1

BRIDGING THE GAP

Chapter One -The Beginning

This dissertation is a description of how I as a music teacher, intended to try and get closer to knowing how my year nine students feel about music and their music lessons. I wanted to be able to revitalize their music lessons by updating a small part of the year nine curriculum in order to enable me to motivate my students more. I wanted to improve the negative attitude that some of my year nine students have towards music lessons. This negativity is demonstrated particularly in the months shortly after they have gone through the GCSE options process, and the majority have decided not to study music at GCSE level. Particularly, I also wanted to bridge the gap between the interests that my pupils have in todays pop music and the knowledge that I have of classical music and popular music, which I know my pupils regard as old hat. These thought processes had mulled around in my head for more than two years. I can remember teaching a group of year 9 pupils during the summer term of that year (2003), my NQT year. I did not write any sort of journal entry at the time, but the comments by a year nine class hit home and I began to doubt whether my subject was relevant to them by this stage. I have never forgotten the feeling of inadequacy I had at the time. I had started a project with year nine pupils on music for the moving image. We watched several film clips and replaced the original music with something unsuitable, something that was opposite to the mood than was originally intended. The most interesting of these was the clip from Pretty Woman when the character played by Richard Gere is talking to the hotel manager about his dinner reservation with the character played by Julia Roberts. The original music, a rather slushy and sentimental score intending to represent the restaurant piano player, was replaced with another piece. This piece of music was the

2 shower murder scene music from Psycho. The whole mood of the film clip was changed implying that the Richard Gere character was in fact, hatching a plot to kill the Julia Roberts character. This was supposed to demonstrate to the pupils how film music was there to enhance and define the mood of the visual image. Getting some response from some of the pupils was impossible and a group of girls had quite decided not to do anything at all. When I asked Why? they answered (my words) This is all such a waste of time, we dont know why we have to do music now when we know we havent chosen it for GCSE, and its not useful. I was nearly speechless but tried to defend my subject as best I could. I realise now, with a couple of more years of experience that I would be able to deal with the situation better. But quite frankly at the time I did not know what to do. This is what has prompted me to improve my content, delivery and techniques for year nine pupils.

I can remember feeling very frustrated at the time. In reality the pupils were behaving pretty badly and I should have sanctioned this particular group for calculated idleness a type one misdemeanour, on the schools blue slip system. I did not however, as they were not being rowdy or a nuisance in any other way. So I left them alone and taught the pupils who were trying to access the work. This situation has stayed with me ever since and I have vowed not to let it happen again. I feel in retrospect that I should have taken more action and that I took the easy way out. There has, mercifully, never been an occasion since, when pupils have flatly refused to do work. However, I am always conscious of a proportion of the class who regard some of the tasks I set them, irrelevant to their needs and try to do as little as possible, which sometimes ends up with them being disruptive. This of course can impact on the whole class so that even those pupils who are wanting to progress, are prevented from doing so, because my time may be taking up in dealing with bad behaviour.

3 This year I have felt that overall, the attitude and general behaviour of the year nine classes is better than I have known before. I have asked myself, is it because I have a little more experience with this group? Or is it that they are indeed a better behaved set?

During the time I was trying to finalise the topic for my dissertation, I gave my two colleagues in the music department, a short questionnaire. My feelings about the behaviour of the current year nine groups prompted me to ask questions about their attitudes to this years cohort. Appendix Both colleagues have been teaching for about 10 years. I will refer to them as A and B. One question I asked in the questionnaire was; Have the attitudes of year nine pupils to music altered during your teaching career? A replied; Yes on the whole they have improved in behaviour I got a fuller answer from B; In some ways. The majority still work well and enjoy the subject, some wish to move on to GCSE style work early, and others see it as an irrelevance. I do feel that there is less not bothered, giving it up soon than my other experiences, but Im not sure if it is down to my teaching or an ever expanding mandatory KS4 curriculum It is interesting to note that B has also wondered if his teaching techniques may have something to do with the difference in attitude. Both colleagues have expressed a desire for updating the curriculum for year nine.

I asked; What strategies do you have for maintaining the interest of year nine pupils in music? Their answers both contained the word fun and the use of the phrase from B; contemporary music and from A: modern styles.

4 These answers both reflect a conversation I had with a boy in year nine last year.

Journal Entry Fun; Whilst queuing outside for their lesson, a year 9 boy asked what are we doing today. We will be on the keyboards I replied. Great! he said but doesnt that mean that we have done all the fun things this term and that the rest of the year wont be? (We spent the first half term using computers to sequence in some music, which they all enjoyed) He obviously equates anything outside the normal classroom as fun Why cant there be fun when working in the classroom environment as well? Something I will have to pursue (November 9th 2005). The music department is also exploring qualifications other than GCSE to discover if their inclusion in the curriculum may be feasible. I had intended to include this search within the remit of this study. Unfortunately I feel that to do a feasibility study in this area justice, would require a much greater time span than I have, so I have chosen leave this for another time. Nevertheless this exploration is ongoing in the department from now and I may be able to transfer some of the ideas and teaching methods that are suggested into my own teaching style. It is difficult to ascertain precisely what ones teaching style is, but I feel that my approaches are probably rooted in my upbringing and education. With this in mind, in the following chapter I explore aspects of my biography both familial and educational. The following chapter is a fairly detailed biography that sets out to demonstrate my roots and how they have made me the person and more importantly in this context, the teacher I am today.

