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In an increasingly connected world, what is the role of music education? Looking back on my experience in Canada, I find myself with more questions than answers and a deeper curiosity about the importance of music, art and culture in the framework of public education. In all my school visits, what was most jarring for me were the similar challenges faced in music programs in both the United States and Canada. Only one school I visited had a formal music teacher and none included music explicitly in the long term goals and vision of the school. Seeing these same challenges in another country forced me to grapple with some difficult questions. Why is music education becoming so rare in schools? Is music education doomed to become offered only to the privileged few? Is music education in its current form even relevant in modern times?
In reflecting on these questions and my initial guiding question, I will offer some observations on why I think music is increasingly marginalized in public schools. I believe that forces at the micro and macroscopic levels are working against schools offering robust, relevant music programs during in and out of school time. Talking with educators in both the United States and Canada I have heard the same complaint about a broad lack of funding for music education. This divestment presents in a myriad of ways. From the inability to obtain quality instruments and equipment, hiring a full time, credentialed teacher, to even providing appropriate spaces where music can happen in a school setting, resources for music are more and more scarce every school year. Even in my own arguably wealthy district, I often use cafeterias, converted closets, and storage spaces to teach music. The music teacher at the Cree Bilingual School in Saskatoon taught classes in the students’ homerooms. The music teacher at Aldershot had a modern band room, but was still in the process of removing stored items in his space from the years where the room had been unoccupied. So why is funding so hard to come by for even the most basic music infrastructure? Why are we unable to pay for accredited teachers in schools? Where is the money going? In deciding where to allocate funds, schools often determine the areas of highest need through data obtained from high stakes testing. In the United States, federal legislation No Child Left Behind (NCLB) passed by the Bush administration, and later Race to the Top (RttT) passed during the Obama years attempted to establish a baseline of knowledge and skills all children needed by certain grades. Though these policies were part of a conservative education reform movement, both parties effectively own the policies of high stakes testing. The United States is not alone in decisions to implement high stakes testing. Canada also requires students to test but without a national department of education, decisions are left to each individual province. While it is common in Ontario for students to take mandated examinations, in Saskatchewan only students taught by non-accredited teachers are required to take provincial exams. So how does testing relate to a decline in funding for the arts and music? Administering standardized tests is a major expense for state school systems, paying millions of taxpayer dollars to private testing companies. More significantly, testing results are used to determine where school funds are allocated. For example, if according to state accountability tests a school in Massachusetts is underperforming in the area of English language arts, it will naturally spend more resources on that subject to avoid closure or receivership. In receivership the state takes over the school or district, essentially fires everyone and reorganizes the school system directly under state authority. Since offering comprehensive art and music programs is not factored into the state accountability scores, this system naturally creates incentives for schools and districts to divest from music and art programs. Even in schools where you would expect achievement to be high on state tests, you see the same narrative play out because the very nature of a private testing corporation is problematic. If a school were to continuously show its achievement was far beyond what is being measured on the test, why would they spend time and resources to take it in the first place? Ultimately it’s in the financial interests of the testing corporation to continually show areas of deficit in order to justify its service. But testing is not the only system putting pressure on music programs. Music education itself has had difficulty adapting to a rapidly changing cultural environment, and implementing digital technology and innovative teaching methods. Often when I meet new people and we get to talking about our careers I am almost always asked what instrument I play? Many times the person will respond that they wished they could play an instrument but they just didn’t have any talent. This response bothers me for a couple reasons. First it absolves the person of their past choices not to practice when they had the chance. Secondly it implies I am only good at my instrument because of some inborn talent and not the countless hours I invested in practicing. I may have had an initial advantage in the beginning, but it is said to take 10,000 hours of practice to truly master a skill. The notion of talent and how some people have it and others don’t is not a new idea, but one that has plagued music and the creative arts for centuries. It is reminiscent of the Hegelian “great man