Michael Moyes - Berklee College of Music

Episode Transcript

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This is What's at Risk with MikeChristian on WBZ, Boston's news radio.
Hi, Mike Christian. Here ofWhat's at Risk Tonight we feature two guests
who are supporting young people from divergentbackgrounds in very meaningful ways. First up
on tonight's show, Michael Moyes fromBerkeley College of Music speaks thoughtfully about Berkeley's

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online scholarships and music education opportunities forincarcerated youth. Our second segment features Danielle
de la Fuente, a passionate advocatefor children's rights to equitable education opportunities.
She discusses I'm All Alliance, theglobal organization she founded, and it's focus

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on social and emotional learning for youtharound the world. Well, hello everyone,
We're here with Michael Moyes. He'sbeen at Berkeley College of Music since
two thousand and eight. He's performedpiano as a soloist in combos and accompanied
by a full orchestra. In additionto piano and music theory, Michael teaches

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five string banjo and actively performs andrecords original bluegrass, country, and folk
music. He's also the Associate Deanof Admission, Strategy and Operations for Berkeley.
Michael, thanks so much for beingwith us. I appreciate it.
Yeah, thank you, Mike.It's good to be here. Tell our
listeners a little bit about your background. Sure, there's a lot of music
in my background, but I've beenplaying music and teaching music and writing music

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for much of my life. Neverreally had a structured I guess pedagogical background,
though I was largely self taught andended up going to school and studying
other areas, but always maintained athrough line with music and kind of spent
my time with sneaking into practice roomsand working my way up to doing some

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big performances to orchestras, and thatall cultinated later on, after a couple
of different careers, in coming tothe Berkeley College of Music and working with
their then fledgling online school. Nowwe're about twenty years in. I've worked
there about fifteen years of that time, and that's given me a lot of
creative opportunities to enhance my music andto really do what I believe in,

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which is spreading the power of musicto the world. Yeah, that's great,
And you mentioned the online school atBerkeley. Maybe just tell us a
little bit about that because I wasn'tnecessarily familiar with that until I prepared for
this discussion. Yeah. Yeah,So back in the early two thousands,

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we started what was then known asBerkeley Music dot com, which is now
online dot Berkeley EU, and itwas the experimental continuing education wing of the
Berkeley College of Music. Really foundedin the history of correspondence courses. So
Gary Burton is a world renowned vibraphoneplayer, many Grammy wins, and he

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was also a major administrator at Berkeleyyears ago and in the seventies when he'd
be touring a lot with Pat Methaneyand Chick Care all around the world,
he was doing correspondence courses where hewould be snail mailing cassette tapes and lead
sheets and charts to people around theworld and they would correspond from wherever they

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were. So in his administrative capacityof Berkeley, he knew that there was
something here and then it could work. And yes, you can't teach music
online if you can teach it viathe postal service. So it's been going
for a long time. And nowit seems like you're also pivoting into working
with juvenile justice programs by offering music. It's both lessons and scholarships to young

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people that are incarcerated. Yeah.Correct, So all the different disciplines that
we've been teaching over the years haveculminated to courses and certificate programs, degree
programs, master's degrees, and soforth, and we're at the stage now
where we were able to do somemore creative things like reach populations that might

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not be initially seen as like thebread and butter. I've been a big
believer in really trying to fire peopleup when it comes to learning and developing
intrinsic motivation, and to me,music just seemed one of those disciplines that
could really cut through a lot ofthe noise. And honestly, the incarcerated
population, particularly the youth, sometimesthey have very unique perspectives and backgrounds when

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it comes to formal education. Theymight have had some experiences that best case
they're disinterested, but they may havea complete lack of trust in the education
system. So to me, musicwas a hook that could really reignite them,
teach them that learning can be notjust fun, but a really valuable,

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meaningful thing that can be a gatewayto other types of learning. How
old are the students that from youknow from these juvenile detention centers which the
age range. It's a pretty broadrange all things considered. They range from
twelve years old to eighteen. Andthen we have had some students who are
a little bit older outside of Massachusettsworking with us, but within Massachusetts,

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particularly when we're working through the Departmentof Youth Services, that's the age range
twelve to eighteen. I assume thereare educational opportunities for inc incarcerated youth,
but are they similar to Berkeley Online? How does education work for them while
they're while they're in these institutions.So every state, every county is entirely