Chapter Two - Biography

I have written the whole dissertation in the first person and I was urged to be aware of the self within the whole writing process. Therefore I needed to know who this self is. What is it that has made me the person I am now? Why do I have the outlook that I have? Was my outlook changed by events that I examined and was part of? It is impossible to stand outside oneself, but I hope by exploring my background that I can identify the influences that have shaped me. My tutor has referred to this construction of the self as a bag of selves. I have to explore my background to begin to look at some of the experiences that have made me the person I am. I know myself enough to know that my education, career to date, working surroundings and indeed my formative family years have been fairly conformist in nature and I know I have found it strange when I come across people who do not conform. Originally I wrote that I can be intolerant about non conformists within this sentence, but writing a sentence about intolerance made me sound stern, unforgiving and many other negative adjectives. I hope I am not any of those things. My feelings about myself are that I am friendly and able to get on well with my peers and students. I feel I have good interpersonal skills as Gardner (1983) describes in his multiple intelligences (Moon & Shelton Mayes, p 43). The strangeness that I refer to is being in a situation where I meet pupils who are not so lucky to have had a comfortable, safe and secure childhood. I know that some of the pupils I teach are not brought up as I was to respect authority. They are possibly resentful rather than respectful of authority. I know that I been very fortunate throughout my life. I had a loving family who were delighted with my musical talent and supported my progress when possibly they could not afford to. I went to a good school, studied part time at a prestigious musical conservatoire (Royal Manchester College of Music) from the age of nine. After I had completed my A levels I trained as a piano accompanist at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) 1973-1977, gaining my first degree. My career after the RNCM was as an accompanist

6 for singers and musicians. I would be required to play for auditions, rehearsals and concerts, for anyone who would care to pay me. Fairly quickly into my career, I became that strange creature, the ballet pianist. My first professional job was as Company Pianist with the Northern Ballet Theatre. This involved touring England to various theatres playing for rehearsals and performances and the daily ballet class, where my skills as an improvising musician were honed and developed. This ability to improvise kept me fed over the next 24 years as I continued to accompany musicians and dancers. I began to work for the Northern Ballet School, a further education college for professional dancers and dance teachers, and became Head of Music. My role was that of accompanist for all types of classes, rehearsals, performances and examinations. I was also asked to create a course of music appreciation classes for dancers and this is where my first experience of teaching was gained. In 1983 I acquired my City and Guilds Further Education Teaching Certificate as I realised I needed some teacher training. I continued to teach and play at the school eventually developing a curriculum in line with the governments Dance and Drama awards for students. It was at this point that I realised that the teaching I did, meant more to me than my playing and prompted me to take advantage of the governments generous payment of six thousand pounds to study for my PGCE in music teaching, at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU). I write this detail about my career to demonstrate that although I am from humble beginnings myself, I had, probably due to my musical education and career up to this point, been in rather an elitist environment. It therefore came as a culture shock to me when I walked into my Base A (2001) placement during my PGCE and I had to try to control the effers and jeffers who had no respect for authority, this was incidentally a good school in the middle of Cheshire. I appreciate that some of the pupils I encounter have extremely difficult backgrounds whether through poverty or simply family situations. This part of society is something I had not encountered before. These pupils can

7 sometimes be the most rewarding to teach, but I have not found it easy. I have also had to encounter pupils who can barely read or write, something I had definitely not encountered before mainstream teaching. I have in fact begun to appreciate how useful music lessons can be to some of these pupils. They may be able to succeed just as much as their more able peers in creating music. Sometimes though it has been disappointing to prepare a lesson and have it received with apathy because the pupils may have initially perceived my musical examples or the topic as boring. I have never been less than enthusiastic about my subject. However I need to be able to reach and excite pupils in my subject and open their ears to music that they may not have not heard before. I have been married for 22 years to a man who is neither a professional musician nor a teacher. In many ways this has been a blessing as I have been able to leave my job outside the front door. He found my life as a musician very bizarre. The fact that someone could be paid to make music I think was a quite peculiar concept. He made my career change possible as he was able to support the family financially. My jump to mainstream education has made him even more bewildered, he says I now talk in a completely different language and use many more long words (and expletives!) than I used to. However he is still very supportive and has been useful as a proof reader. Over the years he has supported me in my career and helped me bring up our two daughters now aged 20 and 18. The girls have been subjected to lots of music making in our house. They have also had to listen to me practising some pieces of music, which even I found a bit odd. They did the usual piano, violin and flute lessons that children do, but neither had the desire to make a career in that direction. Probably a good thing because a career in the arts can be difficult and not always very well paid. They now fill the house with their own music and advise me what is current and what is not.

