Adam Lee

12/17/2017

Critical Pedagogy III

Philosophy of Music Education

Philosophy

Music education isn’t only useful for teaching and appreciating music, but to explore the

importance and relevance of music in the contexts of the communities and histories it came from

and to which it is being taught. While I believe that music in itself has inherent value, I also

believe that it has the power to unlock a deeper critical consciousness about the world. If music

education can be used to empower students to engage in their communities with a level of

understanding that enables them to enact changes to the injustices they face, then it should be the

goal of all music educators to do so.

Place-Based Education Theory

This philosophy of music education comes from a blending of Critical Pedagogy and

Place-Based Education Theory. Place-Based Education Theory is a term coined in the 1990’s by

Laurie Lane-Zucker and Dr. John Elder, although the concept has been in practice for much

longer. The main idea behind Place-Based Education is that education is most effective and

meaningful when it uses the experiences and problems that students face in their communities to

learn new concepts and solutions. This is accomplished by using mostly project-based learning

and interacting with the community surrounding the school to invite students to apply their

knowledge and learning to devise solutions to problems within their communities.

Lane-Zucker describes place-based education as, “the reintegration of the individual into

her homeground and the restoration of the essential links between a person and her place” (pg.
3). This theory depends on the interpersonal relations of students with other members of their

communities, including their parents, extended family, and community leaders. Students are

forced to engage with these people to learn about the history of where they came from, and how

the past has set precedents and traditions that are affecting the present. With the knowledge of

these influential forces, students “become part of the community, rather than a passive observer

of it” (Lane-Zucker, pg. 3).

Discussion

Many tenets of place-based education are directly applicable to a critical pedagogy

standpoint. The guiding idea of both practices is the idea that education needs to be relatable and

applicable to the students’ lives. In a way, both ideologies are extensions of one another. A key

difference, however, is the kind of change that each ideology seeks to enact. Place-based

education seeks to enrich learning by giving students the opportunity to do moral good in their

communities. Critical pedagogy seeks to use the students’ education to develop a critical

consciousness about their society and resolve the imbalances of power that they find.

One way that Place-based education falls short is that there are many more facets to our

students’ identities than just the place and culture that they are growing up in. Educators need to

take into account the students’ gender and sexuality, social and racial backgrounds, and tastes

when creating a student-centered curriculum. While it might be difficult to find ways to engage

all students in all of these aspects, especially when students have unique experiences in all of

these categories, the problem diminishes when using a project-based learning model like in

place-based education, or as Gutstein outlines in his book, Reading & Writing the World With

Mathematics (2016). Project-based learning can still be used to teach curriculum and specific

skills, while also allowing students to choose the things they want to apply those skills to. Giving
students the option to choose people and issues that they can relate to gives them the freedom to

engage with the communities they are a part of.

Student will already have a certain level of agency in the areas that are a part of their

identity. Agency can be defined as the ability to express the thoughts and ideas one has on a

subject appropriately in a given context. The life experiences they gained from their interactions

with their family, peers, and mentors will have developed knowledge and an informal agency in

areas that are easily applicable to other contexts. In a study about inclusion of LGBTQ in the

classroom, a teacher, Ms. Lanza, found that her students were more engaged and performed at

higher levels when she included and discussed books that were written by people who faced

similar social oppression as the students (Page, 2017). This is an example of how student

engagement in the learning environment is easily accessed by relating new subjects to the areas

that they are already agentive in.

Music is an especially powerful tool in giving students relatable options because of the

ways that it is ingrained into every culture imaginable. Folk and popular music from around the

world can be used to present students with an opportunity to learn about their ancestry and

heritage. Students can learn about other artists that come from similar socio-economic

backgrounds in any era of music, and study how their background affected the music that they

wrote. Even in pre-segregation America, there were entire genres of music referred to as “race

music.” LGBTQ students will not have any shortage of LGBTQ composers and artists to choose

from to find a relatable experience. Even niche cultures, such as gamers, have their own styles of

music that can be analyzed and discussed in ways that will help us understand their culture

better. The fact that music can be used to learn about the histories and cultures of almost every

demographic is what makes it so important.

 However, music needs to be analyzed in a way that develops critical consciousness to

empower students to use it in their own communities. In order to do this, music needs to be a

cross-curricular experience that pairs with history. Students need to have background knowledge

in the areas where the music grew out of. By pairing what students learn in their history classes

with musical selections in their music courses, students get a richer understanding of the cultural

and social movements and events during those time periods. As students learn about the ever-

shifting rule of the Monarchs of England in their world history classes, music teachers can

introduce the music of William Byrd and the ways that he had to hide his Catholicism. This can

easily translate into a discussion about religious persecution and how that helped shape the

importance of the freedom to choose religion American society. While learning about slavery

and the Civil War, students can be introduced to African American Spirituals and gain an

understanding of the secret messages that the songs often had about hope and freedom.

These historical concepts can be used to understand the backgrounds and beginnings of

the music from their own cultures, and vice versa. Students can relate the trials of William Byrd

having to hide his religion to the struggles of LGBTQ people in coming out to their other

communities. Students can also look at the calls for change in the hip-hop and rap music that

they listen to and use it to find the hidden calls to action within African American Spirituals.

Music’s inherent ability to make a political or social point should be used to enhance the

students’ ability to understand the structures in place around them, and is not talked about often

enough. By understanding the powers and oppression that created music, students will be able to

use music as a tool to incite tangible change in the communities that they are a part of.

Conclusion
 I believe that music has an innate goodness and value that needs to be used to promote

positive change in the world. Music education has largely focused on musical agency and

literacy, but I think that is only the starting point. Musical literacy opens up the doors for many

meaningful musical experiences, but it is not necessary to create all of them. The main focus of

music education needs to shift away from just focusing on music and turn towards all that music

has done, and can still do in society. We often skirt away from acknowledging the political and

social power that music has on our histories. However, if we embrace the inherent nature of

music to provoke thought and change, we empower our students to use music to provoke thought

and change in the cultures and contexts that they live in.
 References:

Gutstein, Eric. Reading and Writing the World with Mathematics: toward a Pedagogy for

Social Justice. Routledge, 2006

Lane-Zucker, L. (2006). Place-based Education, Entrepreneurship and Investing for an

“Impact Economy. In Place-Based Education: Connecting Classrooms & Communities (Nature

Literacy) (Vol. 4). The Orion Society.

Page, M. L. (2017). LGBTQ Inclusion as an Outcome of Critical Pedagogy. In The

Critical Pedagogy Reader (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.