Curriculum and pedagogy/Assessment: How can we ensure we use effective feedback? What practices can we employ to ensure a feedback loop between teacher and student?
When I was in school, the teacher still held absolute authority in their classroom; they would ask you once and you damn well better do it right. The point was to please the teacher, because it meant getting the grade. There were outliers, of course, who taught by showing, asking exactly questions to guide rather than instruct, but they seemed few and far between. I just happened to be able to figure out the real question. Often the only feedback we received was in grades, maybe the occasional comment or underlined sentence. I got a question mark once, which was impossible to decipher even by the teacher who wrote it…
My main concern is making my intentions clear. Likely due to the air of mystery so many of my teachers liked to keep around their plan for the day, I am reluctant to answers questions about my plan for the day. The students should just trust we what we’re doing, that we’ll get them all the information in time, right? But how is that enabling the students to uncover information? How else can they be prepared to absorb what we want them to learn?
Chappuis, J. (2012). “How am I doing?” Educational Leadership, 70, 36-40.
I try to always be aware of what I’m asking from my students. There are so many elements to teaching music that go far beyond the music, itself. Discipline, patience, self-critique without self-deprecation, teamwork — the list goes on. Each a key feature in forming a cohesive group. I hope to employ the self-thought Jan Chappuis discusses in her article “How am I doing?”. The question of “‘Where are we going?'” (pg 36) is clear so far as the music goes, and my task turns to guiding students toward “‘What’s my next step?'” (pg 37) by asking them questions they likely (hopefully) are asking themselves. This also disrupts the idea of teacher=authority, empowering the students to ask questions and grow on their own path while accomplishing the tasks I ask of them.
By offering constant feedback and seeking it from them, I aim to create the feedback loop to encourage interaction between students and music peers, students and teacher, hopefully students and non-music peers, maybe even parents. But the most important part, for my teaching in the classroom, is making sure students are aware of how they are doing in the class based on both my observations and their analysis. Encouraging the constant self-analysis, in addition to the grades I assign, will give each student a much better idea of how they are progressing.
Diversity/Social Justice: How can we empower students? What does “empower” mean for each student?
I had a math teacher who taught us more about life than he ever did about math. Mr. Pope got the job done, no question, but that class was so much more than Algebra 2. He vocalized so many of our frustrations, with life situations, with the school system, with anything you could think of when we still had no learned when or how to break away from the parameters of institution. When our school admin were mistreating students, when the head of a department called for a list of all “gay” students (in a creative and performing arts magnet school…), he taught us how to peacefully yet actively protest, organize to ensure our voices of dissent were heard and acknowledged. He gave us the tools to examine the goings-on in our lives and draw our own conclusions, whether they agreed with his stance or not. In a math class. Even those of us otherwise disengaged from school sat up to pay attention when he talked, whether it was about math or movements.
Dimick, S.A. (2012). Student empowerment in an environmental science classroom: Toward a framework for social justice science education. Science Education,96(6), 990-1012.
Turns out, the music room is a great place to address social justice! I don’t shy away from these topics. Today, so many teachers are afraid to speak up about anything that does not have to do with course content. I encourage them, discussion around them. Music has often been used to express ideas and opinions — just look at any protest movement, and you can find dozens if not hundreds of songs for and against. Music is inherently propaganda since, just like teaching, in cannot exist in a vacuum. We can analyze the context in which it was written, think of how we might use it now, use it to open doors to discussions otherwise closed to us. I have only ever met one person called music “pointless noise,” so with very few exceptions, everyone listens to music .
When I ask students to play a song they really like, it creates an opportunity for everyone to hear a variety of musics, and therefore perceptions, opinions. And by guiding students through analysis, however superficial, of these musics, they can start thinking about how what they listen to impacts their ideas and perceptions. Exploration of their environment leads them through thought, to conclusions, and how they can impact the environment vs. strictly environment impacting them.
