Knowledge and understanding continue to trouble me. Both personally, and professionally!

This I find particularly the case at KS3. The National Curriculum is currently under review, and I am engaged in conversations with people about what the NC would look like if we took a blank piece of paper and started again. This is quite troubling. What would it look like? One thing I am sure about, whatever goes into the text of it, on the ground it will end up looking like its assessment procedures. This means that we need to be very careful in considering what goes in, and what comes out, as ‘it’ (whatever ‘it’ is) will need to be tested to be ‘equivalent’ (whatever that may mean) to other subjects. And it is this test which will be taught to.

There has been great amusement recently in the media about the downgrading of vocational courses, with fish husbandry bearing the brunt of much of this. I worry that music could go this way, if we say it is too hard to design a curriculum, and assess it. I am old enough to remember “Boyhoods of the Great Composers” (google it, if you don’t!) as a well-used book. With our current fixation of lists of knowledge this could become again a set text. It’s knowledge that is easy to assess, after all.

So, if we do not want a music appreciation based scheme, I think we end up with a series of questions:

1. What do we want pupils to know?

2. What do we want pupils to be able to do?

3. What values do we want pupils to hold about music?

And it is here that we become list-y. But also we need to know these things now, I think, because how else can we construct a developmental programme of study? So this list becomes:

What do I want the pupils in (say) Y7 to know a) by Christmas b) by Easter c) by Summer

…and so on; suitably differentiated, of course. Then we need to test/assess/evaluate whether this has happened (or not). To do this seems to require us to break down what we teach at KS3 into a series of developmental activities, which are amenable to intervention, and which show progression. There are currently many different KS3 music curricula in schools, yet they all follow the National Curriculum. So we end up where we started - what would go on our blank piece of paper?

No wonder these thoughts are troubling me.  

I’ve been thinking recently about baseline assessment. Probably because it’s that time of year again in secondary schools. New Y7s now been in for a few weeks, time to work out their progress, and what they can do next. What has concerned me more than usual this year has been the number of teachers I’ve talked to about this who are worried, and it struck me that they are putting more effort into this aspect of their work than they are into devising lessons. Now I don’t mean this to be pejorative, I know that left alone said teachers would be musicking away.

So why this concern with baseline assessment? Well, clearly we need to know where the pupils are when they come in to secondary schools. And this will get more complex as more Wider Opportunities programmes kick-in across the country. So what I see are schools requiring their music teachers to come up with a baseline level that (a) doesn’t contradict the FFT, and (b) doesn’t contradict CATs scores. This is clearly nonsensical. Neither of these (and I’ll get shouted at for this) are much use at all for music (and that’s being polite). So music teachers devise their own, then get told they’re wrong. Derrrr – as the kids say!

What baseline assessment needs is an approach which tells the teacher where the kids are in their learning, what they can do, and (sorry to get technical) what their individual Zones of Proximal Development could be; ie what should the teacher do next to help them progress. To do this would require a programme of study for the Autumn term that has lots of blanks in it.

“Dear deputy head, you asked me for baseline assessments, I am doing this through a musically-based programme of study where I explore with the pupils the limitations of their current knowledge and experience. This means that I can’t plan accurately for what they will learn as I don’t know what they know/can do already. Once I have done this I may need to re-write my entire curriculum for the next 3 years. I will, of course, be personalising this, so I might end up with a number of parallel programmes of study for all the different classes in Y7. So I can’t provide levels and sub-levels yet, as we haven’t had a chance to explore the full range of composing, listening, and performing, as although we have been back for 7 weeks, I have only seen them 5 times. (Did you ask maths for this info half way through week 2? Thought not.) About Christmas I should have an idea, I can then map out what progress I’d like the current cohort of Y7s to make by Summer. OK? And remember what Dylan Wiliam said about AfL and spreadsheets? So I will be doing lots of AfL, but not much Excel.”

This would take us to a difficult place though. And one where we will be again ahead of the game. (Remember, music teachers could do AfL, it was everyone else who got it wrong!) We will be planning for learning. Hurrah for us!