theory” that some people are born to be leaders and others followers. Elevating artists and individuals as prodigies, savants, or geniuses has the effect of presenting creativity as fixed or inborn when this couldn’t be farther from the truth. Creativity is communal and collaborative. Senior Researcher for Project Zero at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education Edward Clapp outlines a different view of creativity in his book Participatory Creativity, Introducing Access and Equity to the Creative Classroom. Rather than thinking of creativity in the arts, or sciences as being the product of individuals, he lays out a communal way of thinking about creativity, and how groups connect and overlap to develop new ideas. We music teachers love to make the case for how the study of music is a creative discipline but is it always? Thinking of a typical band or orchestra program, students learn an instrument in a prescriptive way, held to western standards of achievement, in the hopes that one day they will be able to walk into class, take out music written by someone else, play to the expectations of the conductor, and prepare for preplanned concerts at predictable times of the year. That doesn’t sound very creative to me. You can argue that a player is given space to express the music how they want but the larger the ensemble, the more impossible this becomes. You simply cannot alter your part if you are one of fifty or more players in an ensemble. At the head of the band or orchestra is the director of some sort who ultimately makes the rules and is the source for most of the creative output of the group. Some good practices in classrooms are universal. Kids need to talk to each other, they need to work together, make things, be collaborative but also independent, they need to make their own decisions. The structure of band and orchestra programs often does not allow for dynamic, communal creativity to happen. Music education has also failed to adapt to a changing cultural environment. From the university teacher preparation program down to the general music classroom, the same standard western music methods and materials continue to be used. Seminal music educator Zoltán Kodály who believed every child should learn music within their own unique cultural context, would be appalled at how Kodály programs in the United States are run. At schools across the country, students are being taught the same English, Irish and Scottish based folk songs believing that because we are all American we must share the same cultural knowledge. At best this is lunacy and at worst an attempt whether intentional or not, to elevate settler culture and values over those of historically disenfranchised people. There is sadly much evidence to the latter. A 2015 survey of preservice music teachers found that 86% of music teachers nationally are white. This is a truly astounding statistic and one that should worry us. White teachers are certainly not incapable of teaching students of color but representation matters. Music and art teachers make value judgments about what to teach, what not to teach, and those decisions are ultimately based on prior experience and musical upbringing. Some music teachers who see this disparity, will sometimes with good intentions, try to insert “ethnic” songs into their school repertoire, but this too can make assumptions about the cultural backgrounds of the children they serve. Instead I would like to advocate for a community based approach to music methods. Music teachers should be going directly to their students and families for music materials for study. It’s the only way to ensure that all students’ culture is celebrated in music class, and that students possess background knowledge on which to base new learning. Music teachers will need to devote many hours to transcription and community building. In some cases learning entirely new types of music, notation and language. This will also have the added benefit of involving more community elders in music programs. Grandparents who have passed on songs to their children, and their children’s children carry enormous cultural capital in their communities. How wonderful it would be for them to share their songs with new generations. These are the great works children should be learning, helping to foster greater understanding, empathy and build stronger ties with kids of all different backgrounds. There are certainly many more pressures being put on music programs and public school systems as a whole. Too many to name here. Indeed there are times when it feels like the very concept of public school is under attack. If we truly believe as a society that art and music are important to the very fabric of our society it will take the collective will of those who believe in their importance to make change happen. Music teachers will need radically different support from preservice programs as well as continuing professional development. They will need adequate funding to build dynamic, adaptable programs that grow and change with the students they serve. And perhaps most importantly there will need to be a major cultural shift where we no longer separate music and art from academics, understanding they are in fact one and the same. Teachers must engage in this conversation with friends, families, neighbors, and representatives. If we teachers can move our thinking away from the idea that we are simply educators, and more that we are community organizers, we might find the will and drive amongst our fellow citizens to fulfill America’s promise of equitable education for all children.
