Difficult and Exciting: Music Educational Imaginings and Futures

by Sarah Minette

As I start writing this article, I am very aware that I am listening to Chika’s “Industry Games” album (specifically “Crown” in my school office with the door wide open for colleagues and students who walk by to hear). While this combination of instances was not intentional, I find the irony palpable—both in the title of the album but also the nature of the music that I am listening to within the institution of music education. This choice of music, within the institution, sets the stage for the article that will invite you to consider the ways in which we are engaging students from all backgrounds in meaningful music making opportunities. In this article I aim to explore and invite you to consider: our own educational journeys and identify the ways in which these journeys have influenced our understanding of education and knowledge, and consider how we might ask #whatif as we think about our students in relation to the curriculum.

Stauffer (2017) prompted music educators and music teacher educators to consider the implications of curriculum and how listening to and with students might change the way music education feels:

Whose imaginings? Whose futures? I don’t know. What if, instead of imagining a future for undergraduates, we imagined with them? What if, instead of imagining a future for inservice teachers, our colleagues, we imagined with them? What if, instead of imagining a future for preK-12 learners, or any learner anywhere for that matter, we imagined with them? The future is not us. The future is them. (p. 10)

Stauffer (2017) explored this idea through the lens of “radical listening” (p. 7) and suggested we listen mindfully, with an intent to understand, rather than with an intent to dismiss or contradict. Pairing this with her musings about whose imaginings and whose futures, I wonder how we are listening to students when making programmatic (whole program, not musical selection program) decisions. Whose voices are present? Whose voices are being silenced or ignored because they may not have the cultural or social capital to be heard? What music is present in music education? Whose music? How do we view students, either as P-12 learners or adult learners? These questions will be explored throughout this article and I encourage you to consider these questions for yourself and within your department (if you are not a department of one!) as you plan for the upcoming school year.

Music as a cultural lens

My experiences as a “band kid,” as well as being a daughter to music educators, led me to a path of being a band director. I loved it and I still love working with large ensembles. However, as I started my Ph.D. program, I became acutely aware of experiences missing from my own music education that had led to students who had been under my care to miss out on potential meaningful experiences. I realized that I was using my own lens to create a curriculum. I thought that my needs were the same as the needs of the students with whom I worked. I started exploring culturally relevant teaching, which has evolved to culturally sustaining pedagogy, and now we have reached anti-racist pedagogy. The core of this lineage is that students’ experiences matter and should be considered when we are creating curriculum. Music education is not static, nor should it be so. However, there is resistance to exploring and imagining the possibilities of what is and what could be because of our personal journeys through music. I am one of those that resisted change until I became witness to what would prove to be a huge career change. When considering Stauffer’s (2017) questions, “Whose imaginings? Whose futures?” (p. 10), why do we as a profession of educators tend to put our own interests first?

Dr. Bettina Love discusses the importance of cultural memory that begins very early on in childhood. In her 2016 keynote address at the Conference for Community Arts Education, she shares how students don’t need to be taught how to engage in a hip-hop cypher —they know because this is embedded into their cultural identity. I’ve included the link to a portion of her talk. While the entire 5:44 clip is worth the watch, the section that I keep watching and sharing with students begins at 3:47 with a toddler, who is just beginning to formulate words, is rapping with an adult. The child is using gibberish words, but has flow and time. This did not come

from teaching the child how to engage in this music. This child has embodied the music through early life experiences. Music is a part of this child in body and spirit.

I offer this video as a way to share that students are coming to us full of music from their lives outside of our classrooms. How are we engaging students in their cultural musical memories? I wonder what kind of music education this child will be a part of in their future. Will their teachers acknowledge the rich background this child has been brought up in, even if it was not the background of the teachers? I won’t offer any solutions to my ponderings as I would like to encourage a larger conversation with the profession about how this younger child’s musical futures might be imagined with an eye to their success—whatever that might mean to the child.

Music as a social lens

There is a lot going on in the world and music can be used as a vehicle for navigating the complex conversations that students may have. In my elementary music methods course (at CSU Stanislaus) we explored how we might use children’s books such as “My Shadow is Pink,” “Julián is a Mermaid,” “Sometimes People March,” “The Rice in the Pot Goes Round and Round,” “Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story,” “The Proudest Blue: A Story of Hijab and Family,” and “Change Sings: A Children’s Anthem” as a way to facilitate conversation and creative music-making. Students created “bookscapes” (a soundtrack for books) to accompany their readings of the books to the class. We discussed the importance of these books to the development of children’s individual and group identities, the importance of representation in the classroom, and how music, along with literature, can facilitate these conversations. We discussed the importance of these conversations and how these books can be the pathway for students’ understanding of difference and commonality. We also discussed the reality that many, if not most, of these books would not be allowed to be read in certain parts of the country because of their “sensitive topics” (re: gender and sexuality topics, Black joy, identity, and protest).

Green (2001) wrote about the nature of society and how music educators might bridge the gap between differences and commonalities with our students. While music itself is not a universal language, music is universal in that it exists everywhere. Students (and adults!) might crinkle their noses towards music that is unfamiliar to them, but if we explore where that music comes from, who makes the music, and perhaps why that music is important, a better cultural and social awareness will begin to develop in the classroom.

By engaging learners in conversations surrounding society, culture, and how music allows us to navigate differences and commonalities, we have now shifted the focus to the students and their needs, rather than our needs as the teachers. Imagine the possibilities for conversations and creativity if students explored the music and lyrics of Bob Marley and the Wailers’ “Get Up, Stand Up,” and Marvin Gaye’s concept album “What’s Going On,” and then created their own songs about their thoughts and/ or experiences living in a world where tragedies seem to unfold on a weekly basis. This lesson was explored during my time at South Minneapolis High School, where I taught guitar and sound production. The students and I had deep and intense conversation about their lived experiences in a world where racism, gun violence, environmental justice, the #metoo era and the #mmiw (missing and murdered Indiginous women) crisis are a part of their daily lives. We explored how these conversations have been taking place through music and history, and how they might funnel their experiences into their own music. That kind of music making could be very powerful and empowering to the students, but also the teacher.

Our role as educators is constantly shifting and evolving, which makes our practice difficult yet very exciting. As our students become more in tune with the world around them, so too should their experiences in our music classrooms. As we head into summer, pay attention to curiosities about the music in your life and explore new music with the same curiosity as you would with the students who will be entering your classrooms next fall. Imagine and dream big, as the world is full of music that has yet to be learned and shared in music classrooms.

References

Chika (2020). Industry games. [Album]. Warner Records. Green, L. (2001). Music in society and education. In C. Philpott &

C. Plummeridge (Eds.), Issues in Music Teaching (pp. 47-59).

Taylor and Francis. Love, B. (2016). Cultural memory in youth creativity and hip hop. [Conference presentation]. Conference for Community Arts

Education.

Stauffer, S. (2017). “Whose imaginings? Whose future?” Closing keynote presented at the Society for Music Teacher Education

Conference, Minneapolis, MN. September 7-9.

Abou the Author

Sarah Minette, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor and Coordinator of Music Education at California State University, Stanislaus. Prior to coming to California, she taught public school in Minnesota and served as adjunct faculty at the University of St. Thomas. Dr. Minette’s research interests include gender and sexuality in music education, access and equity in music education, and secondary general music education. She has published articles in the Journal for Qualitative Research in Music Education and Journal of Popular Music Education. Additionally, Dr. Minette has co-authored chapters in Narratives and Reflections in Music Education:Listening to Voices Seldom Heard and Women’s Bands in America: Performing Music and Gender.