This specific project and research was one that I had been thinking about before this semester started. Spring semester 2018, I had a realization about the spaces that we create in. Specifically the Music Building basement and practice rooms. I wondered why I sometimes felt more stressed and tense in a Music Building practice room than I did in a Forbes practice room, or at home. There is nothing inherently right or wrong about any of these places, my only wonder was why I felt different in all of them. After doing some searching, I found close to nothing on my specific question: How does the aesthetics of a practice space affect a musicians emotions and focus? This is where I started my paper. It was hard to condense all of my thoughts about this topic into one paragraph. It was even hard to condense all of my thoughts into the initial research paper. This is where I got stuck. It was one of the best ways I could have gotten stuck, though. I was very unsure of where to go with this research. I could have written about classrooms, practice rooms, or individual home practice spaces. I could even take surveys and do experiments on stress levels in certain spaces. I was so excited to go in every direction, I just didn’t know where to start. I approached Dr. Stringham, and some close friends about this issue, and through this I came up with a solution. Eventually I fit everything into one paragraph: “To any beginner, practice is an essential part of learning how to play a new instrument. This is a fact that most realize, and sympathize with. One aspect of practicing that is often overlooked, however, involves the environment in which the practice occurs. In my individual research, I plan to examine the physical, mental, and musical effects that practice space aesthetics have on a beginning instrumentalist. There is currently a limited selection of works available on this specific topic, there are many that have connections in other ways.” As you can see, my initial research focused strictly on practice. This idea was not the finished product. Why focus on one space, when, musicians spend time practicing and creating in more than one place? I eventually changed my topic to include most of my initial ideas. Instead of focusing on one specific space, I instead changed my concentration to “creative spaces”. This term is pretty self explanatory-- I decided to study a space in which any sort of music is created. I thoroughly enjoyed both forms of expressing and presenting my research. I feel that the research paper was a great way for me to express all of my ideas. There was no page limit on the paper, so I literally wrote until I didn’t have any more thoughts! It was a challenge to format the paper into specific sections while using the assigned APA, but I think I was able to pull it off! My paper ended up being 16 pages in total. I was so glad to get to express all of my thoughts and research into one place! I am very interested in art, color, and aesthetics (fitting for this topic), so designing my poster for my research was very fun. I don’t like putting an extensive amount of words on my posters, so I kept mine simple, yet colorful at the same time. At first, I was very nervous about presenting my research with others at the poster presentation. I felt nervous about my research. While it was something I was passionate about, the fact that it was primarily my own personal research and placing sources together was a little overwhelming. I felt as if I wasn’t prepared to answer any difficult questions that may come my way. I soon found out, though, after presenting once and getting the reactions and truly curious questions about my thoughts, that I loved this experience. A few times, I stayed at my poster during my 15 minutes of “break” to just talk to people about my findings. It was very invigorating, and made me feel more confident about the impact that this research may have one day. Ultimately, I continue to be ecstatic to continue this research. In the future, I hope to present my findings at conferences, conduct experiments, and hopefully make a positive change in our own creative spaces here at JMU!
Throughout this semester, Jimmy McKenzie, Adam Miller, Davina Miaw, Brandon Rheinhart, and I collaboratively read and discussed a book entitled “Other People’s Children” by Lisa Delpit. Our group had weekly meetings throughout the semester, and each meeting was comprised of different things. While we read the chapters assigned for a certain week, we all contributed the key points of the chapter, any questions we had, strengths, weaknesses, and then interesting ideas about the section of the book we read for that week. By doing this so steadily throughout the semester, for the final culmination of this assignment, we simply had to reflect on the ideas we had brought up previously, instead of panicking and cramming to finish the assignment at the last minute. This was overall a very enjoyable experience, with meaningful learning, and discussions with great people!
Reflection
"Other People’s Children” has opened my mind far beyond I had imagined. Through reading and experiencing Delpit’s experience and passion for equality and the understanding of diversity, I have learned an immense amount about empathy. In addition to this, I have learned things about other cultures that I was absolutely unaware of before. For example, Delpit discusses the difference between Home and School culture in children. (Delpit, 2006, pg. 167) In this section, she discusses that children of different cultures may respond differently to a teacher depending on how he or she addresses the child. Some students may be more used to a demand or question that is more strict or straight forward (“Go put that back on the shelf, now.”, while others from other cultures may be more accustomed to a more gentle command (“Can you go put that back for me, please?”).
Through ideas like this, I feel that I can apply these to many aspects of my teaching. Using this example, I can better formulate the ways I address my students to ensure that they are comfortable, but are also able to follow the rules that I provide to them. It will also help me problem solve if needed be. This may also have to come with a great deal of compromise and consolidation when it comes to addressing my students as a group. Especially if faced with multiple cultural backgrounds, I will have to be able to address them all in a way that works amongst all of them. By considering a student and their cultural backgrounds, whether it be by ethnicity, or just their regular home life, I can determine how I, as an educator can better address their needs and teach them in a way that is most effective toward their learning. The entire process of a book study has taught me an immense amount of time management, and cooperation with others. Our group worked very hard to rationalize our work throughout the semester to ensure that we weren’t all cramming to last-minute put together our project. We divided up the chapters we were reading per week, and our group met weekly to discuss the topics that we had discovered in our readings. We also set up a google doc to input our ideas, questions, critiques, and praises for each chapter/section of the book. That alone taught me a great deal of teamwork. We couldn’t have completed this assignment if only one person had done all the work. We all read the book with the full intentions of learning from it, and we all contributed to make this assignment meaningful to each of us. Critical Pedagogy Shor, I. (1993). Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy. Paulo Freire: A critical encounter, 23. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_pedagogy Situated Learning |
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