I am in favour of music-learning and music-making opportunities for all children and young people. This applies across the board, from hiphop to hocket, from beatbox to baroque. So it sad when I hear of an opportunity for young people being closed off. The latest case being personal, in that I know young people involved on professional, personal, and parental levels. This is the sad case of my local youth orchestra, Warwickshire. They have now probably given their last performance at the National Festival of Music for Youth (NB Keith Stubbs this isn’t a shot at MfY!). Why? Because Tory-controlled Warwickshire has decided that axing funding will be a good thing.

I can do no better than quote from a letter which a worried resident, Carolyn Hobson, sent to a local paper, herself citing a mentor from NFMY:

“I include here part of a letter from Eric Tebbet, a music mentor at the National Festival of Music for Youth.

I am writing to make you aware that the WCYO [Warwickshire County Youth Orcehstar] is among the top orchestras in the country, and indeed, was given a national award at the Festival...

Imagine my incredulity when I discovered that this would probably be their last ever performance.

What a tragedy that 100 young musicians will be denied the opportunity to take part in high level music making at a national level, and that Warwickshire will be denied the recognition it deserves in terms of musical provision.

I appeal to you to do all you can to preserve this amazing group, not only for the current members but for future members too.

They really are very special.” (source: http://tinyurl.com/3nkuhea)

(see also http://tinyurl.com/3u22xb5 for more on this issue)

So, why am I blogging about this? Because this is the sound of another door shutting. The symphony of shutting doors is building up, and crescendoing, but once all the doors have been shut, only the sound of silence will remain. Now, one youth orchestra here and there might not seem much to get exercised by, but multiplied across the country, it will be. We are punishing our young people for the mistakes made by bankers, is this fair? And in terms of music education, the big picture is becoming more and more fragmented. If we think of the complexity of the wholeness of music education and music learning by young people being like a really big jigsaw, then someone is slowly but surely taking all the pieces away one at a time. At the moment we can still recognise the big picture, but as more pieces go, it will become harder to make out. And that does matter.

Yesterday I was at the National Festival of Music for Youth in Birmingham. It was, as usual, a marvellous celebration of high quality music-making by young people in all sorts of genres, styles, and types. However, inside I was seething! Why? The DfE is a ‘supporter’ of this event. Very rich, I felt, supporting NFMY whilst not supporting music in schools. I was minded of the iceberg analogy. It’s all very well thinking the tip of the iceberg is very lovely, and look at those cute polar bears gambolling about on it, but the bit under the water is, quite frankly, not worth our bothering with. And yet it’s the bit under the water that supports the beauteous upper parts.

So, with the current emphasis on chopping off as many iceberg bases as it can, the DfE may find soon that there are no pretty upper bits to support. This is particularly ironic as I was in Birmingham, whose own music service has taken a hit, as has neighbouring Warwickshire. But is this just churlish of me? Not really. Music is important in all its forms. In a way NFMY type stuff is very nice window dressing, and if it wins a few ministerial hearts and minds, then all the better. But NFMY doesn’t teach day-in-day-out in tough schools, with a million competing pressures, and still come up with the goods. This sawing away at the base will ultimately remove the instrumentalists, singers, rock bands, turntablists, composers, improvisors, and ensemble whose early outings are often local, school based, and tentative.

The Titanic of government may be safe in these waters, but the sentient biomass will have long since departed. 

“…music lacks precisely the main quality of language, i.e., consummated symbols – dictionary meanings. To call it a language is to stretch that word to the point where it approaches meaninglessness. … As to the ‘universality’ of music, a moment’s reflection makes it clear that the concept is specious. There is no need to point out the gulf in understanding between Occidental and Oriental music, or the difficulty in relating to music written longer than three hundred years ago” (Op Cit, p8)

Precisely. And he said it (I repeat) in 1959. Music is not a language, and is not universal. So let’s stop banging on about it.

Why? Because we are in danger of losing the point of why music is unique, and why it needs to be taught and learned in schools. As Reimer goes on to say:

“… [music] is vitally important for every person to have the opportunity to probe the potential richness which simply being human affords” (Op Cit, p12)

Indeed. So let’s not lose sight of the uniqueness of music when we are asked to justify its place in the curriculum. Let’s not try to say it helps you get better at maths (working in a corner shop would do that), or that it helps you learn language (talking to a native speaker does that). Let’s go with what my PhD tutor, Ian Cross said when he asked “Is music the most important thing we ever did ?” (Cross, 1999)

Music is important in and of itself. We will need to bear that in mind in the coming months, I think, and not be cowed by utilitarian arguments.

