Spring Break: When Classes Don't Get in the Way of Work, Season 4, Episode 8

Hello and welcome to the spring break edition of my blog!

One of the projects in Graduate Seminar in Music Education this semester is to do a mini presentation in progress for our peers and receive comments and critique.  This past week was our first presentation session.  Guess who got to go first.  That's right, me!  Since it is so early in the semester, I didn't have a full presentation ready, so I worked my way through the framework of a presentation.  I presented some actual content, but largely worked through my train of thought and the sequence of ideas that would be present in the actual presentation.  I elected to do my presentation on band curricula, or rather the lack of band curricula.  Specifically, I decided to attack the notion that the repertoire is the curriculum.

There is a widely-held belief that the repertoire is the curriculum.  Meaning, a band director chooses quality music and extracts from it the content that will be taught in class.  I believe that the repertoire-curriculum relationship should work the other way: that curricular outcomes should be solidified and then repertoire should be chosen to meet those curricular goals.  

So, in my presentation, I touched on the need for meaningful (or transferable) learning in band class rather than "teaching to the test" and rote learning, the lack of specific curricula for ensemble classes, how a band director can create a curriculum for an ensemble class, and how to choose literature that addresses the curriculum.  The feedback I got highlights two of my current struggles: I put way too much information in my work, and I have trouble with free-flowing speech.  A few people remarked that my presentation was too dense.  And, upon reflection, it absolutely was.  I think I see the big picture as such a syndrome of contributing ideas that it is hard for me to divorce specific underlying issues from the big picture and talk about them individually.  I feel the need to talk about how interconnected and reliant each component is with each other and the big picture.  So, I need to work on being more specific.  I have been working on my presentation style, trying to maintain a conversational and unrehearsed feeling.  But, since I don't read from a script, sometimes I use filler words as I am formulating my thoughts.  You know, words like uh, um, ah, and such.  I need to work on being able to speak on my topics without needing to fill space.  I think this will come with time as I become more comfortable with talking about my topics.

My presentation sparked a couple interesting conversations.  The first was about what constitutes appropriate repertoire for a school ensemble.  I maintain that to be appropriate, the music must present interesting, engaging, and challenging musical opportunities for all members of the ensemble.  I acknowledge that this does remove some pieces that are considered important works of art from the curricular possibilities for my ensembles.  For example, O Magnum Mysterium by Lauridsen, arr. Reynolds is a beautiful piece of music and considered by many to be standard literature for wind bands.  Here is a recording:

Is it beautiful? Yes.  Does it present many opportunities for musicality? Yes.  Do I love the piece?  Yes.  Did I program it and conduct it with the Category 5 Wind Ensemble?  Yes.  Did I use it as my conducting project in Conducting Seminar last semester?  Yes.  Would I ever program it with my school group?  Absolutely not.  The biggest reason is that the tuba part has only 2 notes: a pickup to a pedal tone and the pedal tone, which lasts all of 8 measures.  I would be hard pressed to say that the piece is engaging, interesting, and challenging for the tuba players.  I believe that there are other pieces I could program that provide the same lyrical beauty as this one, but which will present learning opportunities for all of my students, regardless of the instrument they play.  Off the top of my head, the first thing I can think of is Ticheli's Amazing Grace.  It is the same difficulty level, features lyrical playing, and is engaging across the orchestration.  Do I love it as much as O Magnum?  No.  But, do I think it is a better teaching tool?  Absolutely.

The other side of the discussion was that students should be exposed to the masterworks and that there are ways of engaging students even when they are not playing.  Students can engage in active listening and participate in the evaluative and rehearsal processes.  The case was made that a boring viola part should not be a reason for withholding an orchestral masterwork from the ensemble, that the quality of the music as a whole makes up for the content in any one part.

What do you think?  Leave comments here or on Facebook with where you stand on the issue and why.

Another conversation that arose was whether band directors really need to write a curriculum or if the method book is enough.  I presented the argument that the method book provides a starting point, but it is not enough on its own to constitute a curriculum.  Yes, the method book presents a series of new skills and concepts in a sequential progression.  But, it does not tell the teacher when students should master the concepts contained within, to what degree the concepts need to be mastered, and how to assess mastery over them.  I contend that the material from the method book must be extracted, combined with concepts not included in the book, and worked into a matrix that includes time frames, benchmarks, standards, activities, assessments, and other educational considerations.  Some of my classmates argued the opposite: that teachers need not spend time creating curricula because so much is laid out in the method books already.  

What do you think?  Are the method books enough, or does the teacher have to elaborate on and extend what is presented in the book?

The final interesting thing that came out of my presentation in Seminar was a comment from one of my classmates.  She dislikes the term "feeder program" when describing a school which graduates students into another school.  She said it made her feel like her job as an elementary band director was to prepare students for middle school, rather than to excel in music in her own right.  I never thought of it that way.  I'd always just used the term and I think it is a standard term to describe that relationship.  I wonder what term might be used to supplant it and make all teachers feel important without regard to where the students go after they leave the school.

