Brian Buechele

Dr. Talbot
MUS149
27 April 2020
Assignment 8

Question

How can we change the models of music education to become more relevant to our student’s

experiences in and out of school?

Description

Educators are constantly changing their classrooms and constantly changing how to

better help students. No one student is the same and educators need to be flexible to adhere to

this change. The models of education have been outlined by the course’s texts: Pedagogy of the

Oppressed, To Teach: The Journey in Comics, Compassionate Music Teaching, and Teaching as

a Subversive activity. Through these texts the models of education, but specifically music

education showcase how to be a successful music teacher. Models of compassion, the inquiry

method, the banking system, languaging, and co-creation are all brought up throughout these

texts and all play an important role in describing a music teacher that creates a creative and safe

environment that enables learning. Educators use these tools and models to help them better

understand the students and how they enjoy learning. Using these models or modifications of

them, educators can have a better understanding of how students learn and can create

connections with the students in the classroom.

In my skit, The Teacher’s Lounge, the characters were written to display a certain model

showcased in the four texts mentioned above. Also, this was a parody of the popular

mockumentary television series, The Office (U.S.). The three characters, James, Dwayne, and

Scott, are all based on characters from the show Jim, Dwight, and Michael Scott (respectively).
The skit is a satire of a satire that was supposed to showcase the lives of everyday office

workers, showing the idiosyncrasies that occur in the workplace and almost point out the flaws

of working in such an environment. The skit tries to do the same with a teaching environment,

however, it is more focused on the ideas of teaching models and how they can be perceived and

implemented by different teachers.

The character Dwayne was based off of the Banking method, outlined by Freire,

“Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the

teacher is the depositor.” (Freire, 1970, p.72.) This is emphasized in the dialogue between the

characters James and Dwayne where Dwyane talks about how he controls his classroom and how

he deposits the information of notes and has students reiterate the notes without any reason.

Dwayne displays how he rules with fear. The students are stripped of their creativity, a principle

voiced by Freire:

The capability of banking education to minimize or annul the students’ creative

power and to simulate their credulity serves the interests of the oppressors, who

care neither to have the world revealed nor to see it transformed. (p.73.)

The character's interaction with his fellow teachers and the way that he talks to the students

reveals that he is in fact a firm believer of this method.

Scott Michael is a character that showcases the ideas and models brought up in the books

Compassionate Music Teaching and Teaching as a Subversive Activity. Scott, similar to his

documentary counterpart, tries to build on the methods and ideas of the Inquiry method,

community, authentic connection, and languaging in his classroom but it becomes inappropriate

as he crosses some lines. As Hendricks states in her book:

 The “stress-free environment” recommended by Rzonsa certainly does not mean

“challenge-free.” Otherwise, there would be no true growth or “flow”

experiences, and therefore no real enjoyment. (Hendricks, 2018, p. 126.)

This outlines the way that Scott runs his classroom, an extreme version of how a successful

classroom can be run. Scott also goes way beyond what is allowed by a teacher in how he tries to

connect with his students. Scott tries to challenge these models to try to create a more authentic

connection with his students, but for the wrong reasons. Scott is not all too concerned with if the

students are learning well but rather how the students feel when they are in his classroom. Scott

tries to incorporate language, an idea brought up in Postman and Weingartner’s book Teaching

as a Subversive Activity to try to better connect with the students. The teacher is obviously trying

to change his classroom and build on these models but is struggling to do so in some ways.

Speaking of languaging, throughout the script it is seen how Dwayne will use possessive

language such as “my students” throughout. While the character James does not create this

divide between the students by being mindful of his language, James does not create a “us” and

“them” narrative between himself and the students. This also allows for there not to be a power

gap between the teacher and the students.

James tries to use all of these models and tries to further the use of them as well. James

tries to focus his teaching on creating a co-constructive environment. This is all evident through

James’ dialogue with his co-workers. James waits patiently to listen to how they run their classes

asking them questions to better understand where they are coming from and why they are doing

these things in their classroom. James focuses on change in the classroom, an ideal expressed by

Postman and Weingartner while they talk about the inquiry method:
 The inquiry method is not designed to do better what older environments try to

do. It works you over in entirely different ways. It activates different senses,

attitudes, and perceptions; it generates a different, bolder, and more potent kind of

intelligence. Thus, it will cause teachers, and their tests, and their grading

systems, and their curriculums to change.” (Postman & Weingartner, 1969,

p. 27.)

The reason this was included was to showcase how a classroom and a teacher need to change to

incorporate the students into the classroom setting. In the skit, James does not go into much

detail outlining how he can expand the ideas of this model, and others, to make the class material

more relevant to students inside and outside of the classroom. However, using the inquiry

method and having a dialogue with students, both who are exceeding in the classroom and who

are struggling, will help make changes in the classroom that can benefit all of the students. James

is the culmination of the models and tries to put them to use to try and connect with the students

in his class. This is not saying that James is perfect, no teacher is, and this is emphasized by the

idea of the inquiry method and that everything has to change in a classroom. Music teaching is

driven by the students and the teacher, both creating a unique environment that excites both

parties to learn and enjoy learning. The skit and script are a rough synthesis of all of the texts we

have read throughout the course. The acting may not be great, but it was fun to film. It was an

experience that, I believe, was to further the understanding of each book’s concepts and models

and how they can be used in a successful classroom.

Work Cited

Ayers, W., & Alexander-Tanner, R. (2010). To teach: The journey in comics. New York, NY:

Teachers College.
 Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Bloomsbury

Academic.

Hendricks S., K. (2018). Compassionate Music Teaching: A Framework for

Motivation and Engagement in the 21st Century.

Postman, N., & Weingartner, C. (1969). Teaching as a subversive activity. New York, NY:

Delacorte Press.

I affirm that I have upheld the highest principles of honesty and integrity in my academic work
and have not witnessed a violation of the Honor Code.

-Brian Buechele