Leslie Dawe
Fumbling Towards Vulnerability: Moving Out of the Familiar for Music Education’s Sake
In today’s conversation with Leslie Dawe, I found that she is a very intelligent and friendly woman who is enthusiastic about her role as a music educator and recognizes the impact she has on her students. During the conversation regarding her article, “Fumbling Toward Vulnerability”, she answered some very important questions that myself and many other students had. Being a first-year university student, I personally experience nerves and a sense vulnerability being in such a big school with new peers and new educators. Honestly, Leslie made me more nervous when she explained that even when you leave university and become a teacher you still experience the same nervousness and vulnerability in your first year of teaching. Leslie explained that in her first year of teaching she made plenty of mistakes which calmed my nerves and made me recognize that no matter what stage of life I am in I will always experience those initial “first year” nerves whether its the first year of elementary school, the first year of high school, college, university, or even the first year of my future career in a workforce. Growing up continually in an educational institution I always had the idea that teachers knew everything and never had a nervous day in their lives because they were ultimately the superior being in the classroom. Many teachers abuse that power but the truly superior teachers such as Leslie Dawe are the ones who speak openly about being nervous and feel under pressure even though they have so many years of experience. It was interesting that she mentioned it was important to seek help from other colleagues in your institution and to never be afraid to ask for help regardless of what stage of life you are in. Overall, this conversation with Leslie Dawe was very helpful and I will continue to implement her ideas and opinions in my life as I move forward in my studies.
Deborah Bradley
Music education, multiculturalism, and anti-racism: ‘Can we talk?
I found Deborah’s visit very interesting because she really went into detail about her ideas and motivation behind this article. I was surprised to find out she was originally from the United States which is where she experienced most of the racism in her community. Although a lot of her motivation came from racial segregation that took place when she was growing up in the United States, she also explained to us that racism happens everywhere. She helped us understand what is happening currently around the world and in Canada which opened our eyes to what current issues are and how they were discussed about in her article. I particularity enjoyed how she sang songs with us and got all of us to be involved with each other. She made everyone feel comfortable and I did not make me feel awkward when she asked me to join in her song. I found the videos we watched on the African American dancing and singing really helped me understand how beautiful music is from different cultures and how it should be respected equally to whats considered "sophisticated" music. She also played a video about non-racists and anti-racists and how the differences can have to change the world. Being an anti-racist means to stop racism and to put in an effort to be vocal about it and putting a stop to it whereas a non-racist just doesn’t participate in racism. This was really interesting to me because I never realized that there was such a strong difference and impact between the two. Having presentations from the authors of our readings is magnificently helpful especially in this case because prior to her presentation I understood very little of her paper.
Fumbling Towards Vulnerability: Moving Out of the Familiar for Music Education’s Sake
In today’s conversation with Leslie Dawe, I found that she is a very intelligent and friendly woman who is enthusiastic about her role as a music educator and recognizes the impact she has on her students. During the conversation regarding her article, “Fumbling Toward Vulnerability”, she answered some very important questions that myself and many other students had. Being a first-year university student, I personally experience nerves and a sense vulnerability being in such a big school with new peers and new educators. Honestly, Leslie made me more nervous when she explained that even when you leave university and become a teacher you still experience the same nervousness and vulnerability in your first year of teaching. Leslie explained that in her first year of teaching she made plenty of mistakes which calmed my nerves and made me recognize that no matter what stage of life I am in I will always experience those initial “first year” nerves whether its the first year of elementary school, the first year of high school, college, university, or even the first year of my future career in a workforce. Growing up continually in an educational institution I always had the idea that teachers knew everything and never had a nervous day in their lives because they were ultimately the superior being in the classroom. Many teachers abuse that power but the truly superior teachers such as Leslie Dawe are the ones who speak openly about being nervous and feel under pressure even though they have so many years of experience. It was interesting that she mentioned it was important to seek help from other colleagues in your institution and to never be afraid to ask for help regardless of what stage of life you are in. Overall, this conversation with Leslie Dawe was very helpful and I will continue to implement her ideas and opinions in my life as I move forward in my studies.
Deborah Bradley
Music education, multiculturalism, and anti-racism: ‘Can we talk?
