Introduction
The concept of informal learning and its place in the music education of both students and trainee teachers has become a prominent theme in the literature in recent times (Folkestad, Reference FOLKESTAD2006; Green, Reference GREEN2008; Feichas, Reference FEICHAS2010; Finney & Philpott, Reference FINNEY and PHILPOTT2010; Wright & Kanellopoulos, Reference WRIGHT and KANELLOPOULOS2010; Davis & Blair, Reference DAVIS and BLAIR2011). Campbell (Reference CAMPBELL2001) has described informal learning as socially controlled, non-linear, cooperative learning, and Davis and Blair (Reference DAVIS and BLAIR2011) suggest that ‘process is at the heart of its creation, which revolves chiefly around social activities and reflects the values and attitudes of various groups of people’ (p. 126). Folkestad (Reference FOLKESTAD2006) suggests that we should consider the informal and formal not as a dichotomy ‘but rather as the two poles of a continuum, and that in most learning situations, both these aspects of learning are in various degrees present and interacting in the learning process’ (p. 143). The interest in informal learning is congruent with worldwide trends in curriculum development that have called for ‘more expansive, participatory, and broadened conceptions of knowledge, involving the development and interests of the student rather than the authority of received knowledge’ (McEneaney & Meyer, Reference MCENEANEY, MEYER and Hallinan2000, p. 204).
The considerable influence of Green's work (Green, Reference GREEN2002, Reference GREEN2008) and the Musical Futures Footnote 1 project within music education has been noted by many authors including Finney and Philpott (Reference FINNEY and PHILPOTT2010) who summarise the key concepts associated with informal music learning as ‘facilitation over instruction, co-construction of the curriculum over ‘delivery’’ (p. 7). While Allsup (Reference ALLSUP2008) warns that there is a risk of conflating informal music learning with Western popular music, this is certainly the music most familiar to young people (Davis & Blair, Reference DAVIS and BLAIR2011) and the music they are likely to choose to engage with when given choice in educational settings (McPhail, Reference MCPHAIL2012a).Footnote 2 What is of more concern, as Folkestad warns (2006), is that there is a growing tendency to characterise informal learning as ‘good, true or authentic’ while formal learning (and presumably the conceptual knowledge associated with it) is ‘artificial, boring and bad’ (p. 143). This oppositional positioning of informal/popular/practical and formal/classical/theoretical is understandable. It is a musical manifestation of what Tagg (Reference TAGG2002) describes as the great epistemological divide in Western thought.
The metadiscourse surrounding school music in the UK and New Zealand has in the past placed knowledge about Western art music at its centre to the exclusion of other sorts of knowledge and other ways of being musical. Much needed curriculum changes have brought skills in procedural and constructional competence, or knowledge in music, to the foreground, along with the legitimation of students’ interests, skills, and prior learning which can often be advanced and sophisticated within a particular area of interest (see for example Finney, Reference FINNEY, Finney and Burnard2007; Väkevä, Reference VÄKEVÄ2010). However, in response to a relatively long period of silencing the informal and popular in music education we must be careful not to swing too far in the opposite direction.
The teaching approaches of two recent graduates in rock music are discussed to support the social realist argument that a ‘progressive’ approach to music teaching should involve creating links between informal and formal knowledge rather than replacing one with the other or dissolving the boundaries between them.Footnote 3 Through seeing the two types of knowledge as necessarily interconnected within educational contexts, the epistemic integrity of classroom music can be maintained. In this conception formal conceptual knowledge, knowledge that can be objectively known, but that is always ‘open to revision’ through collective critique over time (Moore, Reference MOORE2007, p. 37), is not seen as colonising but as a resource for connecting informal music knowledge with future-oriented context-independent disciplinary concepts that can be seen as empowering (Wheelahan, Reference WHEELAHAN2010; Young, Reference YOUNG2010a). While some recent papers have argued for the need for traditionally trained teachers to enhance their knowledge of informal learning practices (Finney & Philpott, Reference FINNEY and PHILPOTT2010; Wright & Kanellopoulos, Reference WRIGHT and KANELLOPOULOS2010; Davis & Blair, Reference DAVIS and BLAIR2011) this paper provides examples of the opposite situation. Both rock graduates needed to up-skill their formal musical knowledge in order to meet the diverse learning needs of their students.
