i n t u n e w i t h
Rob Toups
By Tom Geddie
Music—whether it’s Mozart, Elvis, the Beatles,
whatever—reflects the culture and times when it was written, asserts Rob
Toups, the plain-talking, hard-charging, highly successful director of bands
and fine arts for Canton schools. Music is such a strong entry point into
the human experience that Toups would use it to help teach other subjects if
he could.
“There is no doubt in my mind that there is no
education at all without arts education,” Toups said. “I believe that with
every ounce of my being. Somebody who is competent only in numbers and
science is not going to be a success in anything without understanding the
human experience we all live day to day in terms of emotion, desires, and
ambition. There is no doubt that arts education—and specifically
instrumental music education—builds that better than anything else in
schools.”
Toups, 50, grew up in the musically rich culture of
Lafayette in southwestern Louisiana and toured as a drummer before becoming
a band director 18 years ago. Like any good teacher, he is passionate about
the intangible—and tangible—benefits of his subject.
Toups has been at Canton High School since 1991. Two
years later, the Eagles band won its first-ever division sweepstakes rating.
Since 1996, the band has excelled in every University Inter-scholastic
League (UIL) and Texas Music Educators Association (TMEA) competition in all
three categories: marching band, concert band, and sight-reading. The
marching band is two-time defending state champion and the concert band was
TMEA honor band in 2002.
Nearly one in four of Canton’s approximately 500 high
school students are involved in band, and the school plans to open a new
performing arts center in May that seats 1,200 people.
Toups said high school students who make the all-state
bands, orchestras, and choirs average nearly 200 points higher than the
state average on SAT tests and more than 200 points higher than the national
average every year.
“Does that mean music makes kids smart, or that smart
kids are attracted to music,” he asked, rhetorically, before answering,
“Intellectualism finds comfort in music.”
Toups believes adding music to other courses, such as
social studies, would create benefits.
“You can go back and listen to the great music during
the period of the French revolution, for example, and, through the music,
hear the sadness and despair of the country at that time,” he said. “When
blues and jazz developed, you can hear what American society felt like at
that time. Music is so reflective of what goes on in the world, but unless
you study music you are not going to get the full import of that.”
The importance of music and arts education remains
difficult for some people to understand.
“By and large, people do have difficulty understanding
those benefits because we have not done a good job, historically, teaching
those benefits,” Toups said. “Some people consider it a frill, like
something that has no impact on society. They say, ‘Listen son, you need to
put that music down and get to work on your studies,’ or, ‘You can’t
practice horn because you have to do homework.’ But music is homework.”
Toups became president of the Association of Texas
Small School Bands on February 13 as part of a six-year commitment to
leadership in music education. The president oversees audition standards,
rules, policies, and guidelines for students in Classes AAA, AA, and A all
over Texas who participate in honors and all-state bands.
It’s additional work—and payback for benefits he’s
received—that Toups is happy to take on.
“Music education in public schools in Texas is second
to none in the whole world,” he said. “Only people in choral, orchestral,
and symphonic band music education can realize the vast difference between
Texas and any other state in the union. You can’t put a figure on the value;
it’s so incredible.”
Selling the benefits of music and arts education can be
tough in a climate where teachers and coaches are forced to compete for
resources. It’s an important battle for Toups.
“Anyone who has never been in a band program in a state
where music is taken seriously might not understand what I’m saying,” he
said. “The discipline, the commitment, the delayed gratification in the
process you go through for so long before you get anything back from it—all
of that is such an intense character-building process. It’s education so
that kids know what they must do with the rest of their education. It’s not
just teaching kids how to do something. It’s helping the child know that
there’s a reason you do math and science, and a reason you get an education.
What you do with your life after you graduate is what music education is
for.”
Band music’s team-building aspects are important to
Toups, too.
“Ego, stardom, and individualism all are wonderful, but
it’s gotten almost out of hand in our instant-gratification society,” he
said. “But if you put 120 children in band uniforms, mom and dad can’t even
make out which one is theirs. The kids are contributors to, not receivers
of, the benefit. Only when the end comes, when you are alone and have the
opportunity to assess what you did—the long days of practice, of developing
a skill on your instrument—do you benefit personally. In the typical school
band setting, it’s more about getting away from the I/me attitude and into
the we/us attitude.”
Toups’ background gives him a unique perspective. He
toured, mostly in his native Louisiana and in the western United States, as
a drummer (jazz, Dixieland, country, whatever would pay the bills) and
didn’t start college until he was 27 and teaching until he was 31.
“I totally believe that teachers are born, not made,”
he said. “There has to be some kind of connection between those who teach
and the students. You can’t learn that in school. So many young colleagues
get disenchanted real quick. They like the idea (of teaching), but once they
try to connect with the kids things get really difficult. The dynamics are
unbelievable.”
He still—as neighbors will attest—hits the drums at
home from time to time; his last paying gig was two years ago with the
Harold Burgess jazz quartet in East Texas and Dallas.
Toups grew up around music in Lafayette, Louisiana, and
was inspired early by his own high school band experiences and by the
Beatles, Burt Bacharach, Lawrence Welk, and many others.
“I was probably the only kid around to watch Lawrence
Welk,” he said. “The musicians in his band played with such great quality.”
Non-musical influences include his wife, Carolyn, a
former banker who now works as a library aide at the Canton intermediate
school. They have been married for 28 years and have three grown children:
Leah is in business in Dallas, Lindsey works at the University of Maryland
while her husband plays in a military band in Washington DC, and Mark is on
a U.S. Army tank in Iraq.
As director of bands and fine arts, Toups’ primary job
is to take care of the band program. His seniority and influence in the arts
around the state enable him to provide leadership and coordination for all
of the district’s fine arts programs—visual arts, choir, and drama—and to
serve as a sort of conduit between the administration and the 11 teachers.
“We feel like we have led Canton ISD in terms of growth
and quality education,” he said. “Everything here is outstanding. The band
program in the past decade has led the way to influence the school
positively” as evidenced by the new performing arts facilities. The
facilities—including two band rehearsal halls, a new choir hall, a new
black-box theater classroom, and revamped fine arts classrooms—are tangible
signs of the support that help keep Toups in Canton. He gets other job
offers, but has been seriously tempted only a couple of times.
“Maybe starting to teach at the age I started kinda
prevents me from making that ultimate step,” he said. “I was born and raised
in Lafayette, and very few members of my family would move away. When we
moved to Canton, it was a big decision. The district here has been good
enough to me that they’ve made it worth my while to stay. I have 8-10 years
left in my career, and feel obligated to stay with the district and with the
new facilities.”
Toups said he’s thankful to live in a community and
work in a school that has accepted his philosophy.
“I’m hard on the kids. That’s not a secret. Half the
kids in the high school don’t play in the band, but did,” he said. “To be in
Mr. Toups’ band, you are going to pay a price. You’ve got to have a
willingness to work your tail off, to hear the truth when it’s not good, and
to get the rewards when it is good. The kids need to know what it takes to
succeed in the world.”
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