I BELIEVE in aesthetic and meta-cognitive development through music education. Music education develops not only an awareness and understanding of how we think, feel, process, make critical decisions, evaluate, differentiate, interpret, and create, but also develops the ability to actualize these skill sets to our best ability. The music student is then knowledgeable about and accountable to how they think, feel, etc. Students are reflective of and partners to their own learning. I address meta-cognitive/aesthetic education through the three domain areas of affective, kinesthetic, and cognitive learning with a scientific and universalist approach.
The most effective student learning begins experientially. Generally, students of most ages will characterize a concept through action first. This is followed by a visual understanding, or iconic representation, and finally through cognition or symbolic understanding. It only becomes technique or habit after the cognitive step. Music, participation in an ensemble, listening to or creating music, working in small and large groups, and witnessing musical events provides for rich learning experiences.
My role is to facilitate or provide the experience. Then I endeavor to engage the student affectively, kinesthetically, or cognitively. Kinesthetic engagement includes simple movement and dancing or deconstructing the musical body and its mechanics. Affective instruction might include narrating an experience, group interpretation of song lyrics, building a communal lexicon of musical jargon, journaling in private, or publicly inciting an emotional connection to music and learning. Cognitive instruction then provides a practical, fact-based, framework by which students build lasting technique that they can access and enhance as their education continues. This may include mastery of traditional musical elements and concepts, physiology of instruments or the singing body, historical and contemporary practices, interdisciplinary connections, technological applications, or knowledge about the music field.
The resulting student will then be able to recognize the nature and requirements of a musical or life goal/experience, have a set of strategies for approaching the task, know which strategies would be appropriate for the particular endeavor, monitor progress towards achieving the experience, adjust strategies as circumstances change, evaluate the result in performance or practice, and take action to improve next time. These are not only musical skills, but also life skills. Along the way, the teacher and student are developing an aesthetic passion and understanding of music and the human experience so that students may continue to make music after instruction ceases, as well as seek out and enjoy future musical experiences. They will also be more aware of how they might best achieve life goals and negotiate human experiences. Many believe that we study most disciplines to better understand what goes on around us. I believe that we study the arts to better understand what goes on within and between us.
Regarding musical traditions and cultures, I believe in a universalist, scientific approach. That is, I believe that music, as a human tradition, consists of universal elements like rhythm, melody, timbre, expression, form/not form, harmony, and notation/not-notation, which can be explained and learned through science and exposure. While from a western, classical background myself, I endeavor to incorporate multiple languages, cultures, time periods, and genres into my curriculum. By the time they reach school-age, students have already begun to develop their own musical identities. I see it as my job to not only make my classroom a place that invites multiple identities, but also that broadens the lens of exposure and access.
Most of these ideas are not of my own devising, but brought together through years of practice, listening, reflecting, reading, researching, and examining my own aesthetic and meta-cognitive development. I am passionate about teaching music; I am equally passionate about educating the whole person through music.
The most effective student learning begins experientially. Generally, students of most ages will characterize a concept through action first. This is followed by a visual understanding, or iconic representation, and finally through cognition or symbolic understanding. It only becomes technique or habit after the cognitive step. Music, participation in an ensemble, listening to or creating music, working in small and large groups, and witnessing musical events provides for rich learning experiences.
My role is to facilitate or provide the experience. Then I endeavor to engage the student affectively, kinesthetically, or cognitively. Kinesthetic engagement includes simple movement and dancing or deconstructing the musical body and its mechanics. Affective instruction might include narrating an experience, group interpretation of song lyrics, building a communal lexicon of musical jargon, journaling in private, or publicly inciting an emotional connection to music and learning. Cognitive instruction then provides a practical, fact-based, framework by which students build lasting technique that they can access and enhance as their education continues. This may include mastery of traditional musical elements and concepts, physiology of instruments or the singing body, historical and contemporary practices, interdisciplinary connections, technological applications, or knowledge about the music field.
The resulting student will then be able to recognize the nature and requirements of a musical or life goal/experience, have a set of strategies for approaching the task, know which strategies would be appropriate for the particular endeavor, monitor progress towards achieving the experience, adjust strategies as circumstances change, evaluate the result in performance or practice, and take action to improve next time. These are not only musical skills, but also life skills. Along the way, the teacher and student are developing an aesthetic passion and understanding of music and the human experience so that students may continue to make music after instruction ceases, as well as seek out and enjoy future musical experiences. They will also be more aware of how they might best achieve life goals and negotiate human experiences. Many believe that we study most disciplines to better understand what goes on around us. I believe that we study the arts to better understand what goes on within and between us.
Regarding musical traditions and cultures, I believe in a universalist, scientific approach. That is, I believe that music, as a human tradition, consists of universal elements like rhythm, melody, timbre, expression, form/not form, harmony, and notation/not-notation, which can be explained and learned through science and exposure. While from a western, classical background myself, I endeavor to incorporate multiple languages, cultures, time periods, and genres into my curriculum. By the time they reach school-age, students have already begun to develop their own musical identities. I see it as my job to not only make my classroom a place that invites multiple identities, but also that broadens the lens of exposure and access.
Most of these ideas are not of my own devising, but brought together through years of practice, listening, reflecting, reading, researching, and examining my own aesthetic and meta-cognitive development. I am passionate about teaching music; I am equally passionate about educating the whole person through music.
