When The Music’s Over:
Queens Teacher Retires
In Face Of Educational Changes

By Aaron Rutkoff

The proposed changes to the New York City school system have done more than hit a sour note with Queens music teacher William Greenspan – he’s so concerned that he’s decided to call it quits.

In June, Greenspan plans to put away the conductor’s baton and step down from the podium following 32 years as a New York City public school music teacher.

“For me, it’s not just a job, I’ve put my heart and soul into this,” he told the Tribune.

But the system into which Greenspan had invested so much of himself over the years stands on the verge of a massive transformation, and the veteran music instructor harbors mixed feelings about the direction the new school system seems to be moving. 

In a conversation with the Tribune, Greenspan framed his own retirement as skeptical response to the ambiguity surrounding the future of public education in New York City. And even before his retirement could take effect, the schools system changes that made him want to retire have already changed again.

In his small classroom at Bayside’s MS 158 and in relation to the short stature of his adolescent pupils, William Greenspan looms large. 

His presence at the front of the room is magnetic, as he pulls the notes forth from his student’s instruments and keeps the players on beat through the sheer force of will and energy.

Since 1971, William Greenspan has introduced thousands of public school students to the joy of playing an instrument. “For me it’s not just a job, I’ve put my heart and soul into this,” he said. Tribune Photo by Aaron Rutkoff

He leans forward into the orchestra periodically to sing the correct notes when it seemed the students might waver out of tune.

“Remember, if you play it fast, the graduates will run down the aisle. We don’t want that,” Greenspan said. 

It was the first week of May, and Greenspan was putting the eighth grade orchestra through the paces of “Pomp and Circumstance,” the indispensable standard of graduation ceremonies. 

A few violin players and a bassist groaned a meek protest — this piece is clearly no one’s favorite. “Hey, hey — this is not Hot 97, this is not the request line,” Greenspan scolded them playfully.

This small scene has played itself out perhaps a hundred times over Greenspan’s career. Thousands of students have sat before him in neat rows clutching flutes, trumpets, violas and clarinets.  

With his retirement a mere month away, however, this will be his last crop of students in the New York City public school system – a system that is about to change.

At 55-years-old, William Greenspan is on the young side of the retirement spectrum.  And though some of his reasons are personal, there was a major motivation behind the timing of his retirement.

As part of the reorganization of the school system and the implementation of the Children First intiative, the Department of Education (DOE) published a list in February of the 200 top schools.  Those schools that were not on the list—like MS 158—were required to overhaul their reading, writing and math curricula, placing greater emphasis on fundamental skills. Unsure of how these requirements would impact his school, Greenspan began to fear that the mandatory emphasis on English and math would diminish arts education.

“That time has to come from somewhere,” Greenspan said. “It’s not going to come from lunch, it’s not going to come from gym.  It has to come from what they call elective subjects, which are music, art, drama, dance, computers.”

This view of the Children First intiative is shared by Richard Farkas, the United Federation of Teachers vice president of intermediate schools. In a recent newsletter regarding the uncertainty surrounding the intiative, Farkas wrote that the possibly imperiled electives, including music, “are vitally important to the success of our students. A true middle school program does not dilute one learning experience for another.”

At the time, Greenspan even felt that he might be required to teach reading for part of the day, something he had never done before. “I can’t teach anything out of my chosen profession. Morally, I can’t do it,” Greenspan explained. 

Greenspan anticipated that the new policies affecting change in the school system may curtail arts education in many of the City’s schools, especially in the poorer areas like those where he had spent much of his career before coming to Bayside.

Even though MS 158 Principal Charles DeMeo appealed his school’s classification and eventually received a waiver from the DOE, which left the music program intact, Greenspan stuck to his decision.

It may turn out that Greenspan’s gesture was made prematurely, as the DOE remains unclear on how Children First will change the structure of the school day at middle schools forced to tow the line. Ultimately, even if music remains at full strength throughout the City, Greenspan’s small act of protest stands as a testament to the profound uncertainty that pervades the entire school system on the eve of this ambitious and mysterious effort to improve it.

Greenspan said, “I’m leaving with a little resentment, but I’m not leaving with a lot of resentment. I’ve given the Board my best and I’ve enjoyed it.” He added, “And now, the 200 schools on the list are not going to have a problem, but what about all these other schools that are not on the list?  What’s going to happen to their programs?”

When the Tribune contacted the DOE, a spokesperson there implied that Greenspan’s decision could have been made in haste.

DOE Spokesperson Margie Feinberg said, “I think it sounds like he is jumping the gun.”

“The chancellor is committed to arts education. In fact, part of the reorganization includes a new office specifically for arts education, a senior level position . . . We are planning to keep the funding for arts education intact,” Feinberg said.

Greenspan began his career as a bassist in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, but he soon found he wanted to do something more with his music. 

He started teaching in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn in 1971, but traces his own educational beginnings even further back. “I started my career in seventh grade playing an instrument just like these kids.  And I loved it so much that by the time I graduated high school, I knew I was going to be a music teacher,” he explained.

It wasn’t until 1994 that Greenspan moved to Bayside. “When I came to the school there were no new instruments here.  Now we have about 50 percent new instruments. I am adamant about it,” he explained.

DeMeo said, “He probably didn’t tell you this, but he does his own repairs on the instruments, spending hours at his home and on his own time.”

Most middle schools employ separate band and orchestra instructors, but Greenspan was qualified to take on both roles. As a result, he often brings the strings and winds together at concerts, creating a massive 100-piece performance that is uncommon with such young students. His instrumentalists also master advanced compositions normally reserved for high school students. 

While conducting the intricate march number from the opera “Carmen,” Greenspan couldn’t hold back his pride in his overachieving eighth graders. “These kids started playing their instruments in the seventh grade.  Now look,” he gushed. “They actually go home and practice!”

Just what all these changes and potential cuts to arts education amount to, in Greenspan’s view, is hard to pin down. 

Though it is clearly a matter to which he devoted much thought before deciding to retire, his opinions on the transformation of the school system are conflicted and ambivalent.

“I don’t think it’s a mistake,” Greenspan said.  “I think the mayor and the chancellor are 100 percent right because they want the kids to have more reading and math. Today, with the kind of society we have, they need it — they need reading and math. I understand that.”

Though he acknowledged the value of the ends sought by the policy-makers at the DOE, Greenspan took issue with the means. He explained, “The idea is correct, I think their programming stinks. I think these people are smart enough to figure out a way to give these kids some extra time than to chop off my program.”

Greenspan’s objection should not be mistaken for the petty protection of his own educational domain. 

Rather, he sees the reduction of arts education as a threat to the individual well-being of the students. He explained his fears this way: “You can teach a kid to read better or to write better, but if he doesn’t have any arts, what the hell is he going to read and write about? I’m afraid this whole society is going to end up with nothing but a bunch of walking computers.” 

He added, “Music teaches you not just how to play and instrument, but it teaches you passion, it teaches you love.  It can make you dance, it can make you laugh, it can make you cry.  That’s the beauty of music.”

Without exposure to music and other creative modes of education, Greenspan fears for the completeness of the students who the DOE wants to help and improve. 

Above all, he fears that students caught up in the cold process of testing and standardized curriculum will lose their ties to basic human feeling. 

“When you see something sad or this or that, you should be able to cry, you should be able to show emotion,” he said. “I mean come on, people today, you go to a job, you sit in a cubicle, you’re on a computer all day and that’s your life.”

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