On Wednesday, I had my midterm exam in History and Philosophy of Music Education.  Once again, the clunkiness of the technology gave me issues.  It was a timed, online exam in essay format.  We had to write 4 essays in 3 hours.  When I got to the third essay, the online word processing tool we were using started malfunctioning.  When I got to the end of a line of text, instead of creating a new line and dropping the cursor down, it sent the cursor back to the beginning of the line I just typed and started displaying the new words over the words I had just written.  Since it was a timed test, I didn't want to take time to email my professor about the issue and just manually inserted a new line after each line of text.  When I was done, I emailed Dr. P. and let her know about the issue.  She checked on my exam and told me that it had not saved my answers to the third or fourth questions!  Gaaaah!  Thankfully, she let me redo those questions.  But, it brings up the issue of technological errors in an age increasing technology use in education.  How much am I really willing to rely on technology when it counts?

That being said, I got a 98 out of 100 on the exam, a score I am quite excited about.  Here are Dr. P.'s comments:

 

Mitch-You wrote tirelessly and completely. Your examination is thorough and speaks to both historical and contemporary issues. Bravo. 
Essay 1
You provided an in-depth treatment of the material, quite impressive! You are compelling and eloquent in your arguments for music education in Boston. I appreciate that you are able to thread your examples and content substantively  through to contemporary times without cutting any part short. Well done. I agree that music’s value is in the tripartite and thus music education should be invested as well. I look forward to interrogating these ideas in relationship to music philosophy shortly.
Essay 2
You make interesting choices of moments in music education history. Perhaps not surprisingly, there was a wide array of proposed moments in our class. You situate each example strongly within music education history and practices, and, though briefly, consider challenges for the future. As I read your responses, I wondered how what historical events shaped the necessity for comprehensive musicianship? You discuss music education’s fractured ways, but I do not read other supports toward the CM movement outside of music. What about the 60s brought CM to a fore? Something to consider.
Essay 3
Strongly written. I appreciate that you denote the modern instrumental teacher as resilient and creative. I imagine one must be, or he will, as Bennett Reimer stated at GMEA in 2012, “make himself irrelevant.” 
Essay 4
The tides of connection between philosophy and science were quite strong in the early-mid 20^th century. Seashore and Mursell represented both scientists and philosophers, not unlike Descartes and other earlier thinkers. How might you respond to the perceived fractures between philosophy and science in music education?

I did some good work on the graduate student journal, which I am tentatively calling Graduate Student Perspectives in Music Education.  I have come up with a working draft of the mission statement for the journal.  And here it is:

The Temple University Graduate Student Journal of Music Education will be a scholarly writing outlet for graduate students, run by graduate students.  The journal recognizes graduate students as having fresh ideas in the field of music education.  To that end, graduate student scholarship will be showcased as a meaningful contribution to the ever-growing music education knowledge base.  The journal will represent no particular music education philosophy; instead, it will be an academic space for the interaction of a variety of innovative and progressive perspectives.  The journal welcomes work representing opposing viewpoints as a means of opening intellectual discourse for the advancement of music education.

            Having content furnished only by graduate students is not meant as an affront to the extant scholarly and peer-reviewed music education journals.  Rather, it is meant to include graduate students in the discussion of music education’s evolution.  It is a forum for graduate students to share ideas with one another, for music education researchers and academics to engage with graduate student work being carried out at other institutions, and to bring the fruits of those discussions to music teachers in the classroom.  It is the intention of the journal that seasoned music education academics regard graduate student publications within its pages as learning experiences for those students, and reach out with positive and constructive support to any student whose work sparks interest and intrigue.    

            The journal will be a venue for the discussion of any topic subsumed under the umbrella of music education.  Topics may include, but are not limited to, instrumental music, choral music, general music, early childhood music education, school music education, adult music education, preservice music teacher education, music education theory and philosophy, and music education advocacy.  The journal will accept many types of academic writing including research articles of all research paradigms, philosophy papers, theoretical papers, practitioner articles, and scholarly reviews.  Acknowledging the experience amassed by graduate students and their need for authentic learning experiences, submissions to the journal will be peer-reviewed by an editorial board comprised of Temple University music education graduate students, under the auspices of the Temple University music education faculty. 

            Because graduate students are likely at the beginning of their careers in academia, the journal will be presented in open-source format.  This will allow a wider audience access to the journal and promote greater networking and recognition for the graduate students published within it.  The journal will operate under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Public License.  Under this license, readers of the journal are free to share and adapt material published within it, as long as the original author(s) are cited when doing so; readers are not, however, allowed to use any of the content of the journal commercially or for profit.  It is our hope that, with the open access to the journal’s content, the graduate student work it publishes will spark vibrant debates and help move music education forward.

The next step is to write the submission guidelines for the journal.  Look for those next week!

Since this week is spring break, I am not sure if I will write again next week or if I will take return the week after.  Either way, keep your eyes peeled for the next episode.  And don't forget to leave comments!

Future Dr. Mitch, out!