Music Education
Annotated Bibliography #2
Cathy Benedict
Jordan McDonald
Dawe, L. (2016). Fumbling Towards Vulnerability: Moving Out of the Familiar for Music Education’s Sake, Canadian Music Educator, (57)2, pp.22-24
In this reading I was particularly interested in the idea of embracing vulnerability. As humans I think we often try to find whatever is most comfortable and try our best to maintain that feeling for as long as possible. I myself find that whenever I’m faced with unfamiliar or uncomfortable experiences I try my best to avoid them. This has always been a crutch I’ve tried to move past as a student. This has been a personal problem for me when trying to learn a new piano song for example. I’ll focus heavily on material I’ve already gone over and am familiar with, avoiding and procrastinating going over material I’m unfamiliar with. Moving a step further we can see how this affects teachers. It is hard to break from traditional ways of teaching and the formal structures so many of us are taught. However, just as it is detrimental for us as students, it is quite harmful as teachers. As a teacher you are responsible for so many students each of who responds to different learning strategies. If you only teach one way because it is familiar and comfortable, you loose the potential to engage and help as many students as possible learn the course material. Some people learn best by visual methods, some by aural, verbal etc. Finding a way of teaching that incorporates as many of these as possible requires experimentation and experience in teaching a variety of ways. We need that vulnerability of the unfamiliar to better ourselves through learning as well as through teaching.
Annotated Bibliography #2
Cathy Benedict
Jordan McDonald
Dawe, L. (2016). Fumbling Towards Vulnerability: Moving Out of the Familiar for Music Education’s Sake, Canadian Music Educator, (57)2, pp.22-24
In this reading I was particularly interested in the idea of embracing vulnerability. As humans I think we often try to find whatever is most comfortable and try our best to maintain that feeling for as long as possible. I myself find that whenever I’m faced with unfamiliar or uncomfortable experiences I try my best to avoid them. This has always been a crutch I’ve tried to move past as a student. This has been a personal problem for me when trying to learn a new piano song for example. I’ll focus heavily on material I’ve already gone over and am familiar with, avoiding and procrastinating going over material I’m unfamiliar with. Moving a step further we can see how this affects teachers. It is hard to break from traditional ways of teaching and the formal structures so many of us are taught. However, just as it is detrimental for us as students, it is quite harmful as teachers. As a teacher you are responsible for so many students each of who responds to different learning strategies. If you only teach one way because it is familiar and comfortable, you loose the potential to engage and help as many students as possible learn the course material. Some people learn best by visual methods, some by aural, verbal etc. Finding a way of teaching that incorporates as many of these as possible requires experimentation and experience in teaching a variety of ways. We need that vulnerability of the unfamiliar to better ourselves through learning as well as through teaching.