I found Deborah’s visit very interesting because she really went into detail about her ideas and motivation behind this article. I was surprised to find out she was originally from the United States which is where she experienced most of the racism in her community. Although a lot of her motivation came from racial segregation that took place when she was growing up in the United States, she also explained to us that racism happens everywhere. She helped us understand what is happening currently around the world and in Canada which opened our eyes to what current issues are and how they were discussed about in her article. I particularity enjoyed how she sang songs with us and got all of us to be involved with each other. She made everyone feel comfortable and I did not make me feel awkward when she asked me to join in her song. I found the videos we watched on the African American dancing and singing really helped me understand how beautiful music is from different cultures and how it should be respected equally to whats considered "sophisticated" music. She also played a video about non-racists and anti-racists and how the differences can have to change the world. Being an anti-racist means to stop racism and to put in an effort to be vocal about it and putting a stop to it whereas a non-racist just doesn’t participate in racism. This was really interesting to me because I never realized that there was such a strong difference and impact between the two. Having presentations from the authors of our readings is magnificently helpful especially in this case because prior to her presentation I understood very little of her paper.
Influential Teacher Synopsis
I have had many influential teachers throughout my career as a student and remember never asking my teacher's questions about themselves to understand why they decided to be a teacher. Whether teachers recognize or not that they influence almost every student they teach, it is very interesting to understand their view on their position and how they got to be where they are today.
My influential teacher, whose name shall remain unknown, taught me French in elementary school. She was a strict teacher but her methods were very effective. I was fortunate that the teacher I chose to interview was very honest in her responses. I asked her about her background and her education prior to becoming an educator. She admitted that she chose to become a teacher because she was unhappy with her previous profession and enjoyed french language. She studied at McGill University in Montreal which was also where she landed her first teaching position. We discussed the pros and cons of her first job which was at a school for young adults who had dropped out of the regular education stream and had decided to come back. These particular students usually came from violent backgrounds and had difficult family lives. When she told me this, I was interested in understanding how these students felt about the classroom atmosphere. She replied by saying that some of the students considered the classroom a good place and others did not want to be there and were angry and disinterested. she felt happy knowing that she had become a positive adult figure for those troubled students. I found this section of the interview to be very intriguing because I always thought that this teacher taught elementary level students here in London, but to find out that she worked with troubled adults for many years of her young life was very interesting and prompted me to ask her about the contrast between such different types of students and how the jobs differed.
I asked her how her hands-on training such as being a student teacher assisted her in further liking this career. She said that she was a student teacher in Montreal in a French first language elementary school and high school. She asked her teacher's many questions and absorbed what went on in the classroom. She feels as though when she was a young student teacher, she took appreciated the opportunity to be in a classroom with students and watching an experienced teacher more than the current student teachers do now. She agrees that her opinion could be subjective to only the student teachers she's experienced at her current school now. But she notices that new teachers seem to feel less comfortable talking to more experienced teachers and getting their advice, whereas when she was younger she asked many questions and appreciated that the older teachers were wise and had more experience than her.
We went on to discuss her life as an educator after moving from Montreal Quebec back to her hometown of London Ontario. She worked for six years in a high school and she is currently in her 22nd year of teaching at the elementary level. Knowing that my interviewee has experience teaching young adults, children, and teenagers, I thought I would ask her what her most preferred grade level was. She said her preferred grade level to teach was grade 7, 8, and High School rather than grades one to six. Her reasoning was because she likes to be able to relate to students as they grow up and become young adults and because all of her own children are adults she does not enjoy the position of feeling as though she needs to raise the students and watch over them like a parent.
She decided to teach French after she traveled to Paris for a year and fell in love with the language. I connected the theme of beauty in language to beauty in music which lead us to talk about how she implements music into her pedagogy. My interviewee had a lot of great experiences with her students when she implemented music into her pedagogy. She said, "music is a big part of teaching language so we use songs, rhymes, chants, and various other musical activities to help the students learn French". She also mentioned that she begins every class by engaging the students in a musical activity, which is usually singing about common French phrases or singing about the weather. My interviewee noticed that most students could understand the language through a melody, but if she were to speak with the students using the same lyrics to the song, they would have difficulty speaking the language back. We began to talk more about some of her best experiences and she explained that being the director of school plays and school musicals and putting on French cultural events such as cafes and winter carnivals brought a lot of joy to herself and the children.
Another subject I wanted to touch on in this interview was how this teacher thought technology had positive effects within the classroom. Knowing that this teacher has been an educator for almost 30 years, I knew that she would have some insight on the growth of Technology throughout the years and how it has affected schools and students. She said that technology has changed a lot in education over the last two decades. From being audio cassettes for listening activities to now being iPads and Chromebooks. A lot of the software applications that you can use for language learning and for teaching, in general, she uses on her Smartboard and her classroom which she has had for 8 years now and she says it's a wonderful way to interact with the students. She is also very fond of using a microphone in her class to amplify her voice which assists in keeping the children's attention throughout the day and also helps them understand that if you don't have the microphone you shouldn't be speaking in class. "The students are allowed to use the microphone when they come up for their presentations and they enjoy using it very much".
