Monday 13 May 2019

#MFLearn19 Week 1 What music DO my student identify with?

The first KEY QUESTION for this week:

"Is it necessary or important to give students the opportunity to choose to learn music that they like and identify with?"

My answer:

YES, Yes, yes...but what DO they like and identify with?? I'm not so sure anymore. 

I have been teaching music with an informal learning approach since participating in the Musical Futures Find Your Voice 2013 project with fantastic response from students who have been thrilled with the chance to recreate music they like and identify with. In 2013 when I started "In at the Deep" projects, students definitely had strong opinions about pop songs that they loved and easily formed groups based on their musical tastes. 

But now, after transferring to a new school last year and getting to know students in another community (I've just moved about a 45 minute drive south in the Niagara Peninsula in Ontario, Canada - so no drastic changes), I find myself in a quandary. What music do my new students enjoy? They don't seem to know very much music. When asked to choose a song that they like, they can't think of anything!! Students in Grade 6 will choose songs like Happy Birthday or Twinkle Twinkle!! The grade 7's & 8's even have a tough time coming up with a playlist for events and dances. 

I'm wondering where my students access music? They don't really listen to the radio anymore and they don't watch TV, although a few of the older kids listen to rap music and have Spotify. In the junior grades the only songs (and dances) they seem to recognize are those used in video games like Fortnite. On that note, has anybody else wondered why students suddenly know the John Denver song "Country Roads"?

There must be lots of music used in the video games they're playing, but my students don't seem to view that music as being something they can access in Music class. Is it because everyone's been shouting at them to STOP the Fortnite dances? Maybe it's because the music is part of the game and they don't really see it as a separate entity.

I just listened to Ethan Hein's presentation on hip hop in music education and really enjoyed his perspective on this topic. He talks about one of the historical purposes of music education, which was to prepare students for amateur music participation throughout their lives and how many of our more traditional programs (marching band, choir) are not really doing that for today's youth. For the students of today, the technology to create electronic music is very accessible - every smartphone is a walking production studio. I agree with him that teaching students how to create their own music using apps and DAWs will be something worthwhile that they can access throughout their lives. 

But, I'm still left wondering what type of music matters to my students. I think I need to devise better ways of guiding them through the process of recognizing the music that they are exposed to, also exposing them to more music, and then celebrating the music that they identify with.

Simply asking, "What do you like?" isn't really working any more.




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