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different, which is something that I'veI always kind of knew, but now
I really know it. So fromMassachusetts in particular, it is school when
you are under the care of Departmentof Youth Services, it is they don't
like to use the word incarceration.It's really a rehabilitation school, for lack
of a better term. So thesekids are in classrooms learning science, math,

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literature, all the things that you'dbe learning if you were in a
if you were not in that samesetting. So they are working towards credentials,
getting college credits, getting GEDs,or equivalencies in some regards. So
in that way, the music classesare a little bit different because the content
is just a little bit more funand splashy and inspirational or at cannedy,

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but you still get that credit attainment. Everything that you do through Berkeley Online
is credit bearing, so these studentsthey can transfer these credits to another college
or university and combine them with everythingelse they're doing to get that attainment.
You're working with thirty juvenile justice agenciesacross the country, with most of them

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being in Massachusetts. Where are theother ones located? Yeah, so the
Probation Department in San Diego is one. There's a facility in Ventura, also
in southern California. We've worked withfacilities in Texas and in Saint Louis,
but it's outside of Massachusetts. It'sit's a little bit you know, who

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can we find who finds us,who listens to an interview like this,
who reads an article and just callsus up and says like, hey,
we we have indeed here, wewould like to participate, and we find
a boutique way to make it work. And it's unique for every single situation.
Yeah, because it's online, Iassume it's easier just to expand if
you if you have opportunities to dothat, it's easier and more difficult.

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In some ways. The scalability iseasier because I don't have to travel to
Saint Louis or Texas to do this. I can. We have faculty members
who are around the country, butthey can be delivering the education in a
scalable way. What's more challenging isit's actually a little bit easier red tape
wise, to get into a physicalfacility to teach than it is to go

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through get everything cleared on the firewalls. The internet security, I mean everything,
for lack of a better term,is very lockdown and restrictive in these
facilities. So teaching online is it'sa no brainer in some regards, but
it's there's significant complications as well,and probably every facility has a different type

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of system, so you have tohave a wildly different so different different philosophies,
different you know, is this supposedto be putative? Is it's supposed
to be rehabilitation is a restorative justice? And then yeah, and resources too.
Some facilities will say we can't afforda microphone, and others will say
we have a full fledged studio.It's it's just really tough to know who

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has access to financial resources and otherwise. Right, and how many students approximately
are you serving across the country asof now? Just about one hundred.
I should we're at the point whereI should count individually to make sure,
like our hundred students, right,they're either taking classes right now or they're
about to be. Yeah, well, one hundreds of nice round numbers.

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It's a good number. Yeah,that's great. And it's termed as a
scholarship. Obviously you're offering the coursesto where does the funding for it come
from? The only funding that wetry to raise or ask for assistance from
the state or from other facilities,is to help defray the cost of the

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instructor. Right, so we haveto pay our faculty members, but we
don't collect any tuition dollars from anyof these students. And that's the plan
to continue growing this and have itbe fully scholarshiped. We just we kind
of eat any costs that are associatedwith it internally. And then what are
the courses With some examples of thecourses that you're providing, it's a bit

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of a Potparrie right now, we'retrying to find what the what the best
cocktail of courses would be. Sothings that we've done so far, we've
had developing your Artistry class, whichis a little bit philosophical. I mean,
you're doing you're looking at music creativity, but you're looking at it through
the lens of Aristotle and other literaryfigures, which can be It was popular,

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but not as popular as some ofthe others. We've done some music
production analysis classes. I'm actually doingour second section of that one right now,
and that's been very popular. Whatwe're doing in that class is looking
at what Berkeley considers to be incrediblerecordings, whether it's Don wah Was or
the B fifty two's or Bonnie Rateor the Beatles, any swath of genre,

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and really digging into what makes thisrecord special. Is it the instrumentation,
is it the lyrics? Is itthe core progression? Is it the
key? Is it the timbre ofthe voices? Is it the tempo?
And trying to teach kids to viewmusic in that way and to see all

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these little nuances. And what Ireally like about that course is we're taking
all these disparate genres and the kidshaven't been exposed to a lot of this
in the past. Hip hop isa really popular genre for the kids,
and we've you know, really brushedup our instructors so that they're bringing in

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examples from Little Dirk and Kendrick Lamarand Rylo Rodriguez and other figures so that
they can find that common ground withthe students. And as a result,
I went and visited a dys facilityabout a month ago and some students were
like that guy Ed Sheeran can reallybring it. That's awesome. Yeah,

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they're expanding their horizons in a bigway. And then other classes we're doing,
like songwriting classes, because the studentshave just notebooks and notebooks filled up
with their personal experiences of their livesof loss of poetry and helping them to
take that and harness it and packageit into something that can be expressed via

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music. I would imagine the songwritingpart could be cathartic form in a way
to move through a process, maybeto move through challenges that they may have,
and I'm sure since they're incarcerated theyhave many, So yeah, that
makes a lot of sense. Doyou teach actual instrumentation or do they have
instruments in the facilities, so wehaven't done any instrument specific classes yet.