8 I need now to describe in detail my educational background because this obviously has a bearing on my present outlook. I passed my 11 plus and went to an all girls grammar school, complete with gabardine and berets! However, that is not to say I was the perfect student at school, I was not. Those subjects I found easy, I excelled in and those I did not, I was lazy in. I was also a chatterbox and often in trouble for it. I also joined the smoking in the loos set. Big mistake! I only joined in to be one of the crowd and did not finally shake the habit until I was in my 20s. Here is an example of peer pressure that adolescents find themselves in, and of myself trying to find an identity within the group I considered to be attractive. (I write about this identity formation in chapter 13.) Nevertheless, despite these aberrations, I was and still am very respectful of authority and I would never have dreamt of being overtly rude to a member of staff, be they head teacher or cleaner. In reflecting on my story so far, I can see a pattern emerging in my writing. I keep referring to respect. I obviously hold this in high esteem. Do I want to be respected so badly? I have just finished reading Lynn Trusss book (2005), Talk to the Hand. She refers to the world changing and that people do not respect each other any more, but just respect the belongings or stuff that they own. She talks about the end of deference and that in deference to is out of respect for; in consideration of (2005.154) I fully concur with her thinking. I mean by this statement that I feel that there is much less consideration of other peoples points of view and that society in general has become very selfish. Maybe I am just very old fashioned. I include these statements to highlight how I feel that many pupils in school do generally not defer to authority, they are not frightened to challenge and confront and are unhappy if they feel that their immediate needs are not being met. Since leaving MMU I have been working in a very large comprehensive school with a sixth form and I am now into my fourth year of teaching. I have found, to my surprise that I enjoy working with the much younger end of the school much more than I thought I would, having worked in a

9 post sixteen environment for so long. I enjoy the enthusiasm that Year Seven and Year Eight students have for music generally. I am acutely aware however, that there is quite a large proportion of the Year Nine students that I teach who lost their enthusiasm for music and see it as an irrelevance to them and of no help to their future career. I want to improve my practice with these students and feel that trying to approach music teaching using more popular music styles and methods may achieve the results I wish. This is that students in year nine continue to enjoy music right through to the end of Key Stage Three and gain some skills in some of the other things music lessons can offer, alongside purely those of theory and practical musicianship.

I think it is fairly clear that my career has been very classically biased. Although my subject knowledge in this area is very firm, I nevertheless have had to get to grips straightaway with World Music and the popular music that the government include in the National Curriculum (NC, 1988). These are areas I am not so familiar with, and I have been on a steep learning curve ever since. I know I do not have a wide knowledge of popular music. When I was in my teenage years, those years when many of my contemporaries were out buying the latest chart albums, I was probably purchasing the latest recording of Mozart piano sonatas by Alfred Brendel. I make no excuses; it is just where my interest lay at the time. I did have a brief crush on Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues and obtained some of their albums and had their posters on my bedroom wall, but this was a short-lived departure from my classical diet.

As part of my career as an accompanist and dance accompanist I had to learn to play in a jazz style and occasionally I had to reproduce popular music on the piano, but this is no substitute for listening to Radio One or watching Top of the Pops regularly. Therefore since becoming a

10 Secondary school teacher, I have had to broaden my purview considerably and have been on a huge learning curve. I have had to quickly address the deficiency in my knowledge of popular music in order to teach the listening paper of AS Music Technology. This involves questions on the genres and recording techniques of popular music alongside the more familiar territory of musical analysis, both aural and written. However, music is music, and the basic concepts do not change. In fact the more I know, the more I can relate popular styles to those of many years and indeed centuries ago. It is not that I dislike popular music. However I do not favour any particular genre over another but I enjoy what I feel is good well constructed music be it reggae, rap or heavy metal. Like any other listener I enjoy something that is entertaining, catchy and enjoyable. My difficulty is that I do not have that instant catalogue recall of who recorded what song when. I really feel that trying to approach music teaching using more popular music styles and methods may begin to achieve the results I wish. I want the pupils to have ownership of their learning and become independent learners. There is an educational phrase or two of note! Music lessons, as I discuss in chapter six Music as a Subject in School, use an approach that constantly gives the opportunity for students to develop these independent learning skills. So I need to decide what I am going to do to achieve my goals to change the curriculum a little and to update my approach. Although I do appreciate that not everything will have a happy ending or that this will be a victory narrative as my tutor describes. I hope I will be able to judge at the end of this exactly what I have achieved.

It is important that I look beyond my own thoughts and explore how other teachers respond to situations like my own. The following chapter looks at some research and writings that offer some similar thoughts and ideas to the ones I am having.

11

The Outside World

I have discovered, by accessing a selection of educational journals, that there are other music teachers in the profession who feel the same way I do. There have been research projects which contain some of the same questions I am asking. It appears there is a consensus amongst music teachers not only in this country, but also world wide, that this particular age group are feeling that music lessons are not for them. Studies have been done over many years. As far back as 1968 a survey Young School Leavers was made by the Schools Council. According to pupils questioned then, music was judged to be an irrelevancy in their school experience. The Schools Council concluded at this time that music teachers needed to develop new ways of working (Schools Council, 1968). It appears that there has been a problem of relevancy within the music classroom for some time now and that I am not alone in wanting to bridge the gap as the title of my dissertation states. The following writers give examples of how they researched the attitudes of pupils within music classrooms and some of the ideas that they had to improve their pupils perceptions of music. The study completed by North et al (2000), investigates exactly why adolescents listen to and perform music, this focussed specifically on year nine pupils. Reference in this report is made to music lessons that are less appropriate and engaging to secondary pupils (ibid, 2000:256). The report cites data collected in the USA on the extent of musical consumption by teenagers. One question in the American study asked why students listened to music and the answers were as follows: relieve tension, distract themselves from worries, help pass the time and relieve boredom (ibid, 2000:257). This prompted me to include a question in a questionnaire to my pupils asking why they listen to music. North et al (2000) also discovered that the music that the adolescents chose became a means of forming their identities. This construction of an identity through music choices is a very interesting concept.