After having such a great discussion on mainly just the positive aspects of her teaching career, we got more personal and talked about if she had had any issues with fellow teachers or principals throughout her career. She was very honest in saying that she hadn't had many personal issues with principles, and she has enjoyed working with all the principles in her career except for one. This particular principle was perceived to be not an effective leader, did not respect boundaries, did not treat all staff equitably, was not a capable instructional leader or communicator, and generally caused the school atmosphere to degrade both in teaching and staff relationships. This was an opinion that was formed over the many years of this principle being present at my influential teacher's school and was a similar opinion to many of her fellow educators within the same school. We talked about how having a principal with these poor qualities would affect the teachers and the students learning and how it is important for all the adults in any school to be on the same page with regards to communication and professionalism.
We talked about her personal evolution within the education system with regards to how she went from traveling from class to class with a small container of resources to having her own classroom with her own Smart Board and many other necessities all teachers should have. "It was a difficult way of teaching because I could not bring charts and visuals with me for the kids to learn from for at least 8 years." Since she has had her French classroom she sees a big difference in how children learn because they can come into the French environment where there are french visual charts and they can respond to the routines and structure that she's established is in the classroom.
I found it very enlightening to have this conversation with a former teacher of mine now that I am considering continuing in a similar stream. When I was being taught by her, I was very young and did not think anything of her rather than just being my French teacher. So many years later, it was wonderful to sit down and discuss not only who she is outside of the classroom but who she is as a person and how she has grown throughout her career.
St. George's Catholic Elementary School Visit
Today's visit to St. George's Catholic Elementary school was probably one of the most enjoyable educational excursions that I have been on. Being in a classroom and not necessarily being the "student" but rather the "teacher" or "adult figure" was very exciting. I found Dr. Benedicts methods of getting the children's undivided attention through music was very effective, however, there were a few students who struggled to sit still and keep quiet. In the situation where the child was not behaving as appropriate as his classmates, Dr. Benedict did not provide the student with more attention but rather told him discretely and sternly to knock it off in which case the child modified his behaviour. I noticed that most of the children were outgoing but there were a few invisible students that did not put themselves out there as much as the other kids. The little girl that was partnered up with me was one of those invisible students because when she had answers she didn't raise her hand or say anything loudly enough for anyone to hear her. I interacted with that specific student in an outgoing and upbeat way in hopes that she would mirror my behaviour. Although she did pick up on my excitement, my method did not work out as best as I had hoped. She was a lovely girl who gave me an unexpected goodbye hug which made me realize that adults have a very strong influence on children even if they only meet them momentarily. I also noticed that there was a student with down syndrome in this specific class and I was pleased to see how the students treated her as if there was nothing different about her in a negative way. They involved her always in our musical activities and had lots of fun with her and she received that well for the most part. Overall, I believe that this class was very well behaved and they seemed to really enjoy the musical games and our visit. I learned a lot from them and this experience and it is a great opportunity to have when attempting to plan out my future career. This trip helped me realize that becoming a teacher is definitely something I am interested in doing. I look forward to doing more trips similar to this.
Today's visit to St. George's Catholic Elementary school was probably one of the most enjoyable educational excursions that I have been on. Being in a classroom and not necessarily being the "student" but rather the "teacher" or "adult figure" was very exciting. I found Dr. Benedicts methods of getting the children's undivided attention through music was very effective, however, there were a few students who struggled to sit still and keep quiet. In the situation where the child was not behaving as appropriate as his classmates, Dr. Benedict did not provide the student with more attention but rather told him discretely and sternly to knock it off in which case the child modified his behaviour. I noticed that most of the children were outgoing but there were a few invisible students that did not put themselves out there as much as the other kids. The little girl that was partnered up with me was one of those invisible students because when she had answers she didn't raise her hand or say anything loudly enough for anyone to hear her. I interacted with that specific student in an outgoing and upbeat way in hopes that she would mirror my behaviour. Although she did pick up on my excitement, my method did not work out as best as I had hoped. She was a lovely girl who gave me an unexpected goodbye hug which made me realize that adults have a very strong influence on children even if they only meet them momentarily. I also noticed that there was a student with down syndrome in this specific class and I was pleased to see how the students treated her as if there was nothing different about her in a negative way. They involved her always in our musical activities and had lots of fun with her and she received that well for the most part. Overall, I believe that this class was very well behaved and they seemed to really enjoy the musical games and our visit. I learned a lot from them and this experience and it is a great opportunity to have when attempting to plan out my future career. This trip helped me realize that becoming a teacher is definitely something I am interested in doing. I look forward to doing more trips similar to this.
