Throughout the semester, our Music Education class has encountered and heard many different people and their advice, strategies, and ways of teaching music. We have had multiple guest speakers, Alice Hammel, for example, come into our class and teach us insight on what it means to be an educator. We have also immersed ourselves into very powerful and useful readings from multiple resources: “Remixing the Classroom” by Randall Allsup, “Teaching Music to Students with Special Needs” by Alice Hammel and Ryan Hourigan, and more. These readings all emphasize different aspects of teaching, but also aspects that could be overlooked, but are actually immensely important. Alice Hammel works with children with special needs, and knows a large amount of information about working with them as an educator. Her and Ryan Hourigan’s book, Teaching Music to Students with Special Needs, Addresses many important aspects of teaching students with special needs, especially in a music classroom. The book emphasizes that all students deserve an education without labels. They shouldn’t be treated drastically, or embarrassingly, different than other kids just because of their differences. The approach that they describe is “centered in the preservation of the individual personhood of each student” (xvii, Hammel&Hourigan, 2017). Within the book, we are given a look inside the lives of a student with special needs, the legal aspect and history of disabilities in schools, learning strategies, and curriculum and lesson plan strategies. This is a wonderful resource for anyone that is given the opportunity to teach a special child one day. Another prominent reading we immersed ourselves in was Randall Allsup’s book entitiled “Remixing the Classroom”. This book, as the cover states, points toward an open philosophy of music education. Allsup’s book touched on many different theories and aspects of Music Education that had the potential to be very open-ended, and often great topics for open discussion. Throughout the course of the semester, we had many open-floor discussions about the topics represented in this book. We never left with secure answers to our questions, but were always exposed to many different views and outlooks of others, whether we agreed or not. One of the most prominent points in this reading that struck me was the idea of Open vs. Closed encounters. I have personally had experience with educators who are very strict in their ways, and teaches all of their students the same way, because it “works.” However, Allsup states in his book a term called “Musicking” (p.23, Allsup, 2016) Essentially, it explains that the act of music making all depends on the relationships, and the individual themselves. This goes into the idea that education should be adaptive to all of your students. The concept of open and closed forms has inspired me to be more open-minded in my own K-12 profession. I, personally, through discussion, reading, and an immense amount of thought, have set a goal for myself to move toward open encounters in my own teaching styles. Just because a certain style of teaching works for some, does, by no means, mean that it will work for all. This way of educating can still also be connected to National Core Arts Standards, and the Virginia Standards of Learning. While these can still be in effect for everyone, they may all be at different points at different times. This, is where we should be able to adapt and work around the idea of students all learning at their own individual paces. Music Education and the way we teach is forever changing. We will (hopefully) always be adapting, finding new ways to engage with all kinds of students, and overall searching for ways to best educate people about music in a positive way. Reference List Hammel, A. M. Hourigan, R. M. (2017). Teaching Music to Students with Special Needs: A Label-Free Approach, Second Edition. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Allsup, R. E. (2016). Remixing the Classroom: Toward and Open Philosophy of Music Education. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. MUED 271
|
EricaThis page will be for essays, documents, and assignments in general. Archives
May 2020
Categories |