Group cooperation, inclusion and disaffected pupils: some responses to informal learning in the music classroom

Written version of RIME paper (GCID) for MER, Exeter 2007

-Debbie: Superb, and it really works doesn’t it? Absolutely brilliant. Did you
all listen to the keyboard as well?’

-Connor: It sounds like ‘Postman Pat’ a bit (plays keyboard notes).

‘Postman Pat’ is a theme tune for a TV programme, aimed at very young children,
whose main character is an endearing cartoon postman. It is fair to suggest - based
not only on speculation but on what many pupils told us - that if the teacher had
instructed Connor to play a tune with such childish delineations, his reactions would
have been in no uncertain terms, negative. But he was happy to mention the tune
himself, I would suggest, not only because the idea came from him rather than from a
teacher, but moreover, because his direct engagement with the inter-sonic properties
and relationships of the music had overridden what he would otherwise have
considered to be beneath him in the realm of delineation. Connor indicated that he
much preferred project lessons to ‘normal lessons’. This was not only because they
were more fun, nor just that in his view, they were more realistically related to the
world outside the school; but also because of his close relationship with the sonic
materials and interrelationships of the music. As he put it: ‘You’re becoming a
musician, I suppose’.

This overriding of negative delineations through concentration on inter-sonic
meanings via self-directed learning and peer-group cooperation, is one of the factors
that, I would suggest, allowed many other pupils, including those with ‘hidden
musicality’ like Hana, and those who were disaffected like Tyler or Connor, to
respond positively to the project. The project strategies came from a study of how
popular musicians learn informally. Although their learning practices were adapted
for the classroom, fundamentally they had been developed by learners for themselves
and each other, rather than being developed by teachers. If there is any strength in the
strategies, I think that is where it must lie.

Bibliography

Bennett, N. and Dunne, E. (1992) Managing Classroom Groups, Hemel Hempstead,
Simon and Schuster.

<<   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   >>

More intriguing information