|
|
|
Workshop/
| Justifications for music education
by: Dr. Betty Anne Younker Assistant Professor, Music Education School of Music, The University of Michigan
As music educators, we need to understand the cultural, social, and governmental issues that directly impact our profession in terms of faculty, curricula, facilities, resources, and subsequently, the quality of music making experiences, and speak to those issues with a grounded philosophy. Since we do not always have control over some, if any, of those issues, it is imperative that we are able to articulate philosophical justifications when promoting our discipline by informing those who may have major roles in and authority over decisions that greatly affect music making across communities. Thus we need to know why we educate students in musical environments and have answers to questions such as: What exactly are we attempting to do and why? What do we want our students to leave with when exiting our music programs? What experiences and knowledges (thus musical understandings) are needed to become independent music makers and critical thinkers about music? Do we want students to actively seek out musical experiences after graduating from our programs? How do we define musical thinking and musical intelligence? Would we recognize it when we ‘saw’ it or ‘heard’ it? Why music education?
Many people have put forth a variety of answers for these questions, some of which have focused on how musicianship and human subjectivity is experienced, articulated, and nurtured through music making (Reimer, 2002; Elliott, 1995) and others on how the learning of certain disciplines other than music can be facilitated through the study of music. One such body of research has become known as the “Mozart Effect.”
There has been much exposure to research known as the “Mozart Effect.”
In response to this exposure certain people within and outside of the field have capitalized on this research when articulating reasons for music education. Unfortunately, those who have done so are providing false hope, if indeed one hope is to raise math scores, about the relationship between studying music and improving one’s ability to ‘do math’. Several in our field have narrowed the lens and examined the research with a critical view, and as a result, have suggested that we should not base justifications for music education on this research for a variety of reasons. A few examples of research labeled as the ‘Mozart Effect’ are given below.
Those involved in the Mozart Effect research (e.g., see Grandin, Peterson, and Shaw, 1998) chose a specific sonata (K. 448) by Mozart because of its features of symmetry and natural sequences of patterns, all of which are exquisitely composed. Grandin, Peterson, and Shaw conducted several experiments to explore whether pattern-recognition abilities used for musical processing would enhance these abilities for spatial-temporal reasoning. (Spatial-temporal reasoning is linked with success in mathematics and proportional reasoning used in areas such as engineering and structural design). Grandin, Peterson, and Shaw reported a causal link between the musical selection and spatial-temporal reasoning, and that other kinds of music did not produce significant effects on spatial-temporal reasoning. They also reported that keyboard instruction produced a significant improvement in a puzzle assembly task but not on tests of spatial-recognition reasoning (such as matching, classifying, and recognizing, similarities among objects) (p. 12).
Rauscher and Zupan (2001) reported on findings from a research study that involved sixty-two kindergarten children who either received keyboard instruction or no music instruction. Children who received keyboard instruction participated in groups of approximately ten. They experienced singing and moving activities related to compositions realized at the keyboard; and ear training, notation, rhythm, improvisation, and interval and dynamic exercises. In total, the children had 20-minute keyboard lessons twice a week for eight months. Testing sessions in which children completed three tasks, Puzzle Solving, Pictorial Memory, and Block Building, were administrated before instruction, and after four months and eight months of instruction. Analysis of data revealed a significant difference between pretest and posttest scores of the Puzzle Solving and Block Building measurements by students who had received keyboard instruction. Both of these tasks require spatial-temporal reasoning.
So what does this research mean? What would a music program look like if these results as described above were used to justify music programs? Reimer (1999) outlined a program based on these results, that is, a program involving students in keyboard instruction and listening to Mozart for the purpose of increasing test scores that measure spatial-temporal abilities. Simply put, such a program would include listening to music from the Classical era and of the Western European art tradition and keyboard instruction. Now we are quite aware of the importance of including music of many cultures and eras so for many of us, from a philosophical perspective, this would be a problem. Secondly, as Reimer reminds us, the only kind of musical instruction the students would need would be keyboard–not choral, strings, or winds, nor would they need to engage in other musical activities that involved composing, improvising, or moving.
So, do we want to include justifications for music that could narrow the content of our music programs? Or do we want to include research as described above as yet another reason for music education? To answer either of the questions, one has to solidify philosophical reasons for ‘why teach music’. Music is experienced, according to many who have written extensively on the subject (e.g., Dewey, 1934; Eisner, 1998; Gardner, 1999), in meaningful ways that allow us to explore potentials we have as human beings– within rich cultural and social contexts. Music is a potential, an intelligence, a way of knowing ourselves and the world. Through music we experience a core of our humanness that is our subjectivity, in ways that are unique to artistic experiences. We have the capacity to organize musical materials in ways that are meaningful to us and expressive of our subjectivity that is our feelings. Music is a human activity; humans have the capacity to formulate and solve musical problems through listening, performing, composing, and improvising. Music is an aspect of all cultures that expresses, represents, is a part of, functions as, and provides for a community in which meaning is experienced at the non-verbal level. These experiences cannot be verbalized or talked about or shared through the word as specifically and meaningfully as they can by making music. Why should there be any other justifications? Why should our discipline be a service subject for other disciplines? Why not understand and embrace the uniqueness and essentialism of music making and put that forth as the primary justification? We have the future decision makers in our classes every day. We need to educate them by making explicit what we, and they, know implicitly and gather the resources and vocabulary to articulate the importance of what we do, day to day.
Why involve students in music making experiences? Why involve them in any kind of experiences? Because as humans we have the potential to know the world intelligently in many ways, including through music. Thus, education should be a means through which students have opportunities to experience all potentials, to think critically and creatively within each potential, and begin to make decisions about what potential(s) will be further experienced in educational and work-related environments.
References Dewey, J. (1934). Art as Experience. New York: Perigee Books. Eisner, E. W. (1998). The kind of schools we need: Personal Essays. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Elliott, D. J. (1995). Music matters. New York: Oxford University Press. Gardner, H. (1999). Intelligence reframed: Multiple intelligences for the 21st century. New York, NY: Basic Books, A Member of the Perseus Books Group. Grandin, T., Peterson, M. & Shaw, G. L. (1998). Spatial-temporal versus language-analytic reasoning: The role of music training. Arts Education Policy Review 99, 6 (July/August), 11-14. Rauscher, F. H. & Zupan, M. A. (2001). Keyboard instruction improves kindergarten children’s spatial performance. Research Bulletin, Center for Evaluation, Development, and Research: Phi Delta Kappa International, 30, 7-10. Reimer, B. (2002). A Philosophy of Music Education: Advancing the Vision, (3rd Edition). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Reimer, B. (1999). Facing the risks of the “Mozart Effect.” Music Educators Journal, 86 (1), 37-43. Betty Anne Younker, Ph.D. (Northwestern University), is an assistant professor at The University of Michigan. Previous university posts include the University of Western Ontario and the University of Prince Edward Island. She is widely published and a frequent lecturer throughout North America. Educational Articles ● School Service Articles ● Product Articles ● Here's an Idea |
