Expanding
the Presence of Popular Music in Schools: Partnerships Between Music Teacher
Educators, School Music Teachers, and a Non-Profit Institution
Chad
West, Ithaca College
Matt
Clauhs, Johnson City Schools
Radio
Cremata, Ithaca College
Bryan
Powell, Little Kids Rock/ Amp Up NYC
Although
popular music is the musical style preference of young people (Hargreaves &
North, 1997; LeBlanc, 1979; May, 1985; Mills, 2000; Walker, 2005), American
K-12 music programs inheriting strong military, church, and aristocratic
traditions have been slow to change (Allsup & Benedict, 2008). As students
get older they increasingly perceive this disconnect between music experienced
inside of school and music experienced outside of school (Hargreaves, Comber,
& Colley, 1995; De Vries, 2010; Greer, Dorow, & Randall, 1974;
McPherson & Hendricks, 2010).
Unfortunately,
many music teachers are not prepared to teach popular music (Byrne &
Sheridan, 2000) and are often skeptical of its use in school contexts (Davis
& Blair, 2011; Hebert & Campbell, 2000). With less than one percent of
the time in music teacher education programs being devoted to popular music
(Wang & Humphreys, 2009), it is no wonder music teachers feel unprepared to
teach outside of the traditional concert band/orchestra/choir cannon. Further,
with relatively few popular music ensembles in schools, many preservice music
teachers never get the opportunity to student teach in a popular music setting.
With
the aim of expanding the presence of popular music in school curricula, a
partnership was formed: Music education professors from [name of college]
partnered with popular music pedagogues from [name of non-profit institution]
to provide popular music pedagogy workshops to [name of school district] music
teachers. These workshops included free instruction on bass, guitar, piano, and
drum set within a popular music context. In addition, [name of non-profit
institution] provided free curricular materials and instruments so these
teachers could fully implement popular music programs at their schools.
The
benefits of this partnership were many: Music teachers learned approaches to
music education that extend beyond the traditional concert band, orchestra, and
choir model; K-12 students received popular music instruments and socially
relevant music instruction; music teacher educators gained popular music sites
to place student teachers; and [name of non-profit institution] continued its
mission of bringing popular music to greater numbers of children.
Since
this yearŐs SMTE theme invites envisioning how strategic alliances could be
built among music educators, music teacher educators, and related stakeholders,
we propose a panel discussion made up of representatives from each arm of this partnership
to describe our processes, preservice and inservice teacher experiences, and
overall reactions from related stakeholders. We feel that this panel discussion
is a natural fit within ASPA #9 (School/University Partnerships) and also fits
well within #6 (Professional Development for the Beginning Teacher) and #7
(Professional Development for the Experienced Teacher).
References
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Benedict, C. (2008). The problems of band: An inquiry into the future of
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Byrne, C., &
Sheridan, M. (2000). The long and winding road: The story of rock music in
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of Music Education, 36, 46-57.
Davis, S. G., &
Blair, D. V. (2011). Popular music in American teacher education: A glimpse
into a secondary methods course. International
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De Vries, P. (2010).
What we want: The music preferences of upper primary school students and the
ways they engage with music. Australian
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Greer, R. D., Dorow, L.
G., & Randall, A. (1974). Music listening preferences of elementary school
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