After reading Chapter 4 of Randall Allsup's book, Remixing the Classroom (2016), I had to reflect on what I had read by answering the following questions.
1. How do you interpret Allsup's points to consider (bottom of p. 107)? Put another way, what do these points mean to you and for your current or future teaching? Also, what norms/traditions, even ones that you value deeply, might need to be further inspected, evaluated, and adapted? Identify at least 2 norms/traditions and explain why they might need to be revisited. To me, these points are the foundation of an open classroom because norms and traditions are guidelines meant to be flexible and constantly reevaluated, rather than being firm rules. These rules put less stress upon me to be perfect in how I teach my students because what and how we learn about music will be a dialogue. I will obviously not be perfect my first-year teaching and there will be different traditions that the school I enter into will have, but if I emphasize that norms and traditions need to be revisited because they evolve overtime due to new knowledge and ideas, it will make it easier to begin conversations about current events and how music is a facet to change. While this might initially be met with resistance, I believe that it will benefit me and the future classroom I teach in the end. One norm/generalization to me is that students who are the best are those who are practicing a lot and are constantly engaged in class. After growing up in Fairfax County where there is a large emphasis on standardization and high achievement, I can see how my past experiences have skewed my norms. This norm that I have must be evaluated and adapted; I must be more nuanced in my wording and understand that my definition of “best” is not all encompassing. It does not account for the fact that I as a teacher must foster growth and encourage engagement in class, and that “best” may mean that the student is creative or inquisitive, rather than just playing well. Another norm is that a band classroom consists of playing instruments and talking. While I love to play my instrument in band and talk about how to make the music come to life, band is not simply just about these things. This norm must be adapted to include the fact that students can grow musically in a band classroom by singing, composing, moving around, and collaborating with other students. 2. What is Allsup really getting at in this chapter when he writes things such as "a third meaning", “moving beyond the predetermined," and "opening a closed form"? What are the key suggestions that Allsup is making? What do these suggestions mean to you? When Allsup writes “a third meaning”, “moving beyond the predetermined”, and “opening a closed form”, he is getting at the fact that there is a space beyond observable behaviors, a place where exploration is encouraged and there is no guarantee of how much you will move forward or backwards in your learning. Allsup is suggesting that we must move beyond the weighted and heavily connotated words of “open” and “closed” forms and enter the third space which cannot be taught to students, but must simply be experienced and experimented by them. When students learn to make mistakes and wander from the set path, that is where they begin to form their own learning with freedom. These suggestions are thought provoking to me and sound good in a philosophical way, but I still find it hard to figure out how to implement in a classroom and how I would foster it in my students. When reading this chapter, it also seemed that Allsup had doubts about his ideas, and how they could possibly work. I see great potential in his suggestions to allow for wandering and exploration outside of the Common Core Standard framework of music, but I want to know more about how I can possibly do these things. 3. Review JMU's 8 Key Questions. Though Allsup did not have access to JMU's work on ethical reasoning, much of his work in this text directly connect to issues of ethics in music education. Identify at least 4 key questions and how Allsup might answer those questions based on this chapter (make specific reference to pages/locations). \ The first key question I thought applied was Authority: What do legitimate authorities expect of me? Allsup was asked to see how music independence could be a musical standard in the Common Core. His authorities expected him to come up with observable benchmarks to allow this to become a standard, but he grappled with how to tell his authorities what he truly thought of the idea. Allsup would say that the authorities expected him to provide “a host of other observable behaviors [that] would be annually test and evaluated” (p.112), but he decided that he would provide his own honest opinion that would help better music education. He wrote that “musical independence could be understood in two very different ways” (p.112), and he did not think that it would be possible for him to write a standard for musical independence in an observable way. The second question was Outcomes: What achieves the best short and long-term outcomes for me and all others? With his new ideas of an open classroom in music education, he had to think about the costs and benefits in the long and short term for this idea. I think that Allsup would stick to his beliefs and say that to achieve the best outcomes, we must “equip students with the tools…to consciously shape and direct one’s future” (p.110) because that is the ultimate goal of teaching students. The third question was Liberty: How does respect for freedom, personal autonomy, or consent apply? Allsup questioned how to incorporate a student’s freedom and creativity in the classroom where a teacher was involved in providing the plan and guidelines. I think he might answer that “independence is related to freedom” (p.112) and that if standardization is involved in teaching, the “standards must relate as much to the process as outcome” (p.112). He believes that in order for students to grow and reach the “third meaning”, they need to have the freedom to experiment and wander on their own. The last question was Empathy: What would I do if I cared deeply about those involved? Allsup cares very much for the students he teaches, as well as the future music educators that he is sharing his ideas with. He wants them to become the best educators they can possibly be and does not want to lead them astray. Allsup would say that because he cares deeply about those involved, he should be a good example, “a public stance as an intellectual leader” (p.110), and “insist that growth—that the enlargement and enrichment of human capacity—is a moral end of education” (p.139). |
Davina MiawOn this page, I will present examples of my scholarship in the form of reflective essays and philosophical assignments. Archives
November 2019
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