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There is a wealth of evidence showing how Culturally Responsive Teaching/Pedagogy improves education outcomes. Yet so often educators are unable, or unwilling to implement this into their practice. Without getting into the deeply entrenched reasons why this is the case, something I will explore in a later post on music education, two schools we visited in Saskatoon demonstrated why Culturally Responsive Teaching is so essential. Our first visit was to the University of Saskatoon (USask), a school undergoing a transformative "Indigenization". From staffing, leadership structure, course offerings, curriculum, and student supports, to the very architecture of its buildings, USask is remaking the traditional university in the image of Indigenous ways of learning and knowing. The Gorden Oakes Red Bear Student Center is a perfect example. Designed and built by Indigenous people, the architecture combines modern building principals with Indigenous aesthetics. The student center serves as a place of spiritual sanctuary and community building. Inside is an open space for community circle meetings with an overlooking balcony. The ceiling is curved to resemble the inside of a teepee and designed to draw smoke up and out of the building during ceremonies. This space is available for any student or staff, and everyone is welcome to participate in community gatherings. As part of our visit, we participated in a community circle with Elder Roland Duquette. Elders or Knowledge Keepers are an integral part of Indigenous knowledge and history. At USask they are available as a community resource, and present at most community events. There are also resources for how community members can support Elders in need either through volunteer work or donations.
After thanking our Elder and guides, we checked in with each other. Of all of our experiences this was by far the most powerful. We were brought together in a way I don't think anything else could. It was an important reminder of how true, strong relationships are built on mutual trust and understanding. Our next site visit was to the St. Francis Cree Bilingual School in Saskatoon. St. Francis had undergone a radical transformation in just a few years. Beginning as a Catholic, French school, enrollment had dropped precipitously and the Saskatoon School Board informed St. Francis, that the school would be closing. But the school's story only begins there. Four mothers of students at the school lobbied the school, the school board, the province and anyone in political office they could get on the phone, or corner on the street to convert the school to a bilingual school not for French, but native Cree. This had never been done in Saskatoon, but the mothers pushed hard to make the changes they knew would were right for the school, their children and the Indigenous community whose voice had been ignored in public education for so long. The same school on the brink of closure is now simply out of space to expand. All outdoor spaces other the playground were converted to new classrooms with portables to accommodate the flood of new students. Not only did enrollment increase, so did academic achievement with elementary students at Cree Bilingual outperforming their peers on traditional Saskatoon public school classrooms. The province was so impressed that they approved the construction of a brand new building for the school. The Indigenous community has been a part of every stage of the school's construction from advocacy to the architectural design of the building. There will be a central gathering place, similar to the one at USask. The science wing will feature a greenhouse to grow medicinal herbs, and an area where game can be processed for food, as it has been done for thousands of years by the people of the Northern Plains. There is so much that is wonderful about the Cree Bilingual School but walking the halls what I was most struck by was the omnipresent feeling of joy. There was a real, authentic feeling of belonging in the classrooms. The kids felt loved, and were invested in their school community. When school leaders talk about Culturally Responsive Teaching so often the justification is in the achievement numbers, the data. And while the acquisition of skills is nonetheless important, the real value of Culturally Responsive Teaching is in recognizing and elevating the experiences and values of historically disenfranchised people. In doing this, children who have been told by school systems they are an "other", find a sense of belonging, and build on the strength of their community roots.
Not fifteen minutes outside of Saskatoon is Wanuskewin Heritage Park, a land preserve, museum and Indigenous cultural center. The park grounds are home to some of the oldest archeological finds on earth. Artifacts of the First Nations people found here date back 6400 years, older than the pyramids in Egypt. Outside there are walking trails, playground, a community gathering space, and bison preserve. The bison herd at Wanuskewin is replaying a vital role in populating bison not just in Canada, but also the United States. The outdoor community gathering space is an in ground style amphitheater where meetings and traditional dances can be held. The views of the prairie are for lack of a better word, breathtaking. The more than 350 acres of land seem to stretch to the horizon, and you feel as if you have been transported back in time. While only five kilometers from Saskatoon, I could very well have been on another planet listening to the wind streaming through the grass and insects going on about their day. Inside Wanuskewin there is a museum, meeting rooms and a cafeteria making Indigenous inspired cuisine. I had an elk burger on bannock, local greens salad, and muskeg tea. Muskeg tea, sometimes called swamp or Labrador tea, is an herbal tea that helps with internal intestinal issues, inflammation, and a number of other ailments. Bannock is a simple type of unleavened bread made by Indigenous people from flour and water in it's simplest form over a fire. Many believe bannock was introduced to Indigenous people by Scottish settlers but much evidence shows that Indigenous people made versions of bannock using flour ground from the roots of plants and corn long before Europeans arrived in North America. On