Abstract
Most elementary music instruction in Ontario is delivered by generalist teachers, despite a rigorous provincial curriculum that is challenging even for well-trained music specialists. Elementary pre-service teacher candidates approach music methods courses with a range of musicianship and musical experiences. For most of them, music education concluded after the middle school years, and at best it continued through secondary school. Some teacher candidates approach the music methods course with anxiety and fear, as they struggle with memories of music education that was ineffective, superficial, or in some cases even abusive. As they perceive a gap between their level of musicianship and that which is needed to support professional music educatorship, some teacher candidates reject the possibility of developing any musical or pedagogical skills before the course even begins. The primary goal of the author’s elementary music methods course is to reconnect elementary generalist teacher candidates with the music in their lives, and to empower them to engage in musical thinking and action. This one-course journey begins and ends with the teacher candidates’ exploration of their musical histories through the creation of visual, textual, or performative narratives. As they examine the sometimes long-forgotten troves of their musical and educational experience, they open themselves to discovery and learning in and through music, and clear pathways to the possibility of music education in their professional futures.
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Notes
- 1.
When informally surveyed about how they felt going into my music methodology course, up to 75% of students in some classes indicated that they had concerns or felt anxiety and fear around what they might be asked to do or accomplish. The most frequently occurring concern was over being made to sing solo in front of other people.
- 2.
This is complicated further by a trend in some faculties of education towards an academic focus, with the subsequent employment of “academic” teacher educators who possess neither subject-specific expertise, nor substantial classroom experience.
- 3.
For many years, Dr. Eunice Boardman was a pillar of the music education community at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and was an important influence in my master’s degree; she retired in the late 1990s. Her early work on the construction of knowledge in general music was ahead of its time, and may not have received the recognition that it was due.
- 4.
Neither the amount of time to be spent nor the length of the assignment was prescribed.
- 5.
In a consumerist and meritocratic society, where there is increasing pressure in education for “accountability” to students as “clients,” grades are viewed by some as an entitlement—their result purchased with their tuition, or else as awarded recognition of their human worth. As a teacher educator, I try to model the recognition of process over product and of grades as indication of the highest consistent level of achievement.
- 6.
Adler (2002) defined “identity-liability” as the perceived potential for engagement in an activity to result in a lowered self- or social-esteem, social power or mobility.
- 7.
Dixon and Senior (2009, p. 12, citing Lortie 1975) describe at least 12 years of student experience, a description of preservice teacher candidates’ schooling prior to post-secondary education. This was still possible in some Canadian jurisdictions prior to the early 1970s, when elementary teachers could proceed directly into preservice teacher education directly from secondary school. However, since the consecutive preservice B.Ed. now follows the completion of an undergraduate degree, most students enter our program with approximately 17 years of formal education (Kindergarten, Grades 1–12, and 3–4 years of undergraduate study). Occasionally, some of our students will have masters or doctoral degrees, and therefore even more than 17 years of formal education prior to becoming a teacher.
- 8.
I must thank my teaching and singing colleague, Sheryl Bowhay, for this observation. Sheryl has taught instrumental and vocal music in schools in Alberta and Ontario. She is past-president of the Alberta Band Director’s Association, and founding president of the Ontario Band Association. She presently resides in Alberta, where she is a prolific professional flutist, community musician, clinician, adjudicator, and busy mother.
- 9.
Allan’s choice of poetry as his medium demonstrates an inclination, preference, or level of comfort and experience with this art form, and therefore that he is capable of learning to be expressive through art.
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Adler, A. (2012). Rediscovering Musical Identity Through Narrative in Pre-service Teacher Education. In: Barrett, M., Stauffer, S. (eds) Narrative Soundings: An Anthology of Narrative Inquiry in Music Education. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0699-6_9
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