1. What is the music educator's role when students engage with participatory culture?
I think one of the most important things to be aware of when it comes to integrating participatory culture in classrooms is what kind of classroom community you’re working with. Social connection is one of the fundamentals of participatory culture and if a positive and welcoming environment isn’t established, the students might not feel comfortable sharing their creations and interpretations. I understand that sometimes that’s something that’s out of the teacher’s control, but it is still important to try to create an environment where the students can explore their creativity without the fear of being made fun of for their artistic decisions. Another fundamental of participatory culture is that it has “low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement” (Tobias, p. 30), and I think it’s up to the teacher to ensure that the activity that they’ve chosen is accessible. That might mean providing all the technology required, as well as the time to use it, or being flexible in what a finished product might look like. I also think it is very important to listen to the students when trying to incorporate any of the activities suggested in the article. Having an open conversation is a great way to find out how your students engage with music outside of school, and it is likely that they already have experience with the technology and processes involved in any of these projects, so working with them to choose a project and develop a series of clear guidelines might ensure that it’s a project that everyone can engage with in a positive way. 2. How might ensembles and music classrooms be modified or restructured to allow for new and emerging contemporary musical practices? York University has something called a Media Music Concert. It’s all music done by student arrangers, and it is music that covers a wide variety of popular genres ("Media Music Concert", n.d.). You could incorporate this into different ensemble settings by opening student submissions for concerts. They could arrange any piece of music they like for any size ensemble and then perform them or vote on one to be played for a concert. Of course, this depends on the level of your students, but it might be fun for any budding composers. On a simpler level, engaging in contemporary music practices might look like choosing some mash-ups and popular pieces as part of the repertoire for the year. You could also open up the repertoire choice to a student vote. If there are any particularly technologically inclined students, you could work with them to develop a way to integrate electronic music into a live ensemble performance. This could mean playing an electronic beat over classical music or using electronic instruments to change something about a piece. Bibliography Tobias, E. S. (2013). Toward Convergence Adapting Music Education to Contemporary Society and Participatory Culture. Music Educators Journal, 99 (4), 29-36. Media Music Concert - MMC:VIII. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://events.ampd.yorku.ca/event/media-music-concert-mmcvii-2019/?instance_id=96830 The topic of this article was very familiar to me. I’ve had 6 years of experience teaching private lessons and have taught in many different settings with a wonderful variety of students.
I was 16 when I started teaching, and I used to constantly doubt my methods. I was trying my best to emulate teachers I’d had in the past and follow the path the method book laid out, but since I didn’t have a piano teacher at the time, or know many other piano teachers, there was no one to ask if I was doing things right and no way for me to know how to make changes. As mentioned in the article, in the isolated setting of private lessons, a teacher relies “…on her students’ performance results to indirectly validate her own success” (p. 5). They don’t go into detail about what that could mean for the student, or the teacher’s behavior, but I think that’s a lot of pressure to place on a child, and could result in the teacher being very sensitive to the student’s progress (or lack thereof). I used to also get very self-conscious during a lesson if the piano was in view of the parents. Teaching in a closed-off space felt much easier, so I understand the appeal of the isolated setting of a studio. The self-consciousness came from a place of insecurity about my methods, and I found this quote summed it up perfectly: “Such insecurity and vulnerability seem to exist…because of the lack of context they have for their own approach in relation to formal structures, and therefore a strong reliance they have on feelings and intuition in making pedagogical decisions.” (p. 12). After a couple of years of struggling to develop a pedagogical method, I signed up to take an online RCM course about elementary level piano pedagogy. Actively engaging with the other students was a key part of the course, and I think I learned more from talking to them than I did from the actual course! As informative as the course was, the other teachers could give me real life examples and creative activities that they had personally used in their own practices. It was also very validating to have others comment on my own ideas in a positive way. I understand the fear of accountability and unwillingness to share that is apparently common among music teachers but getting over that and engaging in a community of educators was one of the most rewarding pedagogical experiences I have ever had. Something that stuck out to me in both the article and Prof. Chiles’ lecture was that in the master and apprentice model, there is supposed to be an extended community of masters that the apprentice is exposed to. That is what I was missing when I started teaching, and that is what I found when I took the online course. I wasn’t backed by any institution, so I understand why I didn’t have access to a whole network of teachers, but it’s terribly frustrating that institutions with the power to bring together a community of educators don’t do so. There is so much potential for professional development within larger institutions, and I hope that institution backed community events become a normal part of being a music teacher. Bibliography Burwell, K., Carey, G., & Bennett, D. (2017). Isolation in studio music teaching: The secret garden. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 18(4), 372-394. Formal