12 I wrote a journal entry about my own identity; Journal Entry musical identity March 2006 Do I have a musical identity? If you had asked me last week I would have said No however having researched and read around the subject in reference to my students, I have begun to realise that I have. In fact I probably have more than one identity depending on whether you are friend, family, former colleague or present pupil. If you asked my friends and family they would say that I liked all sorts of music and although I favour classical music I do like and enjoy jazz and pop. My pupils would probably say that I am classical musician and that my identity was sensible and ordinary. They are quite surprised therefore when I say that I like a certain piece of pop music. Do you miss? they ask, obviously intrigued that I can like something that they do. What my musical identity does not do, unlike my pupils, is to influence the way I dress. Or does it? I wonder. My musical tastes are fairly catholic in both fields of classical music and popular styles. However, I probably only like popular music that is well known and fairly mainstream. I consider that I dress in a fairly classic way. Nothing startling, nothing wacky. I fit in! Does that mean that I have an identity? I think it probably means I do. I dress fairly conservatively, and definitely unfashionably, particularly in school. Therefore I most probably present an image that is not fashionable to my students but acceptable to them as my persona of a teacher. On the other hand if I tried to dress in the way my students do, I would not only look ridiculous, but I think I would put off my students. I may look as though I wanted to encroach on their territory. A member of staff in my school calls teachers who try to do this, and he says he has known quite a few, as blenders. He feels that members of staff should not try to be a students friend, but should maintain a professional distance. I agree with his point of view that in you can be friendly towards your students but not necessarily their friend. Pupils can be distrustful of adults who try to cross that particular line. Having given my own musical identity some thought, I feel that I need to ask my pupils whether they think that they have a musical identity. I did not include this question in the first questionnaire that I gave them which asked students questions about their attitudes to music lessons and their own tastes, but I included it in questionnaire number two and also held a

13 discussion on the question of identity with some students. I write in more detail about this data in a later a chapter. The study by North et al (2000) provided some very useful material which helped give me some ideas from which to construct my first questionnaire for my students. (Appendix) Interestingly the researchers gave the pupils a questionnaire under test conditions, ensuring that the pupils did not speak to each other. This is an idea that I also adopted because I wanted the pupils to have the opportunity to express their own thoughts and not be influenced by the answers proffered by their friends In her study of Polish high school students, Szubertowska (2000) found that Music and Art were not compulsory subjects in the country at the time. The author only studied those pupils who had chosen to study music past level one. She has taken note of other empirical studies to assume that adolescents glean their music from family environment and their peer group. She also assumes that their level of achievement in music is determined by pupils positive approach and by the music teachers competence and interests. Lastly she conjectures that the music to which adolescents are exposed, serves several different functions in their lives. Popular music helped with mood regulation, helped to forget troubles. She found interestingly that classical music served to mainly calm young people down and helped stimulate reflection. Both types of music provided background for daydreaming. (ibid, 2000:326) These assumptions are not surprising and are almost exactly the same as the assumptions that I have myself. The research was also very concerned whether the influence of the family is related to the musical skills of the pupils. Although this is not an area that I shall be pursuing in any detail, it would be an interesting subject for further research. Does the family or the peer group influence the choices of music that the pupils listen to more? I received some interesting answers during my discussion with some pupils (see chapter13).

14 Harland et al (2000) reported on the effects and effectiveness of arts education in schools in England and Wales. The report showed that some pupils in the secondary age range did not hold music in very high esteem at least over the period of the study during 2000 and possibly beyond. The lack of perceived development of key skills in the classroom and lack of perceived relevance to pupils' current and future needs. seems to have contributed to the attitudes of the pupils. Also, it was noted that levels of enjoyment in music decline significantly during key stage three years. This decline of enjoyment in turn impacted on the low numbers opting for music at key stage four, which made music, as Harland et al (2000: 5) state, 'vulnerable': This scenario is exactly what I have observed in my own school. It is the perceived relevance that needs highlighting; I am in no doubt that music lessons in school give pupils far more skills than those that focus on musical performance. I expand on this in the chapter Advocating for Music. Although the report by Harland et al was written in 2000 I feel that it is still applicable today.

A quantitative piece of research by Lamont et al (2003) seeks to answer some of the questions that I have my self. It does not however just focus on the attitudes and performance of year nine pupils but seeks to trace these attitudes and performances from transition from primary school right through KS3. It does not offer much in advice for improvement of these attitudes. Their findings state that more than half of the boys and girls enjoyed music lessons particularly the playing of musical instruments. One point raised was that in general pupils would like more variety in their music lessons, the opportunity to try new skills (including DJ-ing and music technology), and to learn about their own styles of music.(ibid, 2003:8) I will be very surprised if my own students would differ greatly if they answered this question. One surprising result of this survey was that very few pupils want to stop doing music before the end of KS3 but rather regard their lessons as a diversion from their more academic studies.