our visit, Indigenous artist Catherine Blackburn was featured in their guest gallery. A jeweler and visual artist, Blackburn combined traditional and contemporary styles to confront Canada's colonial past. Here work on display called New Age Warriors, displayed her take on traditional Indigenous clothing and ceremonial dress. The art blended urban graffiti, high fashion, and styles of bead work from centuries past. Also on display was a art project by children in the Saskatoon public schools called Reclaiming Heritage. "This student-led, pre-contact project aims to dispel stereotypes and reclaim the Northern Plains Indigenous heritage by providing students with a seasonal approach to learning through art and literacy." On permanent display at Wanuskewin is an installation with in depth information about the artifacts uncovered at the site, an in depth account of the horrors of residential schools, and a comprehensive look at the values of Indigenous people of the Northern Plains. In the center of the room is a teepee like structure made of wooden panels. Each panel featured a value in English and translated in Cree. Saskatoon, the capital of Saskatchewan sits on a bend in the South Saskatchewan River. A medium sized city of a little over three hundred thousand, Saskatoon is also home to the University of Saskatoon and Canada's only synchrotron. Flying from Toronto to Saskatoon is similar to flying from Washington DC to Omaha Nebraska. Saskatoon very much reminds me of a midwestern college town like Madison Wisconsin. There is a variety of restaurants and quirky night life spots, live music and a small but vibrant art scene. A few of us noticed that our hotel is adjacent to the Ukrainian Museum of Canada so we stopped in for a quick visit. The museum is small but has a beautiful collection of traditional Ukrainian clothing, furnishings, crafts and artwork. Canada during a period of westward expansion, sought to bring skilled farm workers to develop the land in Saskatchewan. Ukrainians came from both Austrian and Russian controlled parts of what is now modern Ukraine. The museum paints a somewhat rosy picture of Ukrainian immigration to Canada. Like in the American West, it is noticeable how the rights of Indigenous people are not considered in the grand visions of development in the Canadian west. What is also left out in the history is mention of Ukrainian internment camps instituted by the War Measures Act which allowed the Canadian government to label anyone of Austro-Hungarian descent an "alien of enemy nationality" during the First World War.
Where so many schools work towards a true cross curricular, authentic project based learning model, Aldershot High School is in a league of its own. Aldershot has undergone a transformational change within the last five years from a French immersion school, to their self termed iStem program which promotes inquiry based learning, thinking classrooms, real world problem solving, and taking action towards solving problems within the school community. The school itself is a celebration of student work. Murals cover nearly every wall or door, and the hallways are filled with examples of student artwork, achievements, and community events. Within the classroom students are deeply engaged in school. There were so many impressive student projects on display but one example from a math classroom stood out to me. It featured a robot designed to help remove pollutants from Lake Ontario. Students planned, wired, coded, and tested a working prototype, identifying anticipated problems along the way. Afterwards they tested their robot in Lake Ontario and produced a final report and presentation on their findings from the experiment. Another student interested in solving the problem of food scarcity within his Indigenous community, built a “Square Foot Garden”. This 1x1x6 growing station on wheels included sensors connected to a circuit board that turned on grow lights corresponding to the hours of the day, and watered the soil when it became too dry. This was all researched, designed, coded and built by the student. However when I asked how music and art fit into their vision for the school, there came an all too familiar pause. The pandemic has been especially tough on art and music programs. At my own school, our music program was shuttered for the time we were remote and hybrid. I taught special education for that year and a half. At Aldershot, this was the first year in two years they had a full time music teacher on staff. This is entirely understandable given the challenges of teaching music during the pandemic. When remote, what does music education look like? How do you safely teach chorus, brass or wind instruments when breathing itself poses a potential danger to others? Where I am concerned has more to do with the school’s decision not to incorporate the arts into their school's vision and iStem program. Is this an isolated event, or indicative of a larger move away from art and music education as essential? Aldershot does have an amazing vocational program that gives their students a chance to experience employment, while still receiving important guidance from teachers. Students have a chance to try out a career before they fully invest in the time and resources of higher education. Even trying a career they decide they hate saves them four years of realizing they are in the wrong line of work. They learn how to stay organized, be on time, meet deadlines, and importantly their employers set the standard for the quality of their work, not the school. There were a variety of different vocational internships available including automotive work, hospitality and education. There was even the option of dog walking I was reminded of one important difference between the Canadian and United States’ systems of education, the lack of a robust social safety net in the States. Dog walking in parts of my school community could actually be very dangerous. Between the disinvestment in walking infrastructure, to the prevalence of gun violence in some neighborhoods, this could not be offered as a viable internship option to students. Conversely the town of Aldershot is very affluent, with houses often selling for a million dollars or more. There is significant local infrastructure that facilitates an authentic vocational internship program.
