Critical Essays in Music Education

MarveleneC. Moore

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780754629429
• eBook ISBN: 9781351570541
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This volume of essays references traditional and contemporary thought on theory and practice in music education for all age groups, from the very young to the elderly. The material spans a broad range of subject areas from history and philosophy to art and music, and addresses issues such as curriculum, pedagogy, assessment and evaluation, as well as current issues in technology and performance standards. Written by leading researchers and educators from diverse countries and cultures, this selection of previously published articles, research studies and book chapters is representative of the most frequently discussed and debated topics in the profession. This volume, which documents the importance of lifelong learning, is an indispensable reference work for specialists in the field of music education.

Part I

Philosophy

[1]

PRAXIAL PHILOSOPHY AND EDUCATIONAL PRAXIS

Polyvios Androutsos (Ph.D.)

Department of Music Science and Art
Macedonia University
ThessalonikL Greece

In this article I will discuss some aspects and highlight some strengths and weaknesses of the application of praxial philosophy to the practice of music teaching. Of course one has to remember that philosophy is about values, and it isn’t necessarily practical, but in the end one thing that is very essential is how and to what extent any philosophy works or could work in educational praxis.

Although I believe that a universal or even a unique philosophy for a field as complex as music education is probably not realistic, or maybe even not legitimate, or necessary, David Elliott’s praxial philosophy represents a significant step forward. The word “praxial” comes from Greek, by which Aristotle meant “critically reflective action in a context”. Based upon the praxial views of Aristotle and others who followed him, Elliott’s praxial philosophy has brought in focus on the importance of “music making in general and musical performing in particular.” Since praxis is truly the essence of “musicing,” both in sonic qualities and social aspects, when Elliott’s philosophy came out a decade ago it vigorously shook the ground and reminded music educators in a comprehensive and detailed way that teaching music is not the same as teaching about music.

With the term Music the Ancient Greeks for a long time meant the entirety of spiritual and intellectual achievement in every art that was under the protection of the Muses. The term Music as we use it today as an independent art was generalized in the 4^th century B.C. (Michaelides, 1982: 217).

In Plato’s thinking, music is not simply the organized motion of sounds by humans, but something deeper and versatile. It is the harmonious relationship between three forms of expression of the human existence: Movement (expression of the body), Speech (expression of thinking) and Sounds (expression of emotions). The Ancient Greek Drama was an unbreakable unity of Speech, Movement and Music. Music education in Ancient Greece included learning an instrument (mostly the lyre, which is like a small harp) in an empirical way close to a teacher (apprenticeship), singing (mostly along with the lyre) and dancing, expressing an education that had as a goal to harmonically mould the soul. The ancient Greek society made sure that music teaching was among the most basic subjects in the education of the youth.

Aristotle in his Politics (1340b20-33 and 1340a13-18) emphasized active engagement in productive music making. Productive music making brings students close to achieve progressive development of musicianship and that leads them to enjoyment, self-growth and self-esteem. And this is the most important point I believe in Elliott’s philosophy. I think that this praxial philosophy highlights again some very important and well-established questions that our profession still needs to face today.

Because neither music education nor philosophies about it occur in a vacuum, the application of the praxial philosophy (or any other philosophy) to teaching practice faces a variety of obstacles, restraints, and challenges. Some of these challenges, lie in the realms of the ideological, cultural, political, and social, and will be discussed in this article. At a first glance, one might very well argue, for example, that the praxial philosophy probably will not work in most teaching situations given time and other types of constraints. Some of those will be examined and discussed below.

It was so convenient the way it used to be…

The way music was taught and is still taught in many places in the world encourages a practical split between listening-based –in many cases appreciation- general music programs and performance programs. The listening-based general music programs have been very convenient for many people in the school system. People like administrators, principals, policy makers and in many cases even music teachers find satisfaction with the status quo. Teacher-proof and student-proof curricula like the above mentioned, in many ways do not demand a lot in praxis. You can teach music in this way even if you do not have a music room. You do not really need instruments. You basically need only a CD-player and maybe a textbook or your own written material. You can safely evaluate student’s achievement in linguistic ways, not having to think about the difficult task of evaluating musicianship. Your subject, “music” is evaluated and is part of the school system without any special demands, and it is similarly taught and evaluated as the other subjects. In this way almost the whole chain of the schooling system is satisfied. Nobody asks for more funds, or bothers for special equipment and the students are under “control” in a safe, conventional way. Principals are especially happy about this harmony and the only time that demand really something special from the music educator is when they ask him to prepare a program for a school celebration. This is when of course things are getting a little bit difficult, because this is a situation when a music educator could demand that the school should buy instruments, or provide a special room for rehearsals, arrange the schedule differently, so students can rehearse and so on. Many times nothing of all this happens, but the music educator finds ways to take students out of their classes to rehearse (making special agreements with the colleagues), gives up the idea of the instruments and orchestra and just puts together a choir to meet the needs of the school’s celebration. But how close is the above example to what music teaching should really be? Only in the last case of the choir there is some action based music teaching and learning taking place and again the goal is not what it should be, it is just to meet the needs of the school’s celebration. Bringing to light a philosophy, like Elliott’s, that shakes the ground and proposes something completely different which is not very convenient for some or many of the links in the schooling chain, it is for sure that would bring many and different kinds of oppositions to it, not to mention the philosophical debates it aroused. And of course this philosophy has to face a lot of challenges.

