By Dr. Sue Snyder
The holidays are only one time of year when there is pressure on music teachers to integrate non-musical content into the curriculum. It may be seasonal, community, or cross-curricular requests. They may be either tempting or frustrating, depending on your level of expertise, teaching situation, and personal preferences. Let's look at some aspects of this issue, as though through a kaleidoscope, considering the pros and cons of each view.
The music teacher's responsibility is to teach the understandings and skills outlined by the standards, and further articulated in state and local guidelines. Across grade levels and teaching assignments, these standards must all be integrated into instruction to create a complete music education for students. In most music teaching situations there is not enough time allotted for students to gain mastery of the musical concepts and skills that will allow them to remain active music makers throughout their lives. The goal of music literacy requires as much time as word literacy, particularly in the early grades. The goal of meaningful interpretation requires as much time as learning to understand Shakespeare in the upper grades.
It is natural for music teachers to feel that integration would compromise the short time they have to deliver music instruction. Other sources of resistance might be that we do not have the expertise to plan and implement such integration, or that the request to integrate implies that music will thus be in the service of other curriculum, rather than an equal partner. Music teachers often see that the kaleidoscope is full of variety simply with the nine standards that need to be addressed.
Teachers of other disciplines know that music can enhance learning. They are smart when they ask for students to learn facts through rhymes, chants, and raps. They are wise to desire historical and cultural links to music. They are able to use the music notation analogy to fractions, even though the terminology of whole, half, quarter, eighth, and so on does not necessarily translate clearly to the pie graph. (Once a quarter note is equal to a whole pie, they are in trouble. If a whole note is equal to the whole pie instead of four pies, that creates a different kind of trouble. Well, you get the idea.) Teachers are equally diligent when they wish to use music to enhance the feeling tone of the classroom, transition from one activity to another, or provide mood enhancement while students are working.
However, teachers of other disciplines may not understand that these are superficial uses of music, and do not constitute music education. Furthermore, they probably don't realize that students need understandings and skills in music before they can use those skills to learn through music. The music teacher's job is to be certain students have the musical tools in all standards, which the classroom teacher can then expect students to apply. Finally, there is often a hierarchy of importance that is never spoken, but implies that music and the other arts are not as important as the "basics."
This kaleidoscope has lots of blue and red chips, and one tiny purple grain. As the picture changes, there is always music, but it is a very tiny and insignificant part of the integration picture.
Administrators, parents, and community expect music to bring the community together, and build a sense of school family. Their main expectation of music is performances and school celebrations. They are smart to use music as a community builder, and for entertainment and public relations. However, they may not be aware that these are not the goals of a strong music education program. The performances should be the product at the end of the music learning process, sharing what has been learned, and as a source for authentic assessment and goal setting. The goals of the music education program are related to the musical growth of students over time, related to all the standards.
The students expect music to be part of their lives, both in and out of school. Their sound world is often filled with music. In school, they start out enjoying music, and if we choose developmentally appropriate instruction across the standards, and are sensitive to individual needs, they will still like music when they leave us. The majority will engage in music as passive responders as they approach adulthood. Fewer will be performers, dancers, composers, and conductors. Some will be part of stage crews and the digital recording industry. They may not be aware that musical experiences build their brains, and help them learn and process their experiences. They may not realize that music and the arts are the message carriers of the multi-media world, and music education should be at the center of their educational experience for a thousand important reasons.
So now, when we are asked to integrate non-musical content, what should we do? Fortunately, this is not a one-or-the-other question. We can do both. When asked to include "harvest" in our teaching, we can ask two questions:
Question 1 is fairly easy to answer. The songs and listening selections in this Music Express offer many opportunities for addressing the standards if the teacher thinks beyond the obvious: pitch and rhythm elements, cultural understanding, and opportunities for singing, playing, and analyzing. Use your imagination to consider opportunities for improvisation and composition using the musical elements of the pieces. Teach some pieces well enough so students can self or peer evaluate and set goals for improvement. Follow or make listening maps to link with visual art; use movement to link with dance. Create a narration that links the pieces together for a program to link with language arts.
Question 2 requires a different type of thought, but is essential if we are to maintain our integrity as music educators. Each year, as harvest time is celebrated, we can take stock of our musical harvest. Just as the planting seasons are sequenced for different crops, we plant different seeds at different, developmentally appropriate times. We may be planting the seeds of one concept or skill through experience and exploration, while pruning and refining another through practice and critique, and harvesting yet a third through student creative projects. Throughout this complex spiraling, we nurture musical growth as surely as we provide plants with sun, water, and nutrients.
This metaphor is only one example of the kind of thinking we must do each time we are asked to stop our teaching of the standards to "integrate" music across the curriculum. We must find the aspects of our mission that match the "theme of the day, week, month, or year." This means multi-tasking, so that musical materials and tools fulfill more than one mission.
We ask our students to do higher order thinking, and articulate their ideas. Now it is time for us to do the same. Integrating the curriculum is critically important for students, so they can apply their understandings and skills from one way of knowing to another. However, substituting superficial exploitation of music for standards-based, sequential music education will not yield positive results, and will steal from students the little time they have been allotted to gain essential music knowledge. By thinking metaphorically about integrating the curriculum, music teachers can indeed meet the needs of more than one master. And if we can communicate the importance of music both for its own sake and as an equal part of the entire educational kaleidoscope to our colleagues, administrators, parents, community, and especially our students; we will reap the harvest of stronger programs with deeper learning and more support.