In the two case studies drawn on for discussion in this paper classical music is mostly associated with knowledge about music and popular music with knowledge in music. The rigorous application of the two styles as dichotomised however can lead to stereotypical caricatures when clearly either style of music can become part of an abstract/conceptual or concrete/practical discourse depending on how it is epistemologically appropriated. The reality of how classical and popular music is utilised by effective teachers within various curricular contexts (e.g. performing, analysing, composing etc.) is likely to be varied and dynamic. Nevertheless while teachers were cognisant of the importance of both dimensions of knowledge they saw the more ‘formal’ knowledge of classical music history and practice as a necessary part of connecting the informal with the formal. This was despite a pressure from official discourses to emphasise student choice and to make sure that learning is relevant ‘to students’ lives now’ (Ministry of Education, 2009).
Theoretical lens – knowledge differentiation and social realism
The internal structuring principles of knowledge have led to a broad delineation in Western culture between the knowledge required for conceptual learning and the knowledge of everyday learning and experience (Bernstein, Reference BERNSTEIN2000). For Durkheim social progress in all societies was reliant on the increasing division of labour and the differentiation between these two basic types of knowledge; knowledge of the everyday (the profane), which is context and experience bound, and conceptual knowledge (the sacred) which is theoretical and context independent (Young, Reference YOUNG2010a).
Bernstein (Reference BERNSTEIN2000) develops these ideas further and argues that the distinction between knowledge forms is significant not only in terms of how knowledge is produced and structured, but also how it is acquired and the identities engendered by the boundaries created around disciplines. There are both epistemic and social dimensions to knowledge creation and acquisition. Young and Muller (Reference YOUNG and MULLER2010) suggest that knowledge boundaries associated with the disciplines ‘are not arbitrary, and the internal forms they foster and the social relations that sustain them shake down over time into stable socio-epistemic forms’ (p. 20). The blurring or dissolution of boundaries (considered by constructivists purely as expressions of socio-political order and power) may have serious if unintended consequences for education and learning (Wheelahan, Reference WHEELAHAN2010; Young, Reference YOUNG2010a, Reference YOUNG2010b; Rata, Reference RATA2011).
A curriculum that emphasises the social at the expense of the epistemic (see Lydia's story below) may leave students (and indeed future teachers) less well-equipped to move beyond the context of the music and music making they already know. On the other hand a curriculum emphasising only conceptual knowledge may fail to engage sufficiently with music's diverse social and sonic qualities. The position taken in this paper is that a central issue for music education is not so much a contestation between popular and classical music (Bowman, Reference BOWMAN and Rodriguez2004; Walker, Reference WALKER2007, Reference WALKER2009) but the accommodation of a tension between types of knowledge and the ways of knowing strongly associated with each style of music – socially acquired informal knowledge and socially developed but formally acquired disciplinary knowledge.
In the case studies drawn on for discussion in this paper classical music is more often associated with formal knowledge about music (for example knowledge of compositional techniques and harmony) and popular music with knowledge in music (for example facility with aurally derived improvisational practices and song writing). It is not that one form is ‘good’ and one is ‘bad’ but cognicence of the conceptual differences between them is important for curriculum conceptualisation and realisation (Young, Reference YOUNG2010a). Classical music (and subject music in New Zealand and the UK) has a more developed body of conceptual knowledge for teachers to draw on, nevertheless this is continuously being enhanced by new knowledge and in particular music technologies and approaches from the popular music field (e.g. music sequencing and notation software). In the two case studies discussed in this paper both teachers legitimate popular music by including it in the curriculum but Robert recontextualises the practices and knowledge associated with popular music with the aim of enhancing its conceptual reach for the educational context.
