leading to weak connections between practice and teacher education programs.
How do we know that a teacher education program has a vision? All involved in the program know the vision, the syllabi reflect the vision, and the vision is reflected in the graduates and their actions. The vision is reflected in the design of the teacher education program. Rather than a “top-down decision,” the creation of a vision should be part of an extended conversation. This should not be pushing or indoctrination into a program. Hammerness concluded her speech by challenging SMTE attendees to consider the visions of good music teaching.
Friday morning, September 27, began with initial meetings of the twelve SMTE Areas for Strategic Planning and Ac- tion (ASPAs). The purpose of the ASPAs is to develop and implement action plans related to current critical issues in music teacher education. SMTE attendees were encouraged to visit multiple ASPAs during this initial meeting time to determine which one they wanted to contribute to for Satur- day afternoon’s ASPA meetings. The twelve ASPAs are: • Critical Examination of the Curriculum • Cultural Diversity and Social Justice • Music Teacher Educators: Identification, Prepara- tion, and Professional Development • Music Teacher Socialization • Policy
• Professional Development for the Beginning Teacher
• Professional Development for the Experienced Teacher • Program Admission, Assessment, and Alignment • School/University Partnerships • Teacher Recruitment • Teacher Retention • Teacher Evaluation
After a session of Research and Best Practice papers, Janet R. Barrett, Marilyn Pflederer Zimmerman Endowed Scholar in Music Education at the University of Illinois, presented a plenary session, “Navigating and Examining Conceptions of Music Teaching.” Barrett made connections to Hammer- ness’ speech from the previous evening, stating that our respective state teacher preparation standards, teaching per- formance assessments (TPA), and other external influences are blocking the implementation of our visions. What is most distressing is what is omitted from current mandates: artistry, discernment, imagination, serendipity, and moral purpose. How do we map out more imaginative, gener- ous, and just versions of music teacher education? Barrett implored attendees to support not one vision, but multiple visions that achieve these ends. To construct these multiple visions, Barrett suggested that the profession turn to music
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education philosophy and authors such as Estelle Jorgensen to answer the following questions: • What should music education be like? • What should be its effects on the people it comprises and the communities in which it takes place?
Barrett also reminded attendees that components of strong music teacher education programs include a common, clear vision of good teaching that permeates all coursework and clinical experiences and utilization of case studies and other means of examining music teaching. The goal is not to achieve uniformity. Rather, it is to give coherence and structure to the program to create a unified vision between faculty and students.
David Myers, director of the School of Music at the University of Minnesota, and Susan Haug, director of the School of Music at Penn State University and vice president of the National Association of Schools of Mu- sic (NASM), presented a plenary session, “Navigating and Building Capacity for Music Teaching.” Haug stated that NASM is currently examining existing standards and exploring the possibility of modifying them to respond to changes in society. Examples include the inclusion of world music and non-traditional ensembles in an undergraduate curriculum.
Additional, Myers is chairing a College Music Society (CMS) task force to revise undergraduate music curriculum in higher education, based on Patricia Shehan Campbell’s (current president of the CMS) proposal that schools of music need to radically rethink the existing undergraduate curriculum. No major changes in the undergraduate music curriculum have been enacted since the early 1900s. How- ever, Myers noted, music is changing dramatically. Can we afford to wait and follow change in the real world, or do we need to be a part of advancing the change? Myers also noted that Western European music needs to be decentral- ized from our undergraduate curriculum so we can make room for other forms of music. What do today’s students need to know and what worldviews do they need to be grounded in? What worldviews do they need to have to be an effective part of the 21st century?
Saturday, September 28, began with more Best Practices and Research Papers. The next plenary session, “Aligning Conceptions and Capacity: Turning Visions into Reality,” included music education faculty from Arizona State Uni- versity: Sandra Stauffer, Jill Sullivan, Marg Schmidt, and Evan Tobias.
Arizona State University’s music education area sought to reform its curricula in response to its graduates teach- ing diverse student populations in diverse music teaching
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