Peter Gouzouasis

The predictive relationship between achievement and participation in music and achievement in core Grade 12 academic subjects

The relationship between musical training and general intellectual capacity as well as academic achievement has been discussed in numerous contexts. In our study, we examined the relationship between participation and achievement in music and achievement in academic courses, based on data from three consecutive British Columbia student cohorts. Across the three cohorts, we consistently found that music participation was associated with generally higher academic achievement, and that Grade 11 music course scores predicted Grade 12 academic achievement scores in linear regression analyses. Our results support the notion that the time dedicated to music participation does not impede, but rather goes hand in hand with or even fosters academic excellence in other ‘core’ subjects.

Turning Points: A Transitional Story of Grade Seven Music Students' Participation in High School Band Programmes.

As a framework for our study, a broad set of themes related to the retention of students in music programmes are presented to enhance our understanding of how to retain band students. Data were collected from grade seven students comprising four focus groups. We used ethnodrama, an arts-based educational research approach, to represent results as a research script. We found that assumptions made in previous research have little in common with what grade seven and eight students feel. Life experiences may strongly impact their decisions, band students like music and find it ‘fun’, and peers define band students as smart, successful, and strong individuals. The impact of the band teacher is minimal. Finally, students who choose not to continue in band often made the choice to avoid music rather than a choice to take other options.

A haiku suite: the importance of music making in the lives of secondary school students

This study offers an arts-based a/r/tographic inquiry using poetic transcription and representation of interviews conducted with a co-educational group of 14 students in a West Vancouver, British Columbia secondary school rhythm and blues band class. The decision to translate and analyse the interview transcripts into the Japanese poetry form of haiku is rooted in research literature in education and other fields, primarily health and nursing studies. Those studies demonstrate the efficacy of the highly condensed haiku to transmit meaning in a synthesised and creative form. While music education has a body of scholarship on students’ attitudes towards music and their music education, this kind of research has generally been presented in more traditional ways. Our contention here is that arts-based topics are complemented and illuminated when investigated through arts-based methods. As well, arts-based methods such as a/r/tography, offer multiple and complex perspectives of what the data ‘means’, thereby offering a welcome harmony of topic and method. This paper captures the depth and intensity of emotions, engagement and transformative affects that adolescents experience through music making – music matters to young people.

Technology as Arts-Based Education: Does the Desktop Reflect the Arts?

ince the dawn of time, human imagination has resulted in creating extensions of self (that is, tools) as a means to overcome obstacles produced by genetic limits. Whether the tool extends thought or sense; whether the tool is organic, such as language, or inorganic; and whether electronic, digital, or analog, the artist plies the science or system of any medium to achieve expression. Hammer and chisel, sheepskin and quill, gut strings and lute, paintbrush and canvas, vinyl records and phonographs, metal strings and solid body electric guitars—they are but a few of the many tools, or technologies, of the arts. The elements of what is now considered new media have always rested in the center of the arts. Without the contribution of the knowledge of visual and performing artists, new media content appears lifeless and their applications, abjectly meaningless save for a purely mechanistic function, are incapable of transforming the human spirit (Gouzouasis 2001; Venturelli 2002). It is incontestable that the role of the artist throughout history is “the only person in our culture whose whole business has been the retraining and updating of sensibility” (McLuhan and McLuhan 1988, 5). In Art for a New Age, Kenneth R. Beittel (2003) states, “Artists are natural lightning rods for prophecy and revelation” (41). Technology education, with its focus on information and communications (ICT), is akin to architecture that is focused solely on the design of joints, beams, and trusses. Architectural form possesses more than function. When an architect seeks to accomplish more than mere durability and shelter, will the architecture not communicate the very essence of human socialization and culture? The difference between a prefabricated home and one that has been erected through the artistic expression of a designer cannot be understated. It is the difference between the merely functional and the uniquely expressive. The mechanics of either structure may be similar, but their meanings differ significantly in content. The contribution of the latter to society will remain eternally present, whereas the former will become obsolete with time. One can easily understate the concept of communication and information if functionality remains at its core. Giving greater credence to tools of communication, such as the telephone, and of information, such as the telephone book, overlooks that the arts, which also communicate and inform, are only effectively so when content is meaningful. By dispensing with artistic contributions and making ICT content the object of instruction (ISTE 2000, 2002), technology will fail to compel and engage the human spirit no matter how ubiquitous it may become. “Technology is never a panacea for good teaching; the tasks are designed by teachers” (Garber 2004, 44). In an artsinfused new media context, therefore, it is the sensibility of the arts educator whose careful design engages artistic endeavor. Leaving such matters solely to ICT instruction where the arts are invisible suggests that good practice is ignored. On closer inspection, information and communication technology promoted as a panacea overlooks that technology will be simply replaced by the newest invention. The result of that rapid state of obsolescence will have little impact on social and individual transformations save to accentuate the digital divide. Creative, artistic applications of new learning and teaching technologies may hold the future of “content” development in all forms of new media. New technologies draw on both artistic and scientific knowledge, each contributing to the other’s design. The most successful designs suggest undertaking a collaboration of varied experts—from artists to social scientists—in the development of new media or research involving new media. There are many examples in the literature that corroborate the importance of artists in the architecture of any media design

Lingering in liminal spaces: a/r/tography as living inquiry in a language arts class

In this article, we explore how we live among students and teachers as a/r/tographers and how we become creatively immersed in the wholeness of the classroom experience as a result. This is in contrast to our initial intentions of using ethnographic techniques and qualitative methods. As we began our project, it became apparent that another lens would be more appropriate for our study: this lens was a/r/tography. Exploring our research processes and practices as relational acts and ruminating on our ways of being in the academy as a/r/tographers, we explore the liminal spaces between the use of a/r/tography as practice‐based research and the use of ethnographic techniques, as qualitative research, and consider how shifting amid these realms can re/shape research in new and innovative ways.