Both Finney and Philpott (Reference FINNEY and PHILPOTT2010) and Feichas (Reference FEICHAS2010) imply a link between the early work of Michael Young in the sociology of education and the recent emphasis on informal learning within education. Interestingly, they appear to be unfamiliar with Young's recent critique and revised position in regard to his own work (Young, Reference YOUNG2010a, Reference YOUNG2010b). Young (Reference YOUNG2010a) suggests that while the sociology of education in the 1970s provided a powerful critique of educational knowledge in terms of what he describes as ‘the knowledge is power thesis’ (p. 12) this ultimately led to an unsatisfactory relativist impasse for curriculum conception and the role of schools. Once knowledge is reframed as ‘knowledge of the powerful’ (Young, Reference YOUNG2010a, p. 11), the question then becomes whose knowledge should be paramount and ‘who has the power to define what knowledge is?’ (p. 11). This is a focus on the power of knowers rather than on the power of the knowledge itself and provides no objective basis for curriculum conception.
Utilising the theoretical work of Durkheim, Bernstein, Vygotsky and others, Young (Reference YOUNG2008) now argues, from what he terms a social realist position, that knowledge differentiation is critical for effective curriculum conception. In particular he argues for a clear distinction between conceptual knowledge and experience (2010a). Each type of knowledge provides the potential for very different sorts of learning. Within this social realist paradigm knowledge of the powerful is contrasted with powerful knowledge (Maton & Moore, Reference MATON and MOORE2010, also see endnote iii). Young suggests that powerful knowledge is knowledge that leads to context-independent conceptualisations which ‘can provide a basis for generalisations and explanations that go beyond specific cases . . . and it allows those who acquire it to develop the capacity to imagine alternatives’ (Young, Reference YOUNG2008, p. 166). Disciplinary conceptual knowledge that is built up over time and continually critiqued in specialist fields is therefore pivotal for epistemological access which in turn can be seen as a matter of social justice (Wheelahan, Reference WHEELAHAN2010; Young & Muller, Reference YOUNG and MULLER2010; Rata, Reference RATA2011).
I suggest that music education's central problem lies in finding an appropriate balance between social and disciplinary knowledge, between the formal and informal, so students are neither disadvantaged by the turn towards the informal nor demotivated by the need to acquire disciplinary concepts which can extend and enhance their understanding of all types of music.
The current study
The empirical evidence on which this paper draws for discussion was collected as part of a series of case studies centred on the beliefs and curriculum practices of six secondary school music teachers in New Zealand, in particular the relationship in their elective (option) programmes between classical and popular music. The sampling was purposeful to gain a spread of teacher backgrounds including both classical and rock music degree training. I spent time in each school and collected data through interviews with the teacher (pre- and post-observation), observations of classes and student focus groups (n = 75). After Stake (Reference STAKE1995) assertions were developed following qualitative single case and cross-case thematic analysis. Prevalent themes were identified (Thomas, Reference THOMAS2006) and an analytic story developed (Corbin & Strauss, Reference CORBIN and STRAUSS2008).
One of the key dimensions of teachers’ work identified in the study was the adaptation of the knowledge by the teacher associated with popular music and informal learning. I argue that a key factor for the development of music teacher effectiveness lies with the teacher's ability to take the predominantly segmented, contextualised and informal learning typical of popular music contexts and make connections for students across knowledge boundaries to more conceptual musical knowledge. This adaptation or recontextualisation (Bernstein, Reference BERNSTEIN2000) of different sorts of knowledge provides a mechanism for the maintenance and permeability of informal and formal knowledge boundaries rather than their dissolution and is therefore a significant aspect of teachers’ work. Of particular interest within the wider study is the approach to curriculum and pedagogy of two recent graduates of one of New Zealand's tertiary rock music degree courses. Lydia and Robert (whose first names and school names are pseudonyms) take very different approaches to teaching despite coming from similar backgrounds where much of their musical knowledge was gained through informal experiences before undertaking a degree course in popular music.
