them respectfully in the school setting and at our festival, I discovered a wealth and richness of musicing (Elliott, 1995; Small, 1998) that I had previously known little about, while also inadvertently validating students’ cultural heritage and self-identity.


Finally, in small rural schools, music teachers often teach other subjects. In this way, they have the opportunity not only to teach music, but also to integrate music through- out the curricula of the other subjects they teach, be it Mathematics, French, Social Studies, Physics, or English. Through integration, teachers broaden their capacity to connect musically to an even larger number of students in a manner that is relevant and contributes to student meaning making (Cornett & Smithrim, 2001); they can also share these strategies with other teachers. Eventually, students and I played auxiliary percussion instruments in English 11 to embody the rhythm of iambic pentameter in Shakespear- ean soliloquies, composed French rap songs on verb tense in French 10, and learned simple tunes on recorder as we studied the Medieval time period in Social Studies 9. These musical moments reinforced knowledge; more importantly, they helped create a safe classroom environment, encour- aged collaboration, and contributed to social cohesion (Mc- Carthy, 2009).


Conclusion


My conception of music education is enriched as a result of my experiences teaching music in a rural community. I have come to value its sociological aspects (Wright, 2010) and to ask, “What is music good for in my set of circumstances?” a praxialist orientation to music education. Regelski (2004) explains. A praxially transformed curricu- lum needs to feature more models of and opportunities for musicking of all kinds, involving a range of musics chosen for inclusion based on the local music world, and keeping in mind the action ideal that universal schooling should benefit all students.


Regelski (2004) suggests we use all the means at our disposal in our particular set of circumstances to maximize student self-inclusion in school music making, including school-community music partnerships and community music networks to enhance and build on more traditional school musical practices. In attempting to do so, I came to see that the challenges of the rural are more than compen- sated for by its many opportunities.


References


Alfano, C. J. (2008). Intergenerational learning in a high school environment. International Journal of Commu- nity Music, 1(2), 253–266.


Ball, E., & Lai, A. (2006). Place-based pedagogy for the arts and humanities. Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture, 6(2), 261-287.


Cornett, C., & Smithrim, K. (2001). The arts as meaning makers: Integrating literature and the arts throughout the curriculum. Toronto: Prentice-Hall.


Elliott, D. (1995). Music matters: A new philosophy of mu- sic education. New York: Oxford University Press.


Dewey, J. (1939/2008). Freedom and culture. In J. A. Boydston (Ed.), John Dewey: The later works 1925– 1953. Vol. 13 (63-188). Carbondale, Illinois: South Illinois University Press. Gruenewald, D. (2003). The best of both worlds: A critical pedagogy of place. Educational Researcher, 32(4), 3-12.


Howley, C. B. (2009). The meaning of rural difference for bright rednecks. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 32(4), 537-564.


Markey, S., Halseth, G., & Manson, D. (2008). Challeng- ing the inevitability of rural decline: Advancing the policy of place in northern British Columbia. Journal of Rural Studies, 24(4), 409-421.


McCarthy, M. (2009). Music education and narratives of social cohesion: From melting pot to global commu- nity. Keynote Paper No. 2, 24-46. Sociology of Music Education Conference, Limerick, Ireland.


Regelski, T. (2004). Social theory, and music and music education as praxis. Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education, 3(3), 2-52. Reid, J., Green, B., Cooper, M., Hastings, W., Lock, G., & White, S. (2010). Regenerating rural social space? Teacher education for rural-regional sustainability. Australian Journal of Education, 54(3), 262-276.


Small, C. (1998). Musicking. Hanover, New Hampshire: Wesleyan University Press.


Wright, R. (Ed.). (2010). Sociology and music education. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate.


Anita Prest is a doctoral candidate in Curriculum & Pedagogy specializing in music education at the Univer- sity of British Columbia. She taught band, choir, music composition, and music theatre in the small community of Keremeos, British Columbia for sixteen years. Her bands and choirs have played in England, Cuba, the United States, and four Canadian provinces, also performing for the Prime Minister of Canada in 2002. She was the artistic director of the Music Under the ‘K’ Festival, a community- based, non-competitive festival that over a ten-year period supported music making of all kinds by people of all ages. Her research concerns the effects of bridging social capital emerging from rural school-community music partnerships on community vitality and conceptions of the value of music education.


14


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46