Broderick Lemke

October 30, 2016

EDUC 316
Teaching With Respect Old Principles for New Times

The Wisconsin Music Educators Association convention provided many great sessions on

various elements of music education. While many sessions were directly applicable to band and

provided a great deal of information, one of the most informative and thought provoking was

provided by Stephen Sieck on the topic of respect. The session was about the topic of respect in

general and although he applied many concepts to a choral setting the information is equally as

pressing in the instrumental music classroom.

Dr. Sieck discussed many examples of ways in which educators often fail to serve their

students properly. He started off by assuming that everybody in the room wanted to teach

everyone and respect everyone as guiding principles, two things that I feel every educator needs

to have. Off of these premises he built an argument about how to truly respect our students. He

used a really helpful analogy to explain this point. If we imagine respecting others means treating

others how we would want to be treated we can see a flaw many people encounter. Imagine a

person with no dietary restrictions and a vegetarian, someone who does not eat meat. The person

who is not a vegetarian may love a steak and feel that is a great way to show someone they are

appreciated and gives one to the vegetarian, wanting them to be treated how he would like to be

treated. Not only is this not helpful to the vegetarian, it would also make them feel incredibly

disrespected. He said instead we should realize that everyone is different and they want respect,

but the way that they want respect to be given may be different than how we are used to wanting

it.
 The session leader continued his presentation by presenting several key concepts relating

to inequalities in the classroom. Positionality refers to the position of one group to another,

generally in terms of gender, race or identity. He also describes a Dominant Narrative related to

this concept, there is a group that is in a better positon (rich, white, straight men) and their story

is the one most often told. This is clearly evident in the field of music history in which we see

many white male composers yet we would struggle to come up with a list of female composers,

black composers and especially black female composers. One way in which we can counter this

in the music classroom is by making sure that we represent all people in our curriculum. As

directors we can be sure to program female and black composers so that all students can see

people like them succeeding in the field.

Dr. Sieck also discusses heteronormativity which is the idea that the dominant world

view promotes heterosexuality as the norm or preferred sexual orientation. This is prevalent

through the teachers language especially concerning romantic (emotion, not the era) pieces. It is

more inclusive to use phrases such as Why would Shakespeare write this poem for his

beloved? rather than Why would Shakespeare write this poem for the woman he loved? That

is just an example, but whenever text is involved using a gender-neutral term can allow students

to picture themselves in the situation more easily and provide answers more easily and

understand concepts more fully. Professor Sieck also mentioned the importance of pointing out

the fact that some composers are gay, in fact many mainstream composers are but they sexuality

is often glanced over. Franz Schubert, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Francis Poulenc, Peter

Illyich Tchaikovsky, Arcangelo Corelli, Samuel Barber and Benjamin Britten were gay, yet that

is rarely mentioned when their works are performed. This little bit of information helps to flush
out their motivations in life and composition, as well as allows students to know there are people

in the field who are like them and makes them feel safe and more powerful.

Finally, on the topic of World Music the speaker cautioned us on our programming. It

is wonderful and important to explore the music from around the world, but it is not an easy

thing to do ethically. In order to program a piece of world music there should be pedagogical

reasons beyond its origins for teaching it otherwise we are using their culture for entertainment.

Simply using another group for entertainment was something done by minstrel groups in black

face through America, something that is highly frowned upon today for moral reasons. It is

necessary we research these pieces to make sure we are avoiding simply using the groups for our

entertainment. Additionally we must understand the text and the connotations of it. For example,

if a foreign exchange student came to America and wanted a piece of music that every American

knew and we said Jingle Bells and they took that back to their land, lifting it up as a piece of

American music and performing it on their summer concert it would not fit with our use of that

song. It would also be upsetting that our country was being known musically for that rather than

other songs that are more impactful to many people. Along these same lines we could pick a

German folk song such as Hoch auf dem gelben Wagen which seems to be a fine choice based

on the music alone. However, looking at the history of the piece, it was used in concentration

camps as the Nazi soldiers forced Jewish concentration camp prisoners to sing it repeatedly. This

would continue for hours, the prisoners being whipped and tortured if the sang notes wrong, sang

too quietly or too loudly, and the duration of singing would leave them often unable to speak

afterwards. A simple folk song like this cannot be programed without serious ethical dilemma

after knowing this piece of information. While this is a vocal piece, other pieces we may find in

the instrumental repertoire could have equally dark pasts we must be aware of.
 How do we go about approaching these issues in the classroom? The professor offered

these lists of guidelines and I think they are an excellent summary of all of his points and is a

great tool when planning a program including world music (as well as religious pieces) and

teaching about race:

Strategies for respectful engagement with world music:

1. Acknowledge the playing field is tilted.

2. Decide why or why not to include music outside your experience.

3. If you decide to perform it, leave a lot of time.

4. Get help from experts.

5. Stay focused on your curricular goal.

6. Look at relationships and power with clear eyes.

7. Name power differentials clearly.

8. Ask yourself how you are representing others.

9. Leave a LOT of time for finding good repertoire.

10. Guide your musicians toward respectful behavior.

Strategies for inclusive teaching and race:

1. Look at music by or about African-Americans as music, not entertainment.

2. Apply the same level of study to all music.

3. Dont parrot performance style.

4. What is your curricular goal?

5. Support African-American composers.