In New Zealand educational changes have resulted in knowledge de-differentiationFootnote 4 (Muller, Reference MULLER, Young and Gamble2006; McPhail, Reference MCPHAIL2012b) in national curriculum documents which essentially act as general guides for curricular content. Modular national standards make up the bulk of senior high school content as they provide access to national qualifications. These standards, in areas such as performance, composition, arranging, and music set works, are skills-based rather than content prescriptive. Such curricular formats increasingly place the responsibility on teachers to manage the demands of curriculum construction and realisation. In this way music teachers act as curriculum adapters and makers (Barrett, Reference BARRETT2009).
Lydia and music at Summer Heights College
A teacher's curriculum conception and realisation is likely to be the result of a complex web of factors in which their personal experiences and values have a strong influence. Barrett (Reference BARRETT2009) suggests that ‘the deep roots’ of teachers’ values and practices are found in experience; in the trajectories of their stories as learners and teachers (p. 13). Teachers’ personal histories can see them either ‘perpetuating traditional practices or altering them’ (p. 13). Even in altering them teachers run the risk of simply replacing one ideology with another if the epistemological implications of their work are not fully and critically considered. For example, Allsup (Reference ALLSUP2003) has suggested that ‘teachers who include popular culture in their classroom may be seen as perpetuating the ideology of the new, commercial ruling class’ (p. 8).
The generic nature of curriculum specification in New Zealand has led to a situation where music teachers experience a high level of autonomy enabling them to respond idiosyncratically at a local level. Lydia's web of factors includes her own experiences (violin and bass guitar lessons at high school and tertiary rock music training), self-acknowledged gaps in her musical knowledge (music as a subject was not offered at her high school), the autonomy provided by the New Zealand education system, the low decile environment of her school,Footnote 5 and her strong belief in music as a means for personal development. Lydia undertook a rock music degree course majoring in bass guitar, and because she had not taken music as an elective subject at school she was required to undertake an introductory foundation course comprising music theory: ‘it meant I had a lot of catching up and after that even some insecurities at teachers college’ (Interview 1). While Davis and Blair (Reference DAVIS and BLAIR2011) suggest that many traditionally trained teachers lack training, resources and strategies to successfully incorporate popular music in their teaching, Lydia's lack of theoretical knowledge combined with her decision not to take Western music history papers at university has proved problematic in her teaching work:
I didn't do music history and I kind of kick myself for not doing that now. I wish that I had more background in that to provide for the students. Maybe if I knew I was going to be a teacher I would have done that (Interview 1).
At the time of this research, Lydia was in sole charge in the music department and in her third year of teaching in a school in a low socioeconomic area where she said there was limited support for music. Despite this, Lydia recognises the musicality of the diverse students in the school, many of whom are from Pacific Island backgrounds, and she aims to provide an environment where students can develop personal musical tastes and skills:
The fabulous raw talent and background knowledge that the students bring is very diverse here, there is a lot of cultural music, so I don't like to discount that prior knowledge that the students have by saying alright we're all going to become classical musicians here (Interview 1).
Within an educational context, Lydia sees popular music as providing an equitable point of access for students: ‘the attainability of pop music for every single student in the classroom is there’, yet on the other hand she has doubts as to the place this type of knowledge has within the school setting:
A lot of it people know it inherently anyway, so do we need to teach it? . . . I'm not sure, I don't know. There were times in studying the type of music that I studied that I wondered what is there about studying this music. I don't know if it's important to study it (Interview 1).
Moreover Lydia wants to expose her students to some music beyond their experience: ‘I don't want them to say ‘we had a rock teacher our whole life at school and that's all we ever heard’. Yet there is a tension for Lydia between wanting to validate the musical talents and interests of her students (using popular music as the primary means to realise this) and the need to provide access to other sorts of musical knowledge. The boundaries (or tension points) are accentuated by her lack of confidence with some aspects of the knowledge from the traditional discourse of music education such as Western art music and so these more formal dimensions are underemphasised in her teaching. This is compounded by the lack of specification and guidance in national curriculum documents: ‘in my first year I was completely stumped as to what I was going to choose [for music works study] . . . for the Hallelujah Chorus there's a pretty good resource with PowerPoint and I'll just go through that and I'll learn with the students at the same time kind of thing’. On the other hand Lydia stresses the social and psychological importance of popular music for her students’ growing identity:
If they are getting enjoyment out of it, if it's helping them develop who they are as people, they are expressing themselves, they might be composing, talking about what's important to them through their songs, then that is what I think is important about pop music (Interview 1).
