I believe that we as educators need not to fear new technologies, but to take advantage of the new tools at our disposal. Our young students probably can’t conceive a world without internet, without smartphones, without YouTube videos and music streaming services, without free video tutorials, without Google for finding any information they need and Wikipedia as a tool for researching on any topic, including music. I can totally see the attraction of a music classroom with no technology, where the students are intensely focused on imitating sounds but even in this case, I believe that technology can work as a great compliment to help students reinforce their learning.
I feel that the music education methods presented in this week’s videos are rather unconventional and experimental approaches. As it can be seen in two of the videos discussing the methods used at the NBC School, (‘Music class at Northern Beaches Christian School‘ and ‘New and Old‘), this is a pedagogical approach that sounds hyper-technological and thus very difficult to implement in an environment with very limited resources for music education, as is most often the case, especially in developing countries such as in Latin America, where I live and teach. It would be completely impossible in one of my classrooms to expect for the school to provide a recording studio, and one laptop for each student, fully equipped with custom music programs specifically designed for the school.
The pedagogy employed by Steiner/Waldorf schools, (‘Music class at Kamaroi‘ video) seems more practical as it doesn’t need massive resources, but at the same time it would need frequent training of teachers, and it also sounds quite inflexible and even dogmatic in some of their approaches. This holding on to the past in a very rigid manner, to the times when the method was initially developed can be quite counterproductive for education in the 21st Century. This was demonstrated by Dr. Anna Cuningham in her research concerning the reading abilities of Steiner vs. ‘non-Steiner’ students in the article ‘Steiner schools should adopt modern reading methods‘. I would be quite nervous as an educator to implement any of these approaches in their entirety in one of my classrooms. But that being said, I see very valuable ideas in both methods, that could be easily incorporated in a classroom that combines traditional teaching with new technologies.
The idea that I particularly liked from the NBC School approach is the teaching of older students to younger students. Explaining a new concept to someone else is a fantastic way for students to develop a deeper understanding of it, and it compels them to articulate it in a clear, simple language to the younger ones so they can grasp it as well. But I believe this can work well only in small groups, when just one particular concept is used and when it’s an environment that can be controlled by the teacher. If these 3 conditions are not met, I can totally foresee a chaotic situation developing in a classroom!
From the Steiner/Waldorf approach, I liked their emphasis on singing, their use of the body for percussive sounds and the use of tiny, very simple musical patterns that can progressively develop into more complex ones for the younger students. It sounds like a very natural and entertaining way of teaching music at an initial stage.
My main concern with both of these approaches is the lack of emphasis in technique. Music is not only about expression and creative potential. Developing a proper technique is an essential ingredient in the teaching and learning of any instrument. Technique is not something that can be normally assimilated by exclusively imitating the teacher in an almost wordless classroom, as the Steiner/Waldorf approach recommends or by asking how things are done to other students who may have just a bit more knowledge than you, as in the NBC School. Lack of instrumental technique, not having the guidance of an experienced teacher who can show you exactly how to hold your instrument, how to place your fingers, what the position of your body and instrument needs to be and how to control unwanted tension in your body when playing, can easily lead to frustration and in the worst case, injuries in students.
Both methods have interesting, useful and applicable ideas but I believe that more traditional methods are still relevant and effective so they must not be discarded with the advent of the XXI Century. Technology, innovation and tradition are all useful tools that can be creatively combined by us, music educators, to produce great results in the classroom.
Diego Galárraga Sugoniaev 