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We do, as Berkeley Online teachguitar, bass, piano, drama,
all the things, but we havenot done a group class within acarceral setting
yet, simply because of the logisticsthat you were just talking about. We've
talked with some different facilities like whatwould it look like to get some guitar

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or some keyboards, either budgetary orsafety or other reasons. So it's a
path that we're going down. Butas of now, the examples that we've
had with individual students doing instrumental musicwould be the ad hoc California, Saint
Louis, Texas folks, because they'vebeen taking classes as not as part of

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a full cohort of incarcerated students,but they'll be put into class with students
from around the world who are in, you know, notcarceral settings. We'll
step away from our talk with MichaelMoyes to hear some comments from the students
about their experience with Berkeley's online program. Mecki C from Dorchester, Massachusetts,

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is a student at a program operatedby the Department of Youth Services, the
Massachusetts Juvenile Justice Agency He recently completedhis second Berkeley online course. I'm really
actually a creative person, he says. As a kid, I never really
liked the arts. I hated thatclass. So it to be deep into
music now is kind of crazy.Music count me cope through a lot of

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struggles I went through in my community, like losing friends, stuff like that.
I made a song about my friendthat passed away, and it was
deeper than I would think. Itshowed me not only just the aspects of
myself, but it showed me howinfluential music is in my life. We're
back with Michael Moyes a Berkeley Collegeof Music. Michael, are you teaching

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classes to these students too? Notto these students, unfortunately, And that's
really just a reflection of what Iteach. I would love to, but
I teach harmony and music theory.We pull the students with the help of
our partners in the state, andthey haven't been interested yet. We try

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to offer them what makes good sensefrom a curricular perspective. How are they
going to be successful? We havethe tools technical or otherwise where they can
be with their carrying adults in thefacility and do well in the classes.
And also are they interested in itbecause they, like I said before,
they've got busy schedules. They're takingart classes, history of classes, maths,

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stem. So we have to sellthem on it a little bit.
Yeah. Maybe maybe when you startdoing instruments, you can get a class
for your banjo instruction. And yeah, for sure that a Loug meant the
hip hop production. For sure,my keyboard would be a little bit,

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I guess, more palatable than thebanjo, I think. Just kidding,
So I think you you touched onit. I mean I always think of
music, and I love music andI love live music, but I think
of it as a, you know, way to be more engaged and you
know, sort of provoke creativity andmaybe and maybe even a sense of belonging
because you're, you know, oftentogether at a concert and enjoying it together.

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Do you think that passion for musiclearning that the Berkeley is bringing to
these young people extends to other coursesthat they take in other parts of their
life? I hope, so,like courses outside of Berkeley. Yeah,
like courses outside of Berkeley, youknow. I mean, yeah, that's
that's my hope throughout this whole adventure, is that music is it's a gateway,

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right. I mean, I wouldlove it if everybody could just study
and play music all the time andpay their bills. And the practical nature
of the music industry is that that'strue for a very small percentage of the
population. But I've seen it inmy own life as somebody who struggled with
school or maybe didn't feel connected toschool, that music can be that bridge

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in that gateway to show somebody likeyou're you know what, You're actually good
at something, and you can geteven better at it by taking some critical
analysis of it and learning and reallyfocusing. I mean, it taught me
how to focus and how to dedicatemyself and how to develop that intrinsic motivation

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and worth. So whether or notthese students ever make a dollar from their
music, or if they're working inany facet of the music industry, my
hope is that they will always havesomething that they created. They will always
have the knowledge that they can createmusic and contribute it in that way,

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which I think will be really meaningfulto my point earlier about the goal of
leading a life of purpose. Yeah, for sure. And even if they
don't become rock stars, know theystill can you know, learn that creative
process through music and apply it toother aspects of their life. I think,
yeah, so I'd asked you aboutteaching you You must have other fellow

