What happened to summer? Season 5, Episode 1

Ok!  I ready to begin summer break!  Woo!


Wait... you're saying that summer break is over?  It already happened?  WWWWHHHHAAAAATTTTT?????????

Well, I spent my summer writing and studying.  It seems that both of those, along with the summer job, consumed my whole life for the past few months.  So, here is how it turned out:

Writing:
You may recall that, in order to be elevated to the status of Doctoral Candidate, one must write a paper of publishable quality and have it approved by all the faculty of the music education department.  I'd had this great paper idea, which turned out to be the bane of my existence for the past many months.

The paper topic: using the new National Core Arts Standards as a framework for infusing creative thinking into many aspects of ensemble learning experiences.  It seemed like a simple enough paper.  But, boy was I wrong.  I had trouble finding my voice, my message, my delivery.  I like to think that I am a good writer, but I struggled a lot with this paper.  Finally, after months of writing and re-writing, I had something that felt good.  It seemed to say what I wanted and do so in a succinct kind of way.  I submitted the paper to the professors and, though they all gave it a pass, they all had major comments needing to be addressed before I can consider submitting the paper.  The big ones which I need to address are:

1. The paper has an identity crisis between being a philosophy paper and giving practical information which can be used in the classroom.
2. I do not cite enough music education research in creativity.
3. There is disagreement over how I define creativity.

Issue 1: The paper does have an identity crisis.  And it is something I fought form the moment I started writing it.  I think the problem is that I haven't written a philosophy paper on this topic yet, so I felt like I needed to get those thoughts on paper before I could use them as a basis for practical suggestions.  I think my next step is to extract the personal philosophy elements and use them as a basis for a philosophy paper, upon which a separate practical paper can be based.  My fear is that, being so new to the field and not having read as extensively as more seasoned academics, I don't have the academic weight or requisite background knowledge to write a publishable philosophy paper.  Though, maybe I should write it anyway and amend it as I read more. 

I also feel like I tried to attack too many issues at once, arguing for many facets of creative thinking in ensemble instructions.  I think I need to focus that in a bit more.  I can gain depth with the loss of breadth.  I think I should focus specifically on rehearsal, leaving the aspects of planning, preparation, and evaluation for other articles. 

Issue 2: I certainly neglected some music education researchers that I should have acknowledged.  Of particular note is Peter Webster, whose stuff I love!  I am kicking myself for forgetting him in my paper.  The suggestion was made to reference Maud Hickey as well.  My problem here is that, as far as I have read, her research into creativity in music education is pretty well focused on composition and improvisation.  My stance is that, though composition and improvisation are absolutely creative musical outlets, they are not the only game in town.  It is a point which, though I believe very strongly, I have now come to realize I did not explicitly argue in the paper.  I made an assumption that the reader would be able to glean that point from the content of the paper.  But, I was clearly wrong in that assumption.  Maybe that needs to be the topic of my philosophy paper: Creativity in Music is not Limited to Composition and Improvisation.  In that paper, I can certainly give a nod to research on composition and improvisation and use it as a springboard for the expansion of our conception of what constitutes creativity in the ensemble classroom.  Maybe I can tie in a quickie research study on conceptions of creativity in music education.

Issue 3:I think this ties into the above paragraph.

So, I am planning on meeting with a few of the professors next week to discuss my ideas and see what they think.  Look forward to a report on those meeting in the next post.  Once I have a good working draft of the next set of revisions, I will be looking for people to read and comment on it.  Let me know if you're interested!

Studying:
The other gateway to being elevated to doctoral candidate is passing the preliminary exam.  I studied my butt off for this exam.  The amount of flashcards I made would make your head spin!  But, I studied and studied, and took the test this past Monday.  I cannot divulge any specifics about the exam.  But, I came out of it feeling ok.  Not great, but ok.  In the writing section, I felt like I rambled a bit (as I am prone to do), so I hope I was able to make enough quality points in an eloquent enough way to gain passing scores.  But, on the memorization portion, I think I kicked butt! 

I should know the results of the exam tomorrow.  Keep your fingers crossed!


Moving on...

So, since my coursework in the past 4 semesters satisfied all the required classes and got me to the required number of credits needed to progress into dissertation work, I figured I was done taking courses.




It turns out that, in order to keep my assistantship, I need 6 or more credits on my schedule each semester.  So, in addition to taking my pre-dissertation research, I need to have an actual class.  So, I will be taking Learning Theories in the Educational Psychology department.  I hope it is a good class!

As a result of what I have learned from my preliminary paper and exam, I realize that I need to read more!  So, each week, I am going to read a journal, cover to cover.  I am going to look at music ed journals, general education journals, creativity journals, psychology journals and anything else that seems interesting.  Each week, I will present a synopsis of what I read.  Look forward to it!

Well, that is it for now.  I am excited to be getting back to school.  Have a great week and I will reach out again next Sunday.

Until then, Future Dr. Mitch, out!