A similar program in Springfield would be made more challenging by the strains already on city infrastructure. If students are working after school hours, what neighborhoods are consistently safe for them to work? Who is in charge of their transportation to and from their internship? What kinds of work are considered acceptable? Could a student clerk at a store that sold alcohol? Would they be able to work in a business next to a dispensary? Many students already volunteer with their local house of worship, but would this be a violation of the separation of church and state? When I was in high school, I was fortunate to attend a school that valued learning in the outdoors. One program that was particularly meaningful for me was called Senior Challenge. At the beginning of the year, the faculty divided the senior class into groups of about fifteen students, making sure they were a diverse mix of backgrounds and perspectives the would positively influence the group. The whole class would travel together out to western North Carolina for a week in the woods. Each group had a day of rock climbing together, then were dropped into a random part of the forest with basic supplies, an outdated map, and told to get back to base camp in a week. There was one teacher and two professional guides assigned to each group in case something really bad happened, but otherwise it was up to us to get back home. Every day, two different students were in charge of guiding the group on one leg of the hike. Everyone had to lead at some point. For me it was a transformative experience. At eighteen I was already a pretty experienced hiker and camper, but had never been responsible for the basics of my own survival, or for that matter been responsible for the survival of others. We made our camp, built our own fires, cooked our own food, purified our water. The longer I've worked in education, the more I realize how incredibly lucky I was, and how these kinds of programs have become increasingly scarce. The Toronto school board however has done the opposite, and more importantly has made important connections between outdoor education and Indigenous ways of learning and knowing. As will all of our meetings and site visits thus far, our trip to the Urban Indigenous Education Center began with a land acknowledgement. "We acknowledge that we are are hosted on the lands of the Mississaugus, of the Anishanaabe, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and the Wendat. We also recognize the enduring presence of the First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples." The UIEC building itself is constructed with a wooden vaulted roof, invoking the pointed interiors of teepees on the prairie. Every wall is covered in student creations, examples of student work and environmental stewardship. We were offered maple candies made in-house by students, and tea brewed from cedar tree boughs, a natural anti-inflammatory. A large section of the room is devoted to a plant and animal diorama to help students identify things they see on the property grounds. For the younger visitors there was a touch and feel tree wall, fur wall and sensory table with various textured objects collected at the Center. "Doing outdoor ed. requires you to have a door. If your classroom has a door and the school has a door, you can take learning outside." - David Hawker Budlovsky The Center focuses on three main domains of learning: Equity, Achievement, and Well Being by providing resources, professional development and other support to schools, teachers and students, but their primary resource is the outside. After a brief introduction to the role of the Center, we headed outside for a hike around the grounds and some team building. David Budlovsky, director of the program and our facilitator for the day, ran us through some team building and problem solving games you could play with any age group outside. In one classic, we were tasked with lining ourselves up oldest to youngest without talking to each other. In another we were given cards and told to find our "matches", slowly making a train of people behind us who became our cheering section. Playing outside with my cohort I was instantly transported back to senior challenge in high school. I remembered so well the deep connections I made then and realized the new connections I was making now with this amazing group of people.
