multiple students I have who are brown or whose families are from Mexico or South America.

Third, the “Christopher Columbus” song is disingenuous. Although it’s true that Columbus did sail in 1492 and that the voyage brought him fame, any person with even a passing knowledge of colonial history is aware that Christopher Columbus did very little good for anyone who lived on this continent prior to his arrival. The atrocities he committed against native peoples are well documented, even in the most commonly available and uncontroversial sources. These facts led to a growing movement to rename “Columbus Day” to “Indigenous People’s Day”, which has been successful in several states (New Mexico, Maine, and Vermont) as well as many individual cities. I refuse to lie to my students and contribute to historically inaccurate conceptions of who Christopher Columbus was and what he did. As such, I skip this one too.

In short, in turning the pages of your piano books, I have become unable to recommend them to the parents of children I teach. As an educator, I am committed to creating a positive space where my students feel that their cultures are respected and their love for music is validated. Although this is always a work in progress, I don’t think it’s too much to expect culturally sensitive teaching materials that can be used for lessons with students from many different backgrounds.

If you wish to include a broad spectrum of cultural references in your teaching materials, may I suggest speaking with AIM (the American Indian Movement), UnidosUS, or any number of other cultural and political associations in order to ask them how they would like their cultural heritages represented in your repertoire.

Best wishes,

Edith Wilson”