Student/Teacher Perspectives
There are things that students and teachers at the elementary level agree with and disagree with. I was able to sit down and interview three Elementary School students and one Elementary School teacher separately to gain information on their lives and how they got to where they are today. The first big difference between interviewing a teacher and a student is the age gap. Students at the elementary level are young children where teachers at the elementary level are adults. This would be different if I were to have interviewed students and teachers at universities or high schools. The age difference causes for a lot of differentiating opinions on how they view classroom behaviours, whether or not they appreciate their schools, how games and events can be enjoyable in the classroom setting, and what they think are the benefits of Education.
All interviewees agreed on the issue that all teachers are entitled to have their own classroom. For French and music teachers, usually at one point in their careers, they would travel to and from Children's Home Room classes to teach. All of the interviewees agreed on the fact that a teacher who teaches French or music or any subject should have their own classroom because it helps with the learning process. The students talked about how there was more space to do hands-on learning such as playing with instruments or learning games with each other. The teacher I interviewed talked about how for many years she had to travel from class to class with a small bucket of limited supplies but now that she's had her own classroom for about 10 years she's noticed a drastic difference in the children's ability to learn.
Another topic is that both the students and the teacher intersected positively upon was the joy of learning through games and activities. The teacher I interviewed expresses how her most enjoyed moments of teaching was coordinating French carnivals and French cafe activities annually. These teach students about actual French culture and was a positive learning experience for the students and herself. The students mentioned how they all enjoyed playing educational games in their music class. Although they all said they didn't learn about the musical elements, they enjoy singing and playing musical games with each other.
The main difference I noticed between all of my interviewees was simply the lack of students who acknowledge what is put into the education they receive. I interviewed children who are very young so I didn't expect them to have a broad understanding on the school system but it was very obvious that none of them took into consideration how much work is actually put into how they're educated. Speaking to my teacher interviewee, she had a lot of insightful thoughts on her evolution as a teacher and what she went through to become a teacher. Majority of the students this age disregard the background knowledge and wisdom that teachers have. I believe that as the students reach a high school age they will hopefully understand the positives and negatives that go into what it is to be a teacher.
It is very interesting to see the differences and the similarities between the young mind of a student and the wise mind of an educator.
There are things that students and teachers at the elementary level agree with and disagree with. I was able to sit down and interview three Elementary School students and one Elementary School teacher separately to gain information on their lives and how they got to where they are today. The first big difference between interviewing a teacher and a student is the age gap. Students at the elementary level are young children where teachers at the elementary level are adults. This would be different if I were to have interviewed students and teachers at universities or high schools. The age difference causes for a lot of differentiating opinions on how they view classroom behaviours, whether or not they appreciate their schools, how games and events can be enjoyable in the classroom setting, and what they think are the benefits of Education.
All interviewees agreed on the issue that all teachers are entitled to have their own classroom. For French and music teachers, usually at one point in their careers, they would travel to and from Children's Home Room classes to teach. All of the interviewees agreed on the fact that a teacher who teaches French or music or any subject should have their own classroom because it helps with the learning process. The students talked about how there was more space to do hands-on learning such as playing with instruments or learning games with each other. The teacher I interviewed talked about how for many years she had to travel from class to class with a small bucket of limited supplies but now that she's had her own classroom for about 10 years she's noticed a drastic difference in the children's ability to learn.
Another topic is that both the students and the teacher intersected positively upon was the joy of learning through games and activities. The teacher I interviewed expresses how her most enjoyed moments of teaching was coordinating French carnivals and French cafe activities annually. These teach students about actual French culture and was a positive learning experience for the students and herself. The students mentioned how they all enjoyed playing educational games in their music class. Although they all said they didn't learn about the musical elements, they enjoy singing and playing musical games with each other.
The main difference I noticed between all of my interviewees was simply the lack of students who acknowledge what is put into the education they receive. I interviewed children who are very young so I didn't expect them to have a broad understanding on the school system but it was very obvious that none of them took into consideration how much work is actually put into how they're educated. Speaking to my teacher interviewee, she had a lot of insightful thoughts on her evolution as a teacher and what she went through to become a teacher. Majority of the students this age disregard the background knowledge and wisdom that teachers have. I believe that as the students reach a high school age they will hopefully understand the positives and negatives that go into what it is to be a teacher.
It is very interesting to see the differences and the similarities between the young mind of a student and the wise mind of an educator.