One thing I have heard over and over is how Canadians are very much in tune with what is happening in the United States, but Americans are entirely the opposite, devoting very little time day to day about the goings on with our neighbors to the north. Much of my experience here has involved unlearning preconceived notions about Canada, Canadian culture, and it's relationship with the United States. First I was entirely unaware of Canada's deep diversity. Did you know that a fifth of Canadians are immigrants? I certainly did not, so I was surprised by not only the modernity of Toronto, but also it's diversity, and vibrant food and cultural scene. Within just a few blocks of our hotel, we have found Turkish food, Italian, hand pulled ramen, sushi bars, nouveaux French, and Indigenous cuisine. A group of us went up to the restaurant at the top of the CN Tower, a 500 meter tall concrete tower reminiscent of the Space Needle, or the Berliner Fernsehturm. The food was excellent but the view is simply incredible. The whole restaurant slowly spins, completing a full turn of the Toronto skyline once every half hour. On our visit, the tower was lit in colors supporting Pride Month. On our first school visit in Canada was to the Central Technical School where we met with leaders at the school and on the Toronto District School Board. Central Tech opened it's doors to students in 1891 in response to requests from the Toronto Association of Engineers to establish a school for technical training. Like the United States, Canada has a long history of systemic genocide, and erasure of Indigenous peoples and culture. Canada is undergoing a long overdue conversation about how to right the wrongs of it's past and move forward in way that elevates Indigenous people. It is hardly perfect, but unlike in America, at least the conversation is happening.
I was first introduced to the idea of a Land Acknowledgement at Central Tech, something I will start doing in my own classroom. Every day before the announcements, or National Anthem, the principal recites an acknowledgement that this school sits on borrowed land of the original people who lived there for thousands of years before the arrival of European settlers. It is a small but powerful way of bringing the conversation into the learning space. It has been a rough start getting here. My flight from Boston was delayed getting into Newark but luckily the flight after leaving for Toronto was also late. It was amazing to finally meet everyone in person at the Newark airport. After two years of only seeing everyone in a tiny box on Zoom, or through emails and chats, here they were! We arrived in Toronto a little before 10pm and made our way through the nylon maze of customs. Myself and another Fulbrighter sadly were pulled out for additional questioning and shuffled off to another line in a separate room with a little over a hundred people. Despite ten or so border officers on duty, no one seemed to be calling people out of line.
The line was made up almost entirely of Indians, Sikhs, and Southeast Asians, who spoke little to no English or French. Many were traveling with small children and infants. I was imagining what it would be like to have my five year old son and ten month old daughter with me in this packed, hot room, being yelled at by border patrol officers. After almost two hours, one agent asked if anyone was entering as a student. I sheepishly raised my hand but then quickly put it down since I’m not technically a student and don't have a student visa. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I overheard one of the border officers tell another to “take them to the slow room.” Yikes, how much slower could the line be? After another hour it was my turn. I showed the officer my passport, told them I was part of a teacher exchange and showed them the agenda on my phone. The guy made an annoyed face, stamped my passport and with a wave of his hand, sent me on my way. The whole interaction took about 12 seconds. As I waited for the other Fulbrighter to finish, I looked back over the line of people behind me. It was past midnight. Some children were crying from exhaustion while others were slumped over a parent’s shoulder. There were only a few chairs made available for the elderly. If I didn’t know any better I would have thought this was Customs in the United States. I had a feeling there would be a lot of similarities between the United States and Canada over the course of this trip and I am sad this is one of them. Hello and welcome! Thank you for joining me for my Fulbright field experience in Canada. I’ll be doing my best to post regularly and document my experiences here. I’ll be observing classrooms, meeting with important members of the Ottawa and Saskatchewan education systems, visiting important cultural sites, and the part I’m most excited about, experiencing indigenous public education at the K-12 and college levels. It has been a long two years getting to this point with many twists and turns. It almost feels like the start of this program was decades ago. Maybe it was? The 2020-2021 school year was a grueling slog and easily the hardest year of teaching I’ve ever experienced. That was until this year. With three school years affected by the pandemic behind me, the trip is finally here and it almost doesn’t feel real. As I post throughout this experience I hope that you are able to find value in some of what I hope to share over the course of this journey. My guiding question is, “In an increasingly connected world, what is the role of music education?” Considering how the world has changed and in new and strange ways, music ed. sometimes has felt stuck in place, holding fast to traditions and practices that are no longer relevant, outdated, or worse harmful to students. My hope is to explore how Canada addresses these challenges, bringing music education into the 21st century and practicing culturally responsive teaching in an authentic, meaningful way.
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Author: Lincoln Smith
Lincoln is a member of the 2020 Fulbright Teachers for Global Classrooms cohort. ArchivesCategories |