A pedagogical tale from the piano studio: autoethnography in early childhood music education research

Our inquiry centres on a hopeful tale about creative teaching and learning, trusting ones teaching intuition and processes, caring for children, and believing that children will respond to opportunities to learn music when they are invited with thoughtful care. Though the process of writing, both our young student and ourselves, we evoke the notion of autoethnography as pedagogy. By considering autoethnography as creative, didactic non-fiction, our essay sings out with a call for transformation in how we engage with children in teaching and learning piano – on how we engage in a ‘listening pedagogy’ to transform piano teaching and learning into a much more expressive, meaningful, playful and positive learning experience. Our inquiry also includes a discussion of early childhood music research and different forms of pedagogy, presented in a holistic way that invites new understandings of the relationships between early childhood music practitioners and young music learners.

Secondary student perspectives on musical and educational outcomes from participation in band festivals

While it seems many music educators share an enthusiasm for music festivals, others do not. Discrepancies seem to be rooted in the perceived educational outcomes in terms of musical knowledge gained, motivation, competition, psychological impact and social considerations. Advocates believe competitive festivals provide a ‘superlative’ motivational factor and elevate performance quality beyond what could otherwise be achieved. Students and directors are motivated by ratings, by the outstanding performances of their peers and by the constructive criticism of expert adjudicators. As a result, students practice more, they work together with elevated enthusiasm and they are more likely to work on minute music details. Whereas most of the existing literature focuses on teacher perspectives, we examine the issues solely from a student perspective. We administered a survey composed of 55 five point, Likert scale items to 528 students of diverse multicultural backgrounds to examine the educational and musical benefits, and detriments, that evolve from participation in a band festival and events leading up to the festival as well as social benefits, or detriments, associated with band festival participation. Adding credence to existing research, there is very strong student support in favour of band festivals. We learned that student attitudes on how they perform are likely dependent on their personal beliefs, as well as feedback they receive from their directors, adjudicators and other members of the audience (i.e. students, parents). In accordance with previous research, students enjoy receiving adjudicator comments. Students value band for more than festival participation and recognise the rich, diverse learning experiences that festivals offer. Moreover, students consider band festivals as a positive educational experience, and overall, the social nature of band festivals has a positive impact on adolescents. Festivals are exceptionally motivating to students, as they appreciate the competitive aspects of music festivals in terms of competition as being a motivational factor when practicing and performing. Participation in music festivals has a positive emotional impact on students, in that they develop a sense of pride and accomplishment after a good performance.

An Organismic Model of Music Learning for Young Children

Many parents and teachers believe that a child is born with a specific amount of music ability and that nothing can be done to change or alter that ability. Some parents and teachers even assert that a child is either musical or not musical. From that perspective, it is impossible to account for the child who possesses average music ability. According to research concerned with the nature of music aptitude and research concerned with the relationship between music aptitude and music achievement, those beliefs and assertions are not true. Many music education researchers hypothesize that every child is born with some degree of music ability. It is widely believed that a childs aptitude has an ideal chance for optimal development if parents and teachers provide a varied and rich music environment for a child early in life (Simons, 1986; Pond, 1981). Based upon this notion, it is impossible to begin a childs informal music experiences too early. Parent, caregivers, and teachers are encouraged to create an enriching music environment in the first several years of a childs life because the quantity, quality, and variety of music experiences in an environment can determine a childs future success in and enjoyment of music. Knowledgeable parents, caregivers, and teachers who are aware of a childs music aptitude can use that awareness to shape a childs music development.

Tommy’s Tune Autoethnographic Duet

The following autoethnographic duet by faculty advisor and professor creates a dramatic and evocative account of the personal and cultural experience about a disabled student teacher. They blend storytelling and music which fuses a theoretical analysis about storytelling and life. Although sociocultural issues draw deep reflection about the emotional turmoil, cultural influences of language and social interaction provide details that critique social structures. As musician becoming teacher is a passionate yet complex endeavor, the faculty advisor shares first-hand a poetic but painful story about a disabled teacher being inducted into the teaching profession. By making explicit the personal-cultural connection, they use the life-changing epiphany to critique cultural issues about teaching and disability. As the faculty advisor approaches the professor for advice, his musicianship shifts her forward, backward, and sideways through feelings that evoke, invoke, and provoke a curriculum that does not transfer knowledge from educational method classes. Instead, it embeds musical language as a metaphorical conduit to interrogate the pros, cons and both sides of the complicated issue of disability that influences the completion of his teaching practicum for his undergraduate bachelor of education degree. An epiphany from music and story reveals the irony of living in a culture of both uniformity and diversity. They explore the constructs of ideology, abnormality, marginalization, and secrecy. Thus, by blending story and music, the authors resolve a transformative autoethnographic aspect about the personal and cultural influences that provoke new deeper ways of thinking about curriculum.

To build a home

ABSTRACT This story, a performative autoethnography, is to be read aloud with a recording of “To Build A Home” by Cinematic Orchestra (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUFJJNQGwhk). Please start the recording and begin reading the story aloud at sound of the first piano chord. Read the prose, expressively, at a moderate tempo with slight pauses at the end of each paragraph while the music plays as an accompaniment.