Bennett Reimer is acknowledged internationally as one
of our most influential living music educators. Reimer entreats
teachers of music around the world to give
'balanced attention to musical products, processes, references and
contexts' to 'best represent to all students the power of music to
provide fulfilments at the deepest levels of human need'
(Reimer,1997:20).
In the cusp between millennia the education process makes exhausting
demands on teachers. Despite the intention of the new statements
and profiles to make teaching less prescriptive teachers are in every
sense more accountable. Yet, if public comment and salary are any
indication, they and their vocations apparently are less valued by
society than ever before. Across most of Australia the curriculum
is now divided into eight key learning areas. Consequently some
of the older 'subjects' find themselves relegated to strands within a
key learning area.
Music is one of these.
Where I work in the Northern Territory music is now one of six strands
within the arts key learning area, one of eight. Does this mean
for students it now warrants only one forty-eighth of the
timetable? Generalist primary school teachers say that with so
many subjects crowding the new curriculum and so much accountability it
becomes increasingly difficult for them to give these 'minor subjects'
the attention they really deserve.
This website is intended to be a realistic response to teachers' pleas
that there are only so many hours in every day. While teachers
need to be able to continue teaching across the whole curriculum
demands for the so-called significant learning areas make it virtually
impossible to give fair attention to 'minor' disciplines such as
'music'. It is not just as a music educator that I have real
concerns about this devaluation that has happened for music in a new
educational climate. Gardner views music as one of seven human
intelligences and gives it credit for supporting more areas of learning
than any of the others. When music as a subject is relegated to
the back end of the timetable, to be taken only 'when there is time', a
major mischief is created for all education.
Of course this new climate does nothing towards improving the
generalist teacher's ability to implement music programs in their
classrooms. It simply makes teachers more nervous. In my daily
visits to classrooms across the Northern Territory I meet teachers who
tell me they simply do not have time to plan, program, implement and
then assess and evaluate their music programs. And, as primary
school students move in to the middle school at around years five and
six, teachers say that the programs which used to work no longer
work. Everything they try is deemed inappropriate by the students
themselves and, such is student power, rejected. Children cannot
be compelled to learn, only enthused and nurtured to do so.
Teachers who have expertise and experience in most other areas of the
curriculum are frequently thwarted by the skills, concepts and language
of music.
In order that they can get on top of these constraints teachers often
ask, even insist, that the work we do together be kept simple (the KISS
principle: 'Keep It Simple, Stupid'). The planning programming,
assessment and evaluation procedures that I share with teachers in
professional development, need to be 'commonsense' if they are to
continue after I leave a teacher, his or her class, and school.
I hope what I present here does just that. Wherever possible I
have kept the language as non technical as possible, avoided jargon and
introduced activities in support of principles. These do not
necessarily require any musical competence or expertise.
Organisation of the Website
The website is planned around the notion of a
consecution of strategies which, while they may be perceived as a
progression, are better viewed as a number of 'attacks' or approaches
from different directions on a particular musical theme. Imagine
the many faces of a diamond - to understand and appreciate the impact
of the diamond we gaze into it through each and every one of its many
facets. My hope is that teachers may work through any one of the
examples provided and, in comprehending how the loose process works,
devise their own sequences.
This website is not intended to be a substitute for yet another
prescriptive music text book or program. The examples used are
ones which have worked for me and for colleagues. Teachers are
encouraged to review the music they have learned and enjoyed throughout
their own lifetimes, whether recently or in the distant past, and to
resurrect these where appropriate. Of course this also includes
looking for new activities which will support education, as Elliott
premises (Elliott,1995:13) in music, about music, for music and by
means of music.
Because these are at the heart of new curriculum I have chosen to
structure this website around two strongly integrated foci. The
first is that of 'exit outcomes' as envisaged by Spady (1988) and other
educators. They stress the importance not only of the 'content' or 'IQ'
outcomes of the curriculum, exemplified in the key learning areas, but
also and perhaps even more critically, 'EQ' outcomes, in the
preparation of students as effective citizens in the 'real' world.
These identify competent learners as collaborative, empathetic,
organised, self-directed, imaginative, innovative, and communicative.
The second main focus involves IQ outcomes made explicit here in the
four strands, Arts Skills and Processes, Creating Arts Ideas, Arts
Responses, and Arts in Contexts. In other states and countries
these may have other names and even, as in Victoria, have been merged
into two organisers. Nevertheless they are, if I may be excused
the pun, 'sound' fundamentals for an approach to music education which
need not rely on elemental approaches if teachers do not wish, nor
depend on a teacher's skills in reading and writing staff notation - if
they are unable to do so. I'm not suggesting that teaching
shouldn't follow those threads but that effective music teaching and
learning can happen without facility in these. In fact the needs
of students to learn to read and write music might be addressed
elsewhere, such as in school recorder ensembles.
In other words this website is directed primarily to the teacher who is
not a music specialist, particularly the teacher who tells me - while I
don't entirely believe him or her - that 'I don't have a musical bone
in my body but I love music'. Personally I'm not sure how the two
attributes could operate together! Of course I hope the
specialist music educator might also benefit from perusing this and
considering the approaches outlined here as giving added substance to
existing music education approaches.