I consider formal learning to be in a classroom setting. There’s a teacher that tells you what to do and how to do it, there are rubrics and rules to follow, grades to earn, and there’s a clear right and wrong. It can also be in an ensemble setting, where there is a conductor in charge, and you follow the notes on the page and what the conductor wants. Formal learning is quantifiable and there are desired results that are meant to be achieved. The context I am most familiar with is that of a private piano lesson. Implementing formal learning in my practice would look like me outlining exactly what I want from a student and expecting them to complete it. This might be instructing them in how I want them to play a certain passage or laying out what their practice should look like. Non-formal Non-formal seems to be focused more on the experience than on any quantifiable results. There might still be goals involved, but there is more of a focus on community and learning through experience. This might look like a group of students forming a band just for fun, or choir members forming a group to practice their parts together. There might be leaders who step up within the group, but there is not a single, designated person in charge that dictates what should and should not be learned. In a piano studio context, it would still be blended with a formal setting, but implementing informal learning might look like putting two students together to learn a duet on their own or providing space for students who want to form their own small ensembles just for fun. Informal I consider informal learning to be self-directed more than anything else. You are the one who is making the rules and you get to choose what to learn and when. There are no goals and guidelines other than the ones you go looking for. It is learning in whatever way works best for you. Informal learning can also be learning through your surroundings. It’s the idea of “picking things up” through exposure, whether that be an instrument, a technique, or a general sense of musicianship. In a piano studio context, this might look like implementing Independent Study Projects, where the student gets to pick the topic of their study and learn it on their own before I engage with them about it, or by encouraging a student to work through a problem based on the knowledge that they already have. I really enjoyed the ukulele workshop. I have a little bit of experience with playing, but I’d never tried to teach someone, and it was never taught in my school. I came away from this with a greater appreciation for the instrument’s accessibility and potential for creative development. It was also really cool to hear from teachers that had implemented a ukulele program in their schools. If I end up teaching in a school, it’s nice to have these educational tools to rely on.
Based on what I learned from Dr. Kruse, a good way to introduce the ukulele to a class would follow these general steps:
When reading through the article, there were a couple of concepts and moments that stood out to me.
I’m not familiar with the concept of “practitioner research” (Rose & Countryman, 2013, p. 53), but it’s a concept that I can fully get behind. I can see how this wouldn’t work in every field, but it makes perfect sense that the person conducting the research also be fully immersed and have experience in that field. Like in the article, some of the research points end up being anecdotal, but that just makes it easier to read, in my opinion. Their re-framing of the elements in their students’ terms sparked a sense of connection for me- the “quirky smiles, wide-eyed surprise, and spontaneous laughter” (Rose & Countryman, 2013, p. 57) were all things I had noticed not only in myself when I listened to music, but in others as well. I’d never given those gestures in-depth thought before, and it’s eye-opening to see them in an educational light. I felt another moment of connection when I read ““But just teach us how to teach music!” some teacher candidates implore us…” (Rose & Countryman, 2013, p. 52) because that’s certainly the mindset I had coming into university. I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find that that’s not how it’s done. Being encouraged to ask questions and think critically about the educational systems we take part in is not what I expected from either this class or this reading, but as society continues to evolve, the importance of doing so grows. Some of the language they used to describe the existing system were off-putting to me. For example, their description of the elements as “a framework of dominance, denying diversity, access, and individual agency” (Rose & Countryman, 2013, p. 45) caught me off guard. The words felt a little too harsh for the situation. But as I continued reading, their harshness made more and more sense to me. It’s obvious that Rose and Countryman are not the first ones to bring up this concept. So then why is the old system still in place? I’ve always placed great value in listening to and learning from those more experienced than I. I would love to learn more from these authors and hear more of their classroom experiences. Moving forward, I will try my best to continue to think critically about the educational systems in place and will ask myself what I can do to enact positive change. Bibliography Rose, L. S., & Countryman, J. (2013). Repositioning ‘the elements’: How students talk about music. Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education, 12(3), 45– 64. |
Archives
December 2019
Categories |