Time and teacher working conditions constraints

To start with, in quite many countries, in general public schools, music is taught only once or at the most twice per week, which means that the music teacher has only 45 or 90 minutes to meet each class of students. For example in Greek Public Schools where music is an obligatory course, at the primary level in grades 3 and 4 music is taught for two 45 minute periods per week, while in grades 5 and 6 is taught for one 45 minute period per week. Only in some schools that are part of special programmes, grades 1 and 2 have music lessons by a music teacher. Otherwise music is supposed to be taught by the classroom teacher. In the secondary schools (grades 7 – 9), music is taught one 45 minute period per week, by a music teacher.

The first question that comes up is: how can it be possible for a music educator to implement successfully a praxial philosophy or I would even argue whatever philosophy in his/her teaching when time is so limited?

Another problem is of course the amount of students that attend the class. In classes with more than 30 students things are getting really difficult. This could partly be solved by dividing each class in smaller groups with the help of the person that is responsible for the schedule in the school.

Also many times music teachers have to work in 2 or 3 different schools to fill in hours in order for their schedule to be considered fulltime, and they have to face 20-25 teaching hours per week. At the secondary level this means at least 20 different classes that the teacher meets only once per week. This situation eventually could lead to burn out. How can this change? These two above examples do not have really anything to do with philosophy, but with the constraints of the schools scheduling and administration. These constraints though, have an impact on the implementation of a philosophy of music education.

Equipment constraints

In most public schools in Greece and maybe elsewhere, there are no special music classrooms. This means that the music teacher has to move from classroom to classroom and carry with him/her the needed equipment (instruments, CD-player, etc.). Many times there are no instruments available. Even though Praxialism does not mean teaching children to perform expertly or in other words to be professional performers, but is about teaching children to experience the profound values of deep musical joy and self-esteem that arises in gradually learning to make music, musical instruments are a prerequisite for this praxial philosophy to function properly.

In this case what can the music teacher do? Of course one “easy” solution is to focus on forming choirs, or even to make instruments out of garbage material. At the same time the music teacher has to fight for the necessary funds to purchase instruments. Many times even if the school directors are not keen on the idea of trying to find funds for that reason, parents associations can be very helpful in this direction.

Curriculum and teaching material constraints

As Runfola and Rutkowski, (1992, 704) successfully put forth the important question back in 1992: “…a great deal of sophistication is needed in order to design, implement and evaluate effective curricula. This fact poses a dilemma to the profession: Should there he a national curriculum guide for general music developed by curriculum specialists and music education scholars that teachers could adapt to local needs, or should the general music curriculum be developed independently at the local level by teachers? In either case, are teachers being prepared to cope with and select from the diversity of information that is available to them? Is the inability to cope with information overload the reason why so many teachers latch onto an activities and/or techniques driven program?”

And I would go further, how deep in educational praxis can really philosophers, curriculum specialists and music education scholars go in order to provide some realistic philosophies and programs that work in every day school reality? I believe such questions are still timely today and ask for answers.

By reading Elliott’s excellent Chapter 10 in Music Matters regarding curriculum, one feels so liberated. On the one hand it is refreshing through the “curriculum as practicum” to be able to break free from the linear and hierarchical Tylerian Rationale that imposes the curriculum on teachers and students (Hanley, B., Montgomery, J., 2002: 116), as well as the structure-of-disciplines approach, but on the other hand can music teachers actually do –without help- what is so well illustrated in this chapter? Maybe some kind of mediators is needed to “filter” the philosophy and make it applicable to the music classroom? Should the curriculum designers undertake that task? Can music teachers do it on their own? (Here we have to bear in mind their working conditions mentioned above). Very important matters that have to do with teacher education play a significant role here.

It has to be noted here that Elliott offers many strategies for teaching throughout the chapters of Music Matters. But I think this is not enough for a teacher to be able to implement a praxial view. In practical terms should there not be books published aimed at all music specialists to help them deliver a very practical music curriculum with an increased understanding of children’s learning? Some more than “what to do books” that are thoughtful, stimulating and direct in addressing the real questions of how to teach music meaningfully and effectively under the praxial prism?

In Greece we have had an integrated National Curriculum, “fixed” by the Pedagogical Institute of the Ministry of Education since the mid 70s.

Until recently in primary schools, music teaching included exercises in getting to know the elements of music, Orff instrumentation (where instruments are available), singing, basic music theory and listening and in secondary schools, music appreciation, history of music (with listening examples), and some singing. Also there are choral groups and sometimes orchestras in the schools that perform in different occasions and celebrations of the school life.

Of course ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I Philosophy
• Part II Research
• Part III Pedagogy/Curriculum
• Part IV Assessment and Evaluation
• Part V Multicultural and World Music
• Name Index