15 An observation of a year eight class and their teacher was undertaken over a period of two terms by Finney (2003). The author states that year eight is an uneventful year between the newness of high school to year seven and the educational testing in year nine. I recognize many of the same situations that I find myself in, the topics he discusses are very similar; the attitudes of the pupils are very comparable. The comments of the pupils are enlightening; the pupils appreciated teachers who talked with them and not at them. They liked teachers who were fair, knew their pupils and set tasks accordingly. These comments are not at all surprising and apply to every subject in school. What I particularly enjoyed was that the teacher, who was observed, was always trying to teach in a very encouraging manner, something we all aspire to. He also had on occasions defended his subject successfully to other staff in his school. One of the authors final comments was at the end of the study the teacher had maintained GCSE music as a core provision and some 25% of his pupils had chosen to continue into KS4. He is obviously doing something right. In my school the percentage is lower. At the moment the take up at my school is roughly ten percent. Whilst this low take up may show some issues of apathy towards music at GCSE, it is not the whole picture. The music department also suffers from the way in which the GCSE options pool is organised. Historically my colleagues tell me that this problem was not always so acute. We lose students to other subjects because the combination of choices does not allow for the inclusion of music. Last year we also lost several really good pupils because they had been fast tracked in History and they discovered later to their dismay that they were unable to choose music because of timetable restraints. There were letters from several angry parents at the time who felt that they would have been happier to have known of this at the time the earlier choices were made. They wrote in support of the music department, which was very gratifying. I understand that the History fast track idea has since been shelved.

16 Burnard (2004) used a video based research approach. She investigated what pupils thought of their own learning. She says that consulting pupils views on their learning is an essential element in the development and improvement of schools (ibid, 2004:23). This consultation of pupils thoughts and ideas is a popular idea at the moment and one which has been encouraged by the government over the past few years. The teacher reflects on significant moments by observing videoed interviews. She signalled when she felt the pupils were learning and what they were learning. The pupils themselves were given an opportunity to highlight significant moments when they felt that they are learning. They felt they were learning most when they were having fun, were in control and not just sitting writing. Again nothing surprising about these conclusions, but their comments gave me ideas for my questionnaire. Burnard feels that year eight is notorious for problems of engagement and achievement in learning. This is a very different view from my own experience. I find year eight pupils are still open to ideas. However the challenge to motivate is the same regardless of the year group. An interesting article from Australia (Winter 2004) details a study that has trialled a scheme of work using music composed by the artist Sting. The writer describes the integrated approach to teaching music, listening, performance and composition. This was designed specifically for pupils aged 16-18. These pupils are a little older than my target group. This was quite a large quantitative study, involving six secondary music teachers and their senior pupils. All used a teaching kit provided by the author and the results were evaluated by means of aural and written tests. His conclusions showed that the students had significantly higher test scores by becoming fully engrossed in this popular music based scheme of work. He maintains that music educators must continue to examine new musical content and develop suitable pedagogical approaches (ibid, 2004:235). Winter has similar methods to the writings of Lucy Green. She is an eminent professor of music who has written several books on the changing curriculum. Lucy Green is particularly

17 known for her book How Popular Musicians Learn: A Way Ahead for Music Education, (2002). In the book she states that popular musicians acquire some or all of their skills and knowledge informally. She asserts that they do this with little help from trained instrumental teachers. Lucy Green interviews musicians from all age groups exploring what she describes as informal music learning practices (ibid, 2002.5). She maintains that young musicians largely teach themselves or pick up skills or knowledge.by watching and imitating musicians around them and by making references to recordings or performances and other live events involving their chosen music. (ibid, 2002:5). At this point Green (2002) had not had the opportunity to put her research findings into action but merely offers her ideas as humble suggestions in the hope that some educators may find them constructive points of departure or discussion ( ibid, 2002.186). I find the ideas cited in the book very exciting. I learnt much of my music through the development of a good ear (ibid, 2002:195). I am fortunate to have developed the ability to absorb music which seems like a process of osmosis, as I can regurgitate music that I have heard. I also use a great deal of on the spot demonstration in my classes showing pupils what something should sound like. I feel that modelling what is required gives the pupils a good starting point and gives the opportunity for pupils to develop their own good ears. In 2006, Lucy Green along with Abigail Walmsley has been putting some of the ideas that she had first written about in her book, into practice as part of a pilot study in three areas of the country. This is a three year action research project that explores innovative ways of engaging young people aged 11-19 in music making. The most exciting concept for me is the way that the study has allowed for a completely different way of teaching. The ideas come from the students themselves and the teachers act as advisors and facilitators only. This article appeared in a publication that my department subscribes to (Classroom Music, 2006) and was brought to my attention by my head of department. My colleagues in the department both feel that there may be something to be gained by this approach and I am looking to use some of the ideas myself. Usefully there is a scheme of work published, along with

18 comments from the schools in the pilot study about each stage. It would be a difficult scheme of work to manage both from resource and people managing aspects. But descriptions of resources and space from other school music departments, point to the fact that my school should be in a good position to try. The results of the pilot scheme will be published later this year and a resource pack is going to be made available in February. I have requested that one be sent to me.

All these studies offer ideas and thoughts on how to improve the situation for music in school. However teachers are always governed by outside influences. As I write this, the talk in our department is about the Key Stage 3 (KS3) Music Pilot, this is part of the Secondary Strategy for School Improvement. (DfES 2005) My Head of Department (HOD) (A) attended a course about this only last week. She returned saying; We are doing it all wrong! We should not be contextualising the topics for the pupils, but concentrating on the skills which we want them to acquire. (A) cited teaching pupils about the Blues and how we would normally begin the topic with a brief discussion about the slave trade and the history of black African culture in the United States of America. Apparently this is not what we should be doing, but rather we should get straight on and teach the chords required for the 12 bar blues. This was received in the office by both me and my other colleague (B) with some disbelief. (B) said here we go again another new way of doing something (A) has also said that so far she is not entirely clear about what the complete message from the course is, so has not passed on too much information as yet. My initial reaction is that I do not understand how the pupils can understand what they are listening to and trying to emulate, if it is not put into some kind of context. Detailed learning of dates and history is not what I am advocating, but a general background should be presented and discussed with the class.

