TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY BLUES

Listen, my children, and you shall hear how my students pushed me into being a kind-of 21^st Century teacher for the first time. But first, a word from our sponsor:

WASHINGTON, DC - Oct. 10, 2007 A new, nationwide poll of registered voters reveals that Americans are deeply concerned that the United States is not preparing young people with the skills they need to compete in the global economy. An overwhelming 80 percent of voters say that the kind of skills students need to learn to be prepared for the jobs of the 21st century is different from what they needed 20 years ago. Yet a majority of Americans say that schools need to do a better job of keeping up with changing educational needs. The national poll was conducted on behalf of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills.

It seems as though every other sentence coming out of the talking ed-heads’ mouths these days is about 21^st century learning—what it is, who’s actually doing it, what nifty tools they are using, and how this is going to impact the Global Economy. Personally, I think lots of changes will happen more or less organically—that is, planners, policy makers and visionary thinkers will be both spot-on and dead wrong about the inevitable transformation of schools and learning, and trying to forecast (read: guess) what will be critical and effective is more game than science.

In 1978, I took a graduate seminar in “Educational Futurism.” It was one of the better formal learning experiences of my life, but virtually everything I learned about the Future of Schools was (and I’m being gentle here) way off the mark. I keep the textbooks as amusing reminders that while The Future is out of our control, what we do today in our classrooms does impact kids, and pushes forward continual reinvention of teaching practice.

At the turn of the last century, I was teaching middle school band in a fairly unorthodox way (albeit in a very orthodox school), using thematic, project-based learning laid on top of a conventional band program. The theme for 2000-01 was “Music Across Time and Space” and my learning goals involved more than the usual rehearse-rehearse-perform targets that most instrumental music teachers employ. I wanted my students to be able to get a sense of what makes music from different times and places distinctive—sharpening their listening skills to aurally identify musical markers in composition and orchestration.

Middle school students are already somewhat able to do this, because they’ve spent their lives immersed in music. If you play music for students—medieval chant, ragtime, Celtic ballads, disco, Mozart or film scores—they will be able to generally identify which is which. What I wanted them to do was figure out what features made the music ragtime or rock, and then reproduce those markers with their own musicianship. So the end-of-year project assignment was creating an original piece of music in an historic or ethnic style.

There was lots of scaffolding to support this project, of course—months of listening, playing, talking, dissecting, seeing symbolic representations of distinguishing markers. All five bands studied and—most important—performed music from different eras and cultures. We warmed up using standard 12-bar blues (a great way to teach functional harmony, since every red-blooded American kid “hears” the next chord before they play it), traced the evolution of musical notation and dabbled in improvisation. Students had the option of creating the music alone or in groups of any size (I had over 300 students and was hoping to hear/see/grade fewer than 300 projects); they could submit the composition in any auditory or visual format. I assigned the project on a Friday and gave them four weeks to complete it.

What I expected: lots of melodies with faux ethnic flourishes written inexpertly on  manuscript paper, plus videotapes of kids doing improvisatory “African” drumming, shot the evening before the project was due.

What I got: eleven projects on the next Monday, submitted via e-mail, floppy disk and CD, all of them extraordinary. There was an original blues tune recorded in four overdubs; a jazz piece composed by a boy with a program that transcribed his piano improvisation into printed standard notation; and a way-cool CD of family travel photos from Arizona accompanied by an original recorder soundtrack with a R. Carlos Nakai feel. I didn’t even know how to open and play some e-mailed assignments, and had to ask for assistance from their 7^th grade creators. And once the first-responder students shared their exemplars with the class, the student work quality went from great to amazing. Some groups of kids turned in two or three projects, just for fun.

The obvious moral of the story here is Kids Enlighten Teacher Re: Technology. And it’s true that many of my students had facility with digital music tools far beyond my own limited knowledge. But—what is even more interesting is that students who didn’t have access to the high-tech toys loved the assignment and turned in strongly creative work via cassette tape or live performance.  This is fun, they said. Can we do it again?

All of this happened long before I read A Whole New Mind or heard about a creative class or 21^st century learning skills. I was just bumbling around trying to engage kids in authentic learning around creating and playing music. I taught them some things. Then they taught me some things, through the products they created and the processes they used. The experience was simultaneously demanding and relaxed. If this is what 21^st century learning is—collaboration, creativity, synthesis, analysis and play—then those who worry about schools being unprepared to teach future skills can unclench their jaws and whistle a happy tune.

Comments

[Mary Tedrow]

Yes. The children will lead in this arena. Last time I had a problem with the LCD projector I just threw up my hands and handed it over to a student. I am still indebted to the student who taught me the Control-N feature I use with my internet browser. You get a new window with this little keyboarding shortcut.
Your experience with the course on the future of teaching reminds me of two predictions from the past: Television was going to revolutionize the classroom - replacing teachers. (If I want to turn off an entire class all I have to do is put in a video!) and secondly the Office Machines class I took in high school. Not a single machine I was trained on exists today. We sure spent a lot of time learning how to use those....

[Nancy Flanagan]

Hey, Mary.
Office Machines! I remember, I remember! Kind of like that class I took in ed school where I learned how to run the ditto machine and feed a filmstrip into the projector.

A corollary to your comment on kids leading the way: they'll lead the way if their teachers stop believing that teachers have to be the resident experts, and remain open to new learnings. Virtually everything I know about computers I learned from someone younger--MUCH younger, in fact. And that's cool.

[loonyhiker]

Okay, I'll show my age. Remember the old xerox machines that had that great smelling ink and produced dittos with blue ink (that got all over you)? When I got my IPod, the students helped me get it all set up. Man, I wish I could have taken your music class. I play an accordion and no one I knew played one when I was young, which made me feel like a freak. I'm sure this project would have been very helpful in getting me to fit in!

[Nancy Flanagan]

OK. I'm laughing now, the unmistakable smell of the ditto machine wafting through my brain, accompanied by strains of "Lady of Spain" on the accordion.

Breathe deeply...

Thanks for the post, LH. The "musician as dork" syndrome persists, strengthened by the media idea that only a handful of people are talented enough to sing (American Idol) and band camp is a place where kids do unspeakable things with their flutes (American Pie).

Nancy