college & university After 30 Years of Teaching:
Who Are My Students Now and What Am I Teaching? Sheila J. Feay-Shaw, WMEA State Chair, College & University
For
those of you reading this article who have been teaching for decades as I have, who our students are has changed over the years that we have taught. I have been an urban educator
all of my career... first in Milwaukee, then in Seattle, and in Tukwila, WA, which is near Seatac airport if you have flown to Seattle. But what has that label of urban educator meant over those years? What has remained the same, and what has changed? As I look at this question now through the lens of a teacher educator, the population of students in higher education has changed as well over my teaching years. Has our teaching and musical of- ferings grown with those changes?
I grew up in a small town, which sat at the edge of the Menominee Reservation, halfway up the state of Wisconsin. When I entered teaching in Milwaukee, the picture of who I was and who my neighbors were growing up gave me little frame of refer- ence for my first year of teaching. In the
10 years of teaching in Milwaukee, I had a crash course in equity and diversity issues related to my colleagues, my students and their families coming to understand music was something we could all gather around and celebrate. I learned to appreciate songs and singing games from many different cultural and ethnic groups. I learned to sing and teach “Lift Every Voice and Sing” from one of the third grade teach- ers with whom I taught. She asked me if I planned to teach it to the children for the Black history program. I told her if she would teach me, I would be happy to teach them. It was one of the most meaningful professional development experiences of my career, and it happened by someone sharing their music with me.
When I began my career, we were just beginning conversations in Music Educa- tors Journal about critical thinking in the music classroom.1
One element of it in-
volved identifying when events happened in history and what the social connections were that happened at the same time. This is still an element that can be a powerful component to our music teaching since all music comes from somewhere, and is often a reflection or response to something that has happened. I expect a whole range of new musical works will come out of this period of the COVID-19 pandemic that may speak to loss, separation, new ways of music making, and a strong sense of hope that we will soon be able to safely make music together again.
Stay Connected /WSMAmusic 18
Certain segments of our musical popula- tion have created new music to honor the lives of George Floyd and other victims of violence that leaves urban students in particular trying to make sense of their communities and the world around them.2 Singing together has been a form of protest and unity for decades. There are powerful songs that came out of the era of the Viet- nam War, the civil rights movement, the
“It was one of the most meaningful professional development experiences of my
career, and it happened by someone sharing their music with me.”
911 attacks, right up through the current issues of the COVID-19 pandemic and Black Lives Matter.3
The music which
we teach and perform together speaks to individual and collective experiences if we make informed selections. I would hope the repertoire we are choosing now differs significantly from decades ago.
We have entered an era of teaching for social justice and culturally sustaining pedagogy “that supports the value of our multiethnic and multilingual present and future.”4
While not every music educa-
tor has likely thought of themselves as a revolutionary, or a change maker, our time has arrived to be on the forefront of using our music as the connection point not only with students’ educational curriculum but with their lives and families. Do we offer the music courses that connect with students’ lives? At the university level, do we provide our teacher candidates with the tools for their musical teaching future or simply a replica of the past? New ways of looking at and thinking about our musical world “can potentially challenge teachers and others to rethink their understandings of the democratic purposes and respon- sibilities of educational institutions and programs to contribute to a more equitable and just society.”5
April 2021
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 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64