19 I have only been a teacher for a relatively short time, but I am acutely aware that in many ways our working lives are determined by influences beyond our control. The following chapter discusses some of the influences that direct the lives of teachers.

Chapter Four -Influences

It is clear that teachers are not really free to choose what they teach; there are forces that direct what we deliver. At the macro level the government ministers with advisory help, design the National Curriculum (NC) to which we have to adhere. The school, at the mezzo level determines class sizes, length of lessons and whether our classes should be streamed or not. At my school pupils are not streamed in music. At the micro level, the schemes of work that are in place historically in the department may have to be adhered to. All of these impact on our planning. One great issue with music teachers is the use of target setting. Pupils arrive from Primary School with a set of numbers gained for their SATs tests. These tests only judge maths, science and english, hugely important subjects and the core subjects at Secondary level. However, they arrive in the classrooms of other subjects with the expectation to be judged at the same level they gained for their SATs. Sometimes they and their parents do not understand why Ahmed might be a level 6B for maths but only 4C for music. Probably Ahmed does not play a musical instrument or does not have much understanding of musical concepts. I know the teachers of Art and Drama have the same problem. This misconception by pupils and their parents is something I have started to address within the department by introducing a series of self-assessment booklets. Each musical topic studied, has a page to write marks gained and a series of questions that encourage the pupils to reflect on their performance. The pupils are then encouraged to judge their performance against the target levels that are written in easy language on posters on the wall. The department has started to use these booklets for year seven classes and they will be introduced from September 2006 for all year groups. An

20 improvement to these booklets will be to include a copy of the music level posters within the booklet itself. These booklets are intended to show a whole years work and eventually the whole of the pupils performance during Key stage three.

I have been made aware very recently about the Pupil Achievement Tracker (PAT) (DfES 2004). As a faculty representative on the Assessment for Learning Committee at my school, I attended a training session in school to discover the uses that this piece of computer programming has for teachers. Startlingly, PAT generates the figures for pupils at Key Stage Two and schools are supposed to be able to predict their GCSE grades at the end of Key Stage 4 from this data. Even prior to PAT, I have had year 10 GSCE music students who do not play an instrument or sing confidently, predicted with an A* because they are very bright and have high SATs scores in maths, english and science. Sadly this does always equate to talents in the arts, music, art and drama all have discrete skills. Also, just where and how is the creativity of a pupil measured? I will discuss creativity at more length in chapter six. I am in favour of the NC generally, as it has changed radically how music is taught. The NC has been in force since 1988 and personally I think that the initial shake up that it caused, changed the way music was delivered in school for the better. Prior to 1988 teachers were allowed to set their own curriculum and therefore the content delivered differed from school to school. Possibly the quality differed from school to school also. I attended high school myself between 1966 and 1973, which was some years prior to the implementation of the NC. Even though I was a fairly accomplished and keen musician, I can remember some very boring music lessons where we had to listen to a teacher drone on and then do a lot of writing. The only practical music making was class singing. The only world music we might have come across was possibly a Scottish folk song. I realise that I am only able to speak from my own individual experience. In other schools music lessons may have been interesting and exciting. I feel that there is a better chance today for this to be possible across the board, as todays music lessons are very practical.

21 The basic NC instructions are that students listen, appraise, compose and perform music. All schemes of work in our department are designed to encompass these four elements. Students are introduced to topics, listen to musical examples and then work mostly in groups to either arrange or compose music using the concepts they have learnt about. Writing about music is deliberately limited. This is vastly different than my own experiences as a pupil. I feel that music lessons now give pupils the opportunity to be creative and not just passive learners. I wrote earlier about the difficulty there is in measuring creativity, the following chapter tries to identify what creativity is and how it may be measured.

Chapter Five- What is Creativity?

So, what is creativity? I thought I knew. My own definition of creativity has been based on something akin to the standard version of Create (verb) To bring into being, cause to exist; the Oxford English Dictionary definition goes on further to say esp. to produce where nothing was before, to form out of nothing " However, on consideration, I do not feel that this definition is totally apt for the process that happens within music classrooms. The pupils do not bring into being something where there was nothing before; rather they use the ideas and techniques that they have been taught, which they then employ to produce something that is new to them. In some ways they are given ingredients for a musical recipe and the menu they produce is a performance or composition. The following definition I feel something a little nearer to what actually takes place. The dictionary definition of creativity usually refers to producing something new, producing something from nothing. In fact creativity usually involves recombining and modifying ideas and objects that already exist. Something new is created, but not from nothing. http://www.wyrdology.com/mind/creativity/faq.html accessed June 2006

There seems to be quite a few confusing definitions about creativity and being creative.