Language and Literacy: How can we convey the impact of everyday language on non-participants? How can we encourage thoughtful discourse in casual interactions without making students feel they are being policed?
As a singer and avid reader, I am very aware of language. I know how it can be used for good or ill, and how a simple string of words can impact a person’s whole concept of self. Even when I was still figuring out how to use my language, I was aware of how it impacted me and mine. I enjoy etymology and deconstructing unfamiliar words to find their meaning. We are frequently surrounded by people, and conversation will impact bystanders whether we mean it or not. There are many ways to convey thoughts and opinions without being outright insulting.
Kirkland, David E. (2010). “English(es) in Urban Contexts: Politics, Pluralism, andPossibilities” English Education, 42(3), 293-306.
Kirkland talks about multiple Englishes, fluctuating by person and context. While these Englishes might not be different enough to be considered dialects, they are nonetheless different enough to seem out of place in one setting over another. Just like one would not expect heavy metal in an opera, one would not expect street slang in a business meeting. However, part of the changing language is the changing meaning of words. While this is inevitable, I think it is important to help someone understand the origin of words, particularly when they are being used as insults. This is one of many reason I try to be very cognizant of my speech, and it’s not something I shy away from. I’m not opposed to swearing or playfully poking fun when ALL parties are in the joke (a very fine line which takes time to establish, and in many case may never be, and one which I do not approach from the teacher position). But as soon as someone starts calling people names, using identities to insult others, I start to take issue.
Thus far, my only encounters have been around use of identity-based insults. I call people out on these indiscretions, explaining that it is, in fact, a very personal attack. Language is another topic which a lot of teachers are scared of, not wanting to be accused of censorship. I have had students thank me for standing up against the use of these insults. One student said it showed him that some teachers are willing to stick up for those who don’t yet have the power or words to dispute their peers. As such, I am also very aware of the power dynamic at play when I speak. I don’t want to tear students apart, but show them a new path. In another instance, I explained the meaning of “lame” while students were writing a song. During our next check-in, they had changed “lame” to “shame” with no prompting and without changing the intent of the line whatsoever.
Literacy and Culture: What can we do to ensure non-verbal cues are interpreted similarly between students? How do we address difference unless a student specifically approaches us?
A major part of any culture is gesture and expression. There have been studies examining natural facial expressions representative of emotion occurring in children with little to no enculturation. As we know, there are so many variants thereafter, that a simple flick of the wrist can be the difference between saying “I don’t care/have no preference,” and “get stuffed.” Yet my profession will rely just as much on gesture as speech. Teaching students to be aware of words as well as movement, body language, gesture both of those around them and in themselves. These multiple literacies are integral to our everyday lives. They can be hugely useful in casual interactions, but first we have to know what they mean, and there we can start getting sticky.
Conley, Mark W. (2012). ” Foregrounding the Disciplines for Teacher Preparation in Secondary Literacy” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 56(2), 141-150.
As part of our training, we have been learning how to create the “disciplinary literacies” Conley discusses in our classrooms. For music, we also have to develop a base set of physical vocabulary to then teach our students as a literacy. We are already starting from the assumption that the students will come to us with a common set of visual feedback interpretations due to similar background. This, we can safely say in this city, is far from truth. In teaching students a new physical vocabulary, and new literacy, we must learn how to interpret it, ourselves, to effectively and efficiently convey what gesture means.
In music, we certainly have discipline-specific language, including redefinition of words otherwise familiar in another context. At the same time we are redefining the verbal stimuli, we are teaching an entirely (for some) new literacy of motion — from a basic pattern to keep time to the more complicated, subtle gestures of waves, pushes, pulls, circles, and shapes we draw to show everything from volume and intensity to emotion and playing style (sharp and hard, light and delicate).
I explicitly explain some gestures I use, particularly for a new ensemble just learning what it means to have someone standing at the front of the room waving at them while they play. Other times, I trust them to respond to my movement, whether their brain asked the permission or not.