Lydia's approach certainly facilitates the coming together of music makers in the school, and popular song writing and performance utilising informal pedagogies provide the focus within the classroom programmes. In this way a large number of students at Lydia's school regard school music as enhancing their pre-existing areas of interest. What remains in question is whether the students have been equipped with Young's ‘powerful knowledge’ (Young, Reference YOUNG2010a); the ability to conceptualise and take situated knowledge beyond its possibly limiting contexts. What struck me while observing the students in their practical music-making sessions was a lack of facility to verbalise and communicate in the process of attempting to put a piece of music together.Footnote 6 While Elliott (Reference ELLIOTT1995) argues that instrumental performance is first and foremost a form of procedural knowledge that is in essence non-verbal, I suggest that in an educational context there is the need for explicit rather than tacit development of musical concepts to take students’ thinking and conceptual awareness and development beyond the specific context. Such empowerment could take the quite simple form of knowing the names of guitar chords and their relationship within a key structure, and the transference of those chords onto other instruments. Unlike ‘authentic’ informal learning practices which are largely tacit, the development of concepts through language development within the school enables the informal-formal boundary to be crossed (Gamble, Reference GAMBLE, Singh, Sadovnik and Semel2010). One student from another school summarises this position well:
I'd like to be able to go out, if I was a musician, and talk with different musicians in different genres and to be able to have some sort of idea of what their genre was about. I love what I'm into but I would feel really bad if I was to go out and not have any knowledge about other things . . .it makes you a better musician to know all these different things (Year 13 student, Case 5).
Lydia's own values and experiences are shaping the predominantly ‘popular’ and informal musical world she is creating in her department. Notions of informal music pedagogies and rights of access and ownership for students link with Lydia's wider educational values. It is a world where the interests of the students and the teacher align and provide the impetus for what is heard and valued within the department yet the impression I was left with was that students were not gaining access to knowledge that might enable them to take largely informal knowledge beyond the confines of its social context. If Bernstein (Reference BERNSTEIN2000) is correct and knowledge inclusion is a relay for power relations then collectively the students exercise a high level of influence over the conceptualisation and realisation of the music curriculum in Lydia's classes.
Robert and music at Mornington High
Like Lydia, Robert completed a rock music degree and at the time of this research was in his third year of teaching. Robert also teaches in a low decile school with a diverse mix of ethnicities but it is one in which the approach to music teaching is quite different from that of Lydia at Summer Height's College since Robert works as part of a team of teachers. The varied skills of this team provide professional support and are advantageous for students as well who see varied forms of musicianship and knowledge expertise modelled within the school.
At university Robert experienced how formal music knowledge can underpin and significantly enhance the practice of music making and composition. This has had an impact on the sort of curriculum he espouses, and on his pedagogic practice. In his brief teaching career so far Robert has attempted to expand students’ awareness of the use of theoretical knowledge through its application in song writing and composition:
Often when writing songs students say, ‘I'm stuck, I've got a great idea for a verse or a chorus, or I've got this cool chord progression’ and I ask ‘where can we go from here’ and they say ‘I don't know’. So I might ask what chords have you used, what chords can we go for from here? Do you want to change the feel? Should we go to the relative, should we go to the dominant, how can we work with this and they go ‘oh, I see now’. They start to see the point of it (Interview 1).
One of the barriers Robert identifies in relation to students’ reluctance to connect with theoretical knowledge is their already well-developed interest in informal practical music making:
A lot of the kids have trouble making the connection between the point of doing the theory stuff and playing. If they can play well, they're in a good band and people come to their gigs . . . if they are at a certain point, they are almost blind to what that [formal knowledge] can offer them and they kind of go, ‘what do I need that for, I've already got this’ (Interview 1).