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teachers at Berkeley that are teaching thesecourses. Is it fulfilling for them?
How do they view the opportunity ofteaching these young people? Good question.
I'll answer the question, then I'llback off, and then I'll there's a
whole through line here. Yes,it's very fulfilling for our faculty. We've
got I'll see one, two,three, four, four faculty that I'm

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thinking of on the top of myhead who have taught with d Uya specifically,
and it's profoundly changed them and beenimpactful in their lives. Now,
the journey for me has been worryingabout that very thing. You know,
I've kind of helped set this up, and I'm worried. Are the students

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enjoin the classes, are they gettingwhat they need? Are they succeeding?
And also are these instructors are theystruggling? Is this partnership really And the
reason I've been concerned is because ofall the logistical constraints to teach an online
class, We're reliant on technology,like we're using you know, we're video

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conferencing, we're voice conferencing, andthese are things that are not always allowed
in these other settings. So you'rekind of going back in time to the
AOL days of typing in your questions. And for an instructor with twenty kids
in the room, each with acarrying adult is what we call them,

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kind of like a teacher at theirfacility next to them, watching what they're
doing and helping them. Making thatconnection can be a little bit tricky.
But what we found is by changingthe instructor's mindset a little bit and saying,
like, these students really care aboutwhat you're doing, what you're giving
to them, and even if they'renot saying anything, even if you have

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one student out of twenty that you'remaking an impact on. That's what it's
all about and it's totally worth it. And all of our instructors have really
harnessed that and kind of warned itas a badge of honor. So they're
excited. They're talking about their peersand we've got more and more people who
want to teach this population. Yeah, that's tremendous. And once they get

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out of the juvenile justice system.I assume they're free to go and do.
Maybe they're on some sort of probation, but mostly free to go on
to other things. Have you followedthem to see the impact of what these
classes have had on them as theygo into the next phase of their life

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outside of being incarcerated to some extent, And there's two reasons that we haven't
really gone fully down that path.One is the nascence. The program's pretty
new. We've been working with DUYSfor just about a year now and with
these other agencies for maybe two years, so not a lot of time.

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A lot of the students are stillin these facilities, but the few that
I'm aware of who have been releasedwhat we're dealing with. Another problem was
it is just logistical, you know, lack of databases or maintaining communication can
be pretty tricky, and a lotof the agencies are pretty understandably that they

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want to make sure that they arehelping these students transition in a safe and
meaningful way, and maybe being botheredby somebody like myself to ask how's it
going is not the best thing thatthey need right now, the most important
thing. Yeah, So it's tooearly to ask too early to tell.
Yeah, and it's probably too earlyto ask the question if any of these

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students have shown a desire to actuallyattend to Berkeley after they get out too
early as well. What I doknow is these students are leaving with not
only knowledge and hopefully something to showfor it, tangible, something that they
wrote or created, and you know, fulfillment of pride and can do.
But they're also getting three college creditsfor any class they take that are all

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accredited by NETCHI, which is youknow, Berkeley, Harvard, Mitale.
So if they want to I mentionedEducation Attainment earlier, if they want to
transfer those credits towards a bachelor's degreesomewhere with Berkeley or otherwise, I know
they'll be able to do that.So students are continuing to use these credentials

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as part of their academic journey.So what's next for the program? Michael.
We're just kind of taking it asit comes, but I really want
to continue to grow within Massachusetts.Like I said, we've offered a number
of different types of courses so far, I think we're getting close to having
a real understanding of this package ofcourses, whether it's three courses four courses

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that could be more of a certificate, something a little more meaty would work
for folks in Massachusetts. So i'dlove too something like that so that if
the student is going to be residingthere for a year or so, we've
got a whole curriculum that they cantackle. Additionally, i'd love to set
up and we're trying to do thisright now, some more formal agreements with

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other states, like we have withduys in Massachusetts and cees. Right now,
it's still fairly ad hoc. We'vegot three or four students that are
promising and this facility, but I'dlike to get something a little more standardized
and just maximize the number of peoplethat we can help. Yeah, that's
terrific. Well, Michael, yourpassion for this is evident, and I

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think it's a great thing that you'redoing for really what's generally an underestimated and
underresourced group of young people. Sothank you for doing that. Yeah,
thank you for being on the showtoday. It was really it was really
great, of course, Mike,many thanks. It's a pleasure to be
here. We'll be right back afterthe news at the bottom of the OL