22 Odena, 2001, created a piece of research trying to identify how secondary school music teachers view creativity. Odena considered the aspects of pupil characteristics the environment in which the process takes place and the product, the final composition or performance. For me, particularly for students at key stage three, the process that is taken to reach a final composition or performance can be almost more important than the performance or composition itself. Sometimes the final composition or performance a pupil offers is not very polished, but they have understood the task and have been imaginative in the creation of the product. I will explore some other definitions to see how I can further clarify the meaning for myself. The 1999 National Advisory Committee for Creative and Cultural Education (NACCCE) report All Our Futures define creativity as: imaginative activity fashioned so as to produce outcomes that are both original and of value (page 30) I am a little suspect nevertheless about their glossy brochures asserting what creativity is. Even the NACCCE report asserts that creativity has an elusive definition (page 29), this difficulty in the definition of creativity could make the job delivering a creative subject difficult. The phrase democratic (page 30) creativity is used in the NACCCE report, the authors of the report state that this is the creativity of the ordinary person, recognising that all pupils can be creative. This separates the creativity that pupils can show from the creativity of genius which the NACCE calls elite creativity (page 28). The NACCE report breaks the definition of creativity down into four characteristics. (Page 29) They maintain that to be creative always involves thinking or behaving imaginatively. The imaginative activity is purposeful. It must be original and the outcome must be of value

How to measure and assess these creative acts? How do I assess creativity in my classroom? Certainly it is not about setting students tests. My own feeling is that there are no right or

23 wrong answers in a creative process. Providing pupils produce a composition or performance that is of value. Obviously there are difficulties in judging what is valuable. My own ideas about what is value is that that is the pupils have taken the concepts and ideas and produced a piece of work new to them that relates to the concepts taught. Pupils sometimes surprise me and use the concepts to produce some exciting products. I remember a group of year eight pupils who were not particularly musically talented working on a Ternary Form piece (a construct of music in three parts, ABA with B forming a contrast) using only their voices and a selection of words which they broke up into individual syllables. The result was very rhythmic and effective, and entirely unexpected. I have to judge moments like these as creative. I might teach year seven pupils short rhythmic phrases in order to practice reading note values, if they then select several of these phrases and create a piece of music and perform it to the class. Surely again this is a creative act? I realise that I have only scratched the surface of how to understand creativity and like some other issues that writing this dissertation has highlighted, they have stimulated my thought processes and I will need to do more research to come to any conclusion. However having considered what creativity is and some of the ways it might be measured, I would now feel more equipped to defend my subject and its inclusion in the school curriculum in an open debate should the occasion arise. The following chapter outlines some of the benefits that I feel that the study of music can give to pupils.

Chapter Five- Music as a subject in school

I need therefore to be able to sell my subject. It would be fantastic to teach pupils who are all potential musicians or are at least fascinated by music as a subject. Clearly the reality is a long

24 way from this situation and I am not so naive to think I can always please everybody in the class. Nevertheless there can be enormous benefits to pupils in the way music is taught today, regardless of the musical skills that they acquire. In July 2004 the government launched the Music Manifesto. The Department for Education and Science (DfES) and the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) are actively promoting music for young people. They say they want to encourage good curriculum in schools and opportunities for all pupils to have instrumental lessons in school regardless of their financial background. The Music Manifesto has been talked about in many publications. The website politics.co.uk said; Music teaching in schools is the focus of a new manifesto launched today. Government departments, voluntary groups and the music industry have come together to promote the importance of music and the 'unique contribution' it can make to education. Through the manifesto the signatories aim to provide children with access to a range of music experiences and give them more opportunities to develop their music skills. They also pledge to identify and nurture the most talented musicians, to develop a world class workforce in music education and to improve the support structures for young people's music making. (politics.co.uk, July 2006) David Miliband the school standards minister is quoted saying that; . the music manifesto - backed by 180 million in the ring-fenced Music Standards Fund - would ensure that music remained central to an enriched and balanced curriculum. He said: Standards and creativity go hand in hand. Music is central to our drive to provide an enriched and balanced curriculum for all school children. The manifesto is a route map for the future of music in school and by schoolchildren. This is just the start - we expect new pledges and new signatories to come on board this unique collaboration.(Milliband,2004) I am yet to see any specific benefit within my school, but perhaps the effects will take time to filter down. Here is the government rhetoric about standards and creativity. I wrote earlier about PAT (pupil achievement tracker). Nowhere in any data gathering programmes or exercises have I seen how creativity is to be measured. The data always focuses on SATs subjects. Yet the attainment in those subjects set the standard to which I am expected to grade my pupils in music which is an entirely discrete subject. I understand that the data produced by PAT and others gives an average result for other subjects but it is difficult to

25 relate the target grades pupils arrive with against their innate musical ability. Parents can be disappointed when their children receive lower grades in music than those they might achieve in other subjects. Boris Johnston, Shadow Minister for the Arts, hits back at the government with a scathing reply that described the music manifesto: as a "document of Wagnerian length with more hot air than the wind section of the London Philharmonic." Teachers were already deluged with bureaucracy and pupils so oppressed with tests that it was very hard to see how schools could fit music in. He said: "This music manifesto has all the hallmarks of a government with a guilty conscience. They know they have crowded music out with top-down diktat from Whitehall, and they think they can make things better with a load of warm words." (Johnston, 2006) This is an expected type of retort from someone in opposition. However, Boris Johnson has also been quoted as saying that the Tories would bring back hymn singing into school assemblies, which just goes to show how out of touch he is with our multicultural society! Whilst I appreciate that much of the Music Manifesto may be even more government rhetoric, the important feature is that music is being talked about and highlighted. I hope that the importance of learning music for its own sake in school will be continued. I am positive of the benefits music can give.

