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

whatever), taking a CD player (or other recorded-sound player) and a selection of
their own choice of music. The task was simply to listen to the music and choose one
song or piece. They then had to attempt to play it by ear, using their own choice of
instruments as available, and directing their own learning as a group.

This formed the first stage of the project, and went on for about 4 to 6 lessons.
After that, we introduced further stages, involving a range of other tasks taking us
almost to the end of the academic year. Some of the tasks were more highly structured
than the one described here, and some were not. Two of them, tested by a small
number of schools, involved an adaptation of informal, aural learning practices in
relation to performing classical music. (See Green 2008 for details.) However today, I
will focus almost entirely on what happened in relation to group cooperation during
the first 4 to 6 lesson stage only.

The role of the teacher was crucial, but all the teachers in the research found
their roles quite different from normal. For the first two or three lessons teachers were
asked to stand back and observe as much as possible. During that time they tried to
understand and empathise with the goals that pupils were setting for themselves. Then
they began to act as ‘musical models’, demonstrating and suggesting how pupils
could achieve those goals, rather than correcting or instructing pupils in the normal
way.

There were many fascinating findings and outcomes. One main area
concerned what pupils learnt as music-makers and music-listeners, as well as the
nature of the music-learning processes that many of them seemed to adopt almost
naturally. Another concerns what teachers learnt, particularly how their views of their
roles developed. However, in this presentation I am going to bypass those areas,
which are discussed in Green 2006 and 2008. Instead, I wish to focus on how pupils
interacted with each other as group members and as individuals with differing needs
and experiences, within this more-than-usually self-directed group ethos. I will attend
to three aspects of this. The first concerns group cooperation, particularly in relation
to how pupils organised their learning within their groups. The second concerns
inclusion with reference to pupils who had different abilities and prior musical
experiences. The third again concerns inclusion, but paying attention to pupils who
were identified as disaffected, that is, who presented negative attitudes and
challenging behaviour, not only in music, but in subjects right across the school.



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