In Robert's view music at school should expand students’ knowledge base, otherwise music is merely ‘facilitating their practices’. Nevertheless the starting point for the pedagogical relationship is the interests and tastes of the students: ‘You've got to respect kids’ tastes even when you don't agree, turning that side off, being the teacher’. Although the theoretical knowledge Robert identifies as so important is not exclusively the domain of classical music, the perception of most teachers and students is that theory knowledge and musical reading literacy are part of the more formal, traditional and classically based paradigm. In a similar way to Lydia, Robert's own lack of immersion in theoretical and classical aspects of music knowledge has created challenges in his work as a teacher:
When I was teaching last year, most nights I was studying up on theory because I was getting asked questions I didn't know about and it was both embarrassing and frightening . . . I'm more confident now but I'm teaching year 13 next year and that's going to be a different challenge. I'm excited about it because the more I learn the more I want to learn, the more I respect the music and the more I can get out of listening to it. I feel so much happier as a person to be able to listen to classical music and ‘get it’. The whole idea is that with the skills you learn from classical music, the whole of music is open to you (Interview 1)
A connection between theoretical musical knowledge and classical music and its use in enhancing the production and understanding of popular music is clear in Robert's discourse.
In the lessons I observed there was a sense that the specific and explicit learning goals were part of a broader instructional plan, one where the students were being inducted into the knowledge base required for the development of a broad musicianship. Lessons on rhythm and on Beethoven, for example, were part of a bigger curricular and pedagogical picture. There were clear implications for what Christie (Reference CHRISTIE2002) has described as ‘future pedagogic activity’ (p. 96), a sense of purpose and direction which was missing from Lydia's lessons. There was also a strong differentiation between the everyday knowledge that students bring to school and the specialist concepts being introduced in the lessons. One of Robert's key structuring techniques was the explicit introduction of the specialist technical music language required for the understanding and use of musical concepts. The concept of rhythm was explored through action, sound and description; in other words there was the development of understanding of an abstract concept through use (Gamble, Reference GAMBLE, Young and Gamble2006, p. 90). This process of recontextualisation begins with some knowledge students already have and moves that knowledge into the realm of conceptual thinking (Young, Reference YOUNG2010b).
Robert's curriculum content and pedagogy provide what Young (Reference YOUNG2010b) describes as ‘bridges for learners to move from ‘everyday concepts’’, for example their awareness of beat and rhythm in the music they listen to, ‘to the ‘theoretical concepts’ associated with different subjects’ (p. 27), such as the concept of rhythm and its notation. The teacher's own conceptual knowledge is pivotal in the conception and realisation of such learning. Robert states that there is a need to consider ‘the whole canon to actually understand music’ (Interview 1). This belief developed during his time at university and through the realisation that there was considerable knowledge available to him during his secondary schooling that he did not utilise. The limitations of being bound by the context of experience unsupported by knowledge that can inform that experience is a key concept that now guides Robert's work as a teacher. He describes students as often being stuck in their own ‘pond’ of experience. Interestingly for a bass guitarist, Robert believes that knowledge of the classical paradigm is the preferable route for learning:
I would argue for a beginning musician, that the classical canon would be of more value than the contemporary . . . I just think you can train in that kind of area and move to contemporary if you so wish but it's bloody hard to do it the other way around . . . I wish that I'd learnt piano or something that gave me that full kind of gamut of skills when I was younger but I didn't and it's been an uphill struggle and it probably always will be . . . If you were to say, what would be better, one or the other, ideally you'd do both, but one or the other I would say classical (Interview 1).
However Robert believes that the world of popular music is likely to be the starting point with most students particularly in relation to music's social and political context:
In broader terms I would say popular music is more relevant socially to a lot of these kids. You can discuss the social implications and the social pressures that someone like Mozart or Beethoven had to write under but if you had to talk about slavery with blues you can compare it with poverty in the States or even in parts of New Zealand . . . you can make it very relevant and you study a lot about the world through contemporary music (Interview 1).