In this, the introductory section of the website, I survey information
fundamental to teaching music in a school classroom, briefly noting
contemporary cultural diversity and suggesting resources ranging from
the human through to technological resources. I make suggestions
about appropriate venues and, hopefully some practical commonsense
observations about ways ordinary general practitioner teachers can plan
and run music programs which do not require them to be practising or
knowledgeable musicians.
The second section of the website describes and expands on musical
implications of the four strand organisers. Because I am based in
the Northern Territory I am bound to be somewhat parochial regarding
educational principles and practices. However in the early 21st
century global village principles and practices become increasingly
merged, perhaps with different titles. I also offer hypothetical
case studies of teachers demonstrating basic music programs at
different levels in the primary school based on the five strand
organisers.
In the third section I develop this notion of employing strand
organisers in the planning of a multi-faceted music program, suggesting
ways that 'bundles' of related strategies might be used to inform the
progress of such a program.
The fourth section of the website examines issues related to assessing
student progress and evaluating programs, looking at where students -
and teachers - are 'coming from' and where it might be intended
programs take them.
The website closes with 'End-matter' including appendices relevant to
the text, a bibliography and suggested resource list (CD's, programs
and the like).
Teaching and learning models
Probably, nationally and internationally, teaching and
learning models have been with us since the notion of 'education'
began, often simple elaborations of 'Do, Talk, Record'. The most
general features of the method of knowing
'... are the features of
the reflective situation: Problem, collection and analysis of data,
projection and elaboration of suggestions or ideas, experimental
application and testing; the resulting conclusion or judgment'
(Dewey,1916:173).
I have suggested one such music teaching and learning model to support
the strategies outlined in this website. How or whether teachers use it
should, at the end of the day, be a matter of their own personal
choice, not adhered to rigorously, but simply assisting in scaffolding
their own planning, programming and implementation.
For example teachers might not wish to use the opening strategy of a
non analytical 'first-time' stimulus and 'feel' for a new performance
experience. A teacher might judge the sequence of teaching and
learning strategies as inappropriate for their particular class or
needs, or decide to re-use a particular strategy.
Intercultural music teaching & learning
A common feature of contemporary approaches to music education is in
acknowledging the diversity of cultures within our society. Of
course this is reflected in the populations of our schools and thus
within each classroom. Given that culture may be expressed simply
as 'the way we do things around here' within our classroom we will have
many children who have learned to do things in a way differently to
others in the class. Our teaching needs to acknowledge this if it
is to be truly equitable, recognising the significance across cultures
of music as an art in reflecting world views.
The music of all of the cultural communities represented in our society
warrant recognition in their own right and for their own worth, not
contrasted with or measured against others. Internationally
renowned music educators Kwabena Nketia (1988:97-99) and Reimer
(1997:17) agree that both similarities and differences have significant
roles in the intercultural communication of music. Their views inform
this website's intercultural approach to music education.
Among music curriculum models identified by Pratte (1979:62-85) I also
favour his sixth and final approach, which Pratte describes as a
'Dynamic Multiculturalism' model. Here music teaching and
learning endeavour as far as is possible to duplicate the music's
culture's 'way things are done around here'.
By devising a learning environment which reflects the world views of
people whose music is under study, intercultural learning is realised
as contextualised culturally and temporally. This fits with the
philosophy of experiential learning, the immersion of learners in
hands-on lived-in experiences, as common to educational methodologies
across cultures.
What value is there in teaching and learning music?
When students learn about music they should also learn,
among many other things;
- that life ought to be more than just a matter of
needing the essentials of sleep, warmth, shelter air and
food. Music must be part of those activities which enrich life;
- the enjoyment of taking part in making - songs and
pieces of music, rhythms, instruments - either together in a group or
as a class or by themselves;
- increasing respect for the skills of others,
particularly skills which reflect long years of effort and dedication
(eg in composition and performance) not only because of
opportunities to listen to performances and to learn about how these
come about, but also to try for themselves to compose or perform
music;
- the satisfaction gained from expressing themselves
effectively through creating, making or presenting music;
- that music is an important vehicle for transporting
the unique characteristics of culture. Thus students learn increased
respect for the people of cultural groups other than their own through
appreciating what their music is about;
- cooperation because music is yet another learning
area where collaboration and team work are essential
- satisfaction!
Music and the global curriculum
Music may not be one of the biological essentials for
living, breathing animals but it remains, within every human society on
earth an ever present non material cultural essential. Through
their involvement in learning to make, create and present music, to
appreciate its aesthetic, social, historical and cultural attributes
students progressively acquire unique and essential life skills, some
of which may only be accessible through music.
Music must seen as a significant area of the total school curriculum,
as accountable as any other learning area in outcomes perceived of
effective schooling. Integrating music with other subject areas
in the curriculum is critical to enhancing the subject's
credibility. Set this in motion by discussing with other members
of your staff ways in which the music program can support other aspects
of the school program. Remember, music is integral to all
cultures and no culture exists that does not have music. Music in
your school should, if it is genuinely equitable in this sense, reflect
the cultural ethos of the school. Ask the question, 'Does it?'
Of course the most effective planning embraces the whole class
curriculum. Here, along with every other aspect of teaching and
learning, music ought to be integrated into each term's overall
programming and its intended outcomes. |