TEACHING THE YOUTH

Teaching the Youth:

Personal Philosophies as a Music Educator

Stephanie Chaddock

Intro to Music Education

Professor Welby

May 8th, 2014

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TEACHING THE YOUTH

Music Education in a College Setting

Over the past three months, my time in the Intro. to Music Education course

offered at the University of Massachusetts Lowell has been extremely rewarding. With

the required readings, in class discussions, demonstrations and the observation hours I

have completed I was able to better understand what music education actually is. As time

has gone on I feel that I am truly beginning to develop a sense of direction in this multi-

faceted field of study. Through my enrollment in this course I was not only able to

develop my understanding of what it means to be a music educator, but also begin to

understand who I am as an educator and where I want to go in this field.

Upon my first day sitting in Professor Welby’s classroom I sat confident that I

wanted to teach at a high-school, due to my past experience assistant teaching during my

senior year. I came from an award-winning choir and wanted to achieve a similar level of

accomplishment and performance status with my own group of students someday. I

assumed that the course would consist of the basics; how to write lesson plans and

manage a classroom. I was pleasantly surprised to find that is consisted more of doing.

We spent the first class singing nursery rhymes and I believed I was in for a walk in the

park. As the weeks progressed, I found myself more interested in how the class was run.

We still continued to sing but also danced and listened to pieces of music. One must ask

how this could possibly be consider as learning about teaching, but it was an extremely

effective method of getting us as students to be aware of different way to teach, while

still incorporating fun.

Developing My Own Ideas

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One of the first assignments we had was a reading from Steve Dillon’s Music,

Meaning and Transformation. We read chapter one, which really got me thinking about

my approach to music education and what it was all about. One of the first things the

Dillon (2007) states in his book is that “Education must…begin with a psychological

insight into the child’s capacities, interests and habits”(p. 2). Essentially meaning that in

order to teach children, you need to be aware of how they function. This is something I

now take extremely serious when I think about teaching. I originally believed that

teachers were simply given standards, selected material that applied to them, and taught.

Now, with the idea that children learn and function in specific ways, I know that I want to

cater to the ways in which children react positively. I now believe that teaching should be

done with the class in mind and that without this, limited learning can take place.

This idea should not only be applied in schools, but in community settings as

well. Depending upon age group, the need for specific styles of teaching will differ. The

way I teach a first grade class may not be best for a third grade class, and this method

with definitely not work for high school level. Even the method for high school choirs

will drastically differ from that in a community or adult setting. I think that anyone

capable of learning is capable of understanding music.

Music is something that speaks to everyone and everyone, regardless of age, race,

class, location or intelligence level should learn something that universal. Music is

everywhere and therefore should be experienced everywhere. This could mean a public,

private or community setting. This is supported very well by LandfillHarmonic’s (2012)

video on YouTube. This video has almost 2.6 million views and depicts how Cateura,

Paraguay, a village within a landfill has developed an orchestra full of musicians who

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create their instruments from recycled materials around them (LandfillHarmonic, 2012)

Through this village’s great success in integrating music into their lives, it is evident that

anyone is capable of learning music, and should.

After the unit where all this was covered, we began to explore what methods were

and how different ones worked in a classroom setting. The four that we read about were

Kodaly, Orff, Dalcroze and Comprehensive Musicianship. As each new method was

introduced to us, we as students began to pick and choose which aspects of each we liked

or disliked, eventually moving on to decided which we liked the best out off all of them.

As of right now, and this may change in the future, my favorite method, based upon its

description of me is Comprehensive Musicianship. This is not to say that the other

methods do not work, or are unsuccessful, they simply just don’t appeal to me as much as

Comprehensive Musicianship.

As described in Music in Childhood by Patricia Sheehan Campbell and Carol

Kassner (2010) the goal of this method is “Descriptive, performing and creative

competence” (p. 62-63). The main reason I prefer this method is because it incorporates

not only traditional music, but contemporary and world music as well. I think it is

important for budding musicians to learn many different genres of music, not one and this

method rings true to that ideal. I also enjoy that it is performance based. I as a musician

feel that one of the best ways to learn is by doing. By performing, music students are able

to then reflect upon their work and identify what their strengths and weaknesses are and

how the performance can be improved upon in the future.

Who Am I?

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I as a musician am aware that I will never be perfect. I know that there is always

room for improvement and that is okay. I have accepted that in order to progress I need to

address both my successes and failures in a positive way. This is one of the reasons I

think performance is so important to growing musicians. I myself enjoy performing, not

only for the satisfaction of performing for people who will hopefully enjoy my work, but

for the experience of performing for someone who potentially will not. The fact that

someone might not think that I am decent at what I enjoy doing can be daunting at times

but negative feedback can help to rework a performance into something positive for

someone who may not have previously enjoyed it. Take juries for example. One of my

jurors absolutely loved my work while the other thought it could use improvement for

next time. Both feedback from my jurors was welcomed, and will be used in the future to

help shape my performance. This is something I want to instill in my future students, the

ability to accept criticism.

Music should be taught for this reason. Not only does it develop confidence, and

understanding, but the ability to reflect upon oneself in a way that is incomparable to

another. Self-reflection is huge in music, its how we as musicians hone in on our skills

and begin to develop them. Not only does self-reflection provide growth but it also

allows the student to have greater insight to his or her own thoughts and ideas. Music is a

language and when people listen to it they feel real emotion and are able to express

themselves in a way they would not be able to with words. Music can be used to tap into

your greatest emotions. It can be used to express your greatest pleasure and your greatest

pain. It is for this reason that I believe music is an integral part of school curriculum and

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something that should be learned by everyone. It allows for deeper self-expression and a

better understanding of who we are as people.

Music to me has always been something I could turn to in times of crisis. I first

began truly becoming a music lover when I was entering one of the most difficult parts

on my life. It has been there for me when no one else has and I am truly grateful that I

found it when I did. As my life has progressed so has my taste and genre interest. This is

because I have grown, as a person and I truly believe this I because I found music. The

fact that music got me through so much and that I have seen it help so many of my

friends is the reason I want to teach. I want to be able to aid in providing a release to

someone when nothing else is capable of doing so. Music is able to move people in a way

that nothing else can and it is for that reason that I have entered this field.

Though my journey in Music Education has just begun, I feel that I have already

progressed so much. In one single semester I have developed as both a musician and a

person in ways I did not realize until now. From this class I feel that I have gained

valuable information about who I am and what my goals are. I have learned so much

about what it means to be a Music Educator. I have learned valuable information on

methods of teaching and developed my own ideas about these methods. Not only have I

developed my own ideas on methods, but the whole field as well. I have began to

formulate some wonderful thoughts and reflected upon my own development as a music

educator and where I place my value in music. I am becoming more excited to enter this

field as I continue in this journey and hope I continue to grow and learn as I have this

past semester.

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References

Campbell. P.S., & Kassner. C. (2010). Music in Childhood. Boston, MA: Schirmer

Cengage Learning.

Dillon, S. (2007). Music, Meaning and Transformation. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge

Scholars Publishing.

LandfillHarmonic. 2012, November 17. Landfill Harmonic – The world sends us

garbage…We send back music. [Video file]. Retrieved from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXynrsrTKbI

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