Some points taken from the NC consultation document:

“The new National Curriculum will therefore have a greater focus on subject content, outlining the essential knowledge and understanding that pupils should be expected to have to enable them to take their place as educated members of society”

“The first phase of the review will, therefore, consider the essential knowledge (e.g. facts, concepts, principles and fundamental operations) that children need to be taught in order to progress and develop their understanding in these subjects”

“The first phase of the review will also consider whether each of the remaining subjects listed in paragraph 13 above should be part of the National Curriculum, with statutory Programmes of Study, and if so at which key stages.” 

Excuse me for being worried! Firstly, we don’t know if music to be a subject at all. Let’s hope it is.

Secondly, and for me, much more worrying, is the notion that we need to consider ‘essential knowledge’. Now, my PGCE trainees spent hours recently worrying about what knowledge is in music education. I recommend (Philpott 2007) (Sfard 1998) and (Swanwick 1994) as useful reading here. Knowledge in music is problematic. We have a mixture of acquired and participatory knowledge (Sfard), as well as the declarative/procedural knowledge split.

So why am I worried? Because knowledge in music education is so contextual, and value laden. We tear ourselves in knots regularly, for example, arguing about the place of staff notation. Should kids know when Beethoven was born, or where John Lennon went to school, or what Bach did with his organ? All of these will cause us big problems.

In a period of financial plenty. We don’t mind people with different views than us getting their barking mad music education project funded, because we know someone will do something we like, and our very sensible music education project will be funded too. When the cake is big enough we can all have a slice. When the cake is reduced to a teaspoonful we will fight over the crumbs. But now we have to decide, and be clear about, what is barking mad, and what is sensible. And then decide on which side of the fence we sit. I worry that we will tear ourselves apart, and that, and that our various vested interests (with various degrees of funding and ear-bending-of-those-in-power) will assume prominence, and some will feel empowered, and some marginalized.

But most of all, I worry about knowledge. Those of us old enough to remember NC mark 1 will have weary déjà vu. So, now we need to consider: Key Signatures, or African Drumming, Bach BWV565, or REM ‘losing my religion’. And I worry that these arguments will start soon. And punch-ups will follow. See you in the ring.

Refs:

Philpott, C. (2007)  Musical Learning and Musical Development. In Learning to Teach Music in the Secondary School (2nd ed.), edited by C. Philpott and G. Spruce. London: Routledge.

Sfard, A. (1998)  On Two Metaphors for Learning and the Dangers of Choosing Just One  Educational Researcher 27 (2) 4-13

Swanwick, K. (1994)  Musical Knowledge - Intuition, Analysis and Music Education  London: Routledge

Why do we teach what we do? The National Curriculum is light on content, so why do so many KS3 music courses look similar? Is there a ‘folk curriculum’ (in the Bruner, rather than Pete Seeger, sense)?

I have been worrying about this a lot recently. This is because there seems to me to be a real problem with knowing what we want pupils to learn during KS3. This will, I think vary from school to school, so I don’t have a problem with locally tailored curricular. But what I do think is interesting is looking at people’s KS3 syllabus and then reorganising the following into order:

• The Blues
• Samba
• African Drumming
• The Waltz
• Theme and Variations
• Minimalism
• Gamelan
• Britpop

What I would like to know is ‘where is the learning’? We have been sniffy in this country about American approaches as being ‘the band method’. I have been pondering why our system is better. Or is it? Which in turn brings the more important question, why? Why are the topic in the list above important enough to teach? Who says so? Why do I do them in this order? What do I want the pupils to learn? What’s the cumulative sequence of learning that my curriculum espouses?

These are hard questions, and maybe in a time of austerity ones we will need to argue. Including the big one – ‘why is music on the curriculum?’. Waffle about transferable skills, about making better people, and about being a good thing. ‘Fine words butter no parsnips’. Quite.

The assessment issue seems to be on a cycle of hotting up and cooling down! Currently on the ‘hot’ side is APP, and FFT. These acronyms are surprisingly related!

Oh well, what’s next to make me grumpy…?