An important theme in Robert's discourse is ‘the voice’ that contemporary music can give to social and political issues. This sociological interest provides a philosophical base which underpins Robert's approach to music education, linking the various dimensions of musical knowledge and skill development. Robert's efficacious experiences and identity formation were in the world of popular music. Nevertheless he sees the crossover of knowledge from the classical realm as a means to enhance the popular. Moreover he recognises the difference between taste and educational value, between preferences of a personal nature and judgements that can be made in favour of a particular style of music chosen for educational intent (Moore, Reference MOORE, Maton and Moore2010): ‘I think I like one more than the other but I wouldn't say for a minute that I value one more than the other’. This was confirmed by students in the focus groups: ‘He's an all-rounder. I know he prefers other music but he doesn't think it's more important’ (Year 13 student).
Discussion
In opening the music classroom to the overriding influence of informal knowledge and pedagogy there is a risk that students may be denied access to important conceptual knowledge (Rata, Reference RATA2011). While to focus exclusively on informal knowledge may be highly advantageous as a ‘way in’ to music learning, this in itself is unlikely to be sufficient for a music education (Green, Reference GREEN2008). A curriculum centred predominantly on student interest and that emphasized, for example, only performance, may not provide students with all the knowledge they need to become fully critical members of the field in which they might wish to participate and contribute. The distinction between a general music curriculum and elective music may need to be carefully drawn within an educational context to ensure access to foundational knowledge is not limited for those students who may wish to progress beyond informal music making. Finding a balance between the potential empowerment of localised and student-centred education while retaining knowledge components that engender wider and context independent learning can be seen as a central challenge for music teachers. Metaphors of journeys, broadening horizons, opening doors, testing boundaries, influencing pathways and redefining comfort zones were part of the language both teachers and students used in this research to describe what music at school was for. As Robert described it, the central concern of his work was to take students beyond their ‘pond of experience’.
While there is a tendency to regard the successful and widely publicised informal learning approaches of the Musical Futures programme as a panacea for school music's apparent problems of relevance, Green (Reference GREEN2008) has clearly stated that these practices should not be seen ‘as a substitute, but as a complement to more formal teaching methods, we are making the autonomy of the learner into a means to becoming educated, not necessarily an end of education’ (p. 117, italics in original). Furthermore she suggests that ‘if school pupils were to follow the project and nothing else, they would be likely to miss out on what most people would agree are some essential aspects of the music curriculum’ (p. 182). Green (Reference GREEN2008) also makes it clear that the educational aim is to ‘invoke a notion of ‘critical musicality’. . . and address it to pupils’ own music as much as to any other’ (p. 14). The important point is not that more formal theoretical knowledge shouldn't be introduced at all, but that in more traditional curriculum constructions it has perhaps been introduced too early. Moreover she suggests that while both content and pedagogy are significant factors in increasing levels of student engagement within classroom music, pedagogy has the greater impact. Within the Musical Futures programme students chose popular music as the focus for their musical explorations, nevertheless when the pedagogical approach was extended to classical music there was a positive shift in the way students viewed classical music (Green, Reference GREEN2008, chapter 7). This has led Green (Reference GREEN2008) to suggest that ‘those aspects of the ‘normal curriculum’ which pupils found unhelpful were not so much to do with curriculum content as with pedagogy’ (p. 176, italics in original). Young (Reference YOUNG2010b) also suggests that the distinction between curriculum and pedagogy is a significant one: ‘the curriculum needs to be seen as having a purpose of its own: the intellectual development of students’ (p. 24), whereas pedagogy ‘refers to the activities of teachers in motivating students and to helping them engage with the curriculum’ (p. 23). Although intellectual development is not the sole purpose of the curriculum, it is argued here that intellectual development through connecting experiences with conceptual knowledge is the primary one.
Given the plethora of musical possibilities for a music curriculum in the 21st century the challenges faced by music teachers are immense. Feichas (Reference FEICHAS2010) asks to what degree tertiary music schools are preparing students to work in a wide range of genres, styles and functions. It is not the role of universities to prescribe what students should study, however, it may be part of the mandate of teacher-training courses to endeavour to introduce student teachers to areas of knowledge beyond their experience that nevertheless may be required for their work in the classroom. This applies equally to the training of teachers from classical and popular backgrounds. It is, however, likely to be beyond the resources of the one-year training courses prevalent in the New Zealand context to fill the knowledge gaps of individual student teachers as both Lydia's and Robert's cases exemplify. Given the unlikely possibility for one music teacher or even one music department to provide expertise in every music sub-field, a more realistic aim for music education may be for teachers to model musical expertise and musicianship in a particular style. As well as this schools may take on the responsibility for providing the ‘connective’ and foundational conceptual knowledge to enable students to participate with confidence in their chosen area of interest.
Teachers’ curriculum principles need to acknowledge both formal and informal knowledge and pedagogies and attempt to balance and connect both dimensions. Lydia and Robert found themselves lacking in various traditional areas of knowledge while classically trained teachers often lack knowledge of aspects of popular music knowledge and practices. Rather than focusing on one type of music at the expense of another, or establishing one form of pedagogy as a panacea for music education's apparent problems, teacher training may need to help identify the underlying foundational conceptual knowledge considered most important within the discipline and the pedagogical approaches most appropriate to realise these. The foundational concepts and collective knowledge can be explored and developed through a variety of musical styles and through aural, practical or more abstract processes (see for example Feichas, Reference FEICHAS2010). Explicit rather than implicit awareness of concepts, however, remains the significant means to educational as opposed to informal development of knowledge (Gamble, Reference GAMBLE, Singh, Sadovnik and Semel2010). The distinction between curriculum – the underpinning conceptual knowledge – and the means to acquire and experience various types of knowledge – the pedagogy – is a significant one. Curriculum needs to be largely predetermined (but always evolving from the disciplinary field) whereas the pedagogical approach may be more fluid as it underpins and encourages access to varied types of musical knowledge development.
One senior student at Robert's school made it clear that it was the personalised potential of the performance and composition dimensions in the curriculum that provided the motivation for her to choose music as a subject; a link to her already existing interests and ‘informal’ social knowledge. Nevertheless she and a number of other students were subsequently inspired and extended by the new knowledge they came into contact with. The students seemed clear that the varied curriculum experiences offered in their school translated into quite tangible options in forming an identity as a musician:
Year 11 student: We wouldn't be able to explore new things and find out if we liked other things as well; we wouldn't be testing our boundaries or discovering new things about what we liked.
Year 13 student: I think it's valuable in the sense of learning yourself as a musician and trying to figure out what you want to become as a musician. So like [student name] for instance, who is really good at composing, he has picked up on all these different things and he can compose in any genre he wants.
There is therefore an important interrelationship between informal knowledge and disciplinary knowledge as resources for curriculum and pedagogy. The teachers involved in this research (McPhail, Reference MCPHAIL2012a) were less concerned with a dichotomised contestation between high and low culture and more focused with finding a balance between enculturation (introduction to formal and evolving knowledge of the discipline) and student-centred learning (legitimation of students’ interests and skills from outside the classroom). In this way they were avoiding both the narrow cultural reproduction of traditionalism, where all knowledge is considered as a predetermined given, and the total acquiescence to the preferences and tastes of the learner espoused by some forms of constructivism. Disciplinary knowledge boundaries are utilised to establish important knowledge content but in a curriculum of engagement rather than compliance (Young, Reference YOUNG2010b). In this conception there is an active role for students ‘in making the knowledge their own’ (Young & Muller, Reference YOUNG and MULLER2010, p. 15). Central to teachers’ work is the development of a dynamic interplay between forms of knowledge and pedagogic practice that acknowledges both epistemic and social dimensions of learning. In this way students are able to recognise themselves and their aspirations while also recognising the potential and power of the foundational knowledge of the discipline.