Studies have been made to try to prove the influence music can have. Susan Hallam has compiled a comprehensive document, The Power of Music (2001) for the Performing Rights Society (PRS). The PRS are the body that collects and distributes licence fees for the public performance and broadcast of musical works. The document by Hallam reviews research topics undertaken over the past 10 years or so. These research topics look at the other values of music. It would not be possible within the remit of my dissertation to detail all this research. Some examples of research that Hallam includes in the Power of Music, have shown that music can affect us physically (Bartlett 1996), this research measured the effects of music on the heart, blood pressure, muscular

26 tension and other bodily systems, concluding that music does indeed have the ability to affect these. The adage that music can soothe the savage beast certainly seems to have some credence. I know that music can have the ability to calm or excite. Hallam documents the research by Robazza et al (1994), who pursued the idea that music affects us emotionally; Robazza et al. played snippets of classical music to subjects across a wide age range and asked them to link each piece to an emotion. Their analysis showed that there was very little difference across gender or age with the exception of the children tested, who were between the ages of nine and ten, perceived more happiness and less anger in the music. Research within a maths classroom by Hallam & Price (1998) questioned whether music has an effect on the behaviour of pupils. These pupils were children with emotional and behavioural difficulties, not only was there a significant improvement in the behaviour of the pupils but their maths performance was significantly improved. This links into the work by Savan (1999) who played Mozart to a group of ten boys with special educational needs, the focus of this research supposed that the music produced a chemical within the brain which improved spatial awareness and co-ordination, thus improving behaviour by reducing frustration. Indeed much has been written about the Mozart effect (Savan 1999) also (Hallam and Godwin 2000). However as Hallam states research which claimed that listening to Mozart could improve spatial reasoning has proved difficult to replicate. There is such a wealth of research to demonstrate the power and importance of music to humans. As a musician myself, it is not difficult to argue with these views and I want to demonstrate why I feel music is an important part of the curriculum. This is the subject of the chapter following.

Chapter Seven Advocating for music in school

I am not attempting to support the views I outline below with any specific evidence within this dissertation. Nonetheless I feel it is important to outline some of the specific musical skills learnt in school which include;

27 The development of performance skills; Pupils are given frequent opportunities to perform solo and in groups with other pupils. Performing give pupils the opportunity to develop confidence in being able to stand in front of others and present themselves and their work. This ultimately I feel can contribute to the techniques required in other subjects such as drama and english when they are judged on their ability to speak in front of others. Looking further than school, this confidence building can impact on future job interviews where the pupils have to present themselves. The opportunity to practise composition techniques; Nearly all schemes of work include an element of composition, either by the pupil alone or with others. This skill or accomplishment encourages creativity. Many compositions are constructed as a result of problem solving. The pupils learn concepts about a particular style or topic of music and either by copying ideas directly from an already composed piece, or creating one from scratch, they can construct a piece of music which is all their own. Students are encouraged to appraise each others performances and compositions: All schemes of work finish with an assessment, which is a whole class activity. Each scheme of work finishes with a performance, which is assessed by the class members and me. Learning the value of making music with others; This is a further opportunity to develop listening skills. They have to be aware of their own part as a component of the whole sound, and judge the overall balance of the sound that they make within the group. They have to play at the correct moments in the piece, whether they are reading from a score, playing from memory or improvising on the spot. The value of individual practice, working at own pace to improve technical skills; The pupils mostly work in groups in practice rooms and spaces outside the classroom. They work partly unattended and must develop good discipline, using guidelines set by the teacher, in order to work whether there is a teacher present or not. Most of the groups in my classroom evolve naturally from friendship groups. I have made some use ability groupings and for some topics this is essential. However, I have found that the pupils seem to work best

28 with their friends. Interestingly there develops a natural hierarchy and leaders soon present themselves. Being able to understand how music is used in everyday life; It is important to be aware how music is to promote products and aid the memory. How it is used in theme tunes both on television and in film, in advertisements which trigger product memory and how music can be present almost without us noticing such as in supermarkets, lifts etc. Recognizing the variety of music in everyday life; Pupils are taught many different styles and genres of music, including music from around the world such as India, in Indian classical music and Indonesia through learning about gamelan Orchestras. This encourages the understanding of other cultures. Pupils are exposed to styles and genres of music that they would not normally encounter. This might appear tokenistic and indeed it is not possible to become experts in the music of another culture easily. However the broadening of the curriculum from just Western classical music to sounds from other cultures opens up possibilities in both the appreciation through listening and the opportunity to apply new compositional techniques. The education of future audiences; This may seem a minor consequence of music lessons, but it is my job to introduce my pupils to musical experiences that they may not ever get otherwise. The knock on effect of this would be for pupils to develop a liking for a particular genre or artist and make efforts to go to concerts and buy their music. Years spent in the performing arts, has taught me the value of bottoms on seats. Without the audience there would not be the performer. Pupils who are going to study music further particularly need to develop all the skills I have written about above. Negotiation skills; I wrote earlier how the opportunity to work in small groups away from the classroom requires the pupils to take responsibility for their work. They have to work to a brief set by

29 the teacher and need to discuss with each other how they are going to achieve the end product. Very often in this situation leaders present themselves. Arguments may happen. This in itself is not a problem but part of the learning curve of being able to work within a group and put ones own ideas forward. To be able to discuss rationally how problems are going to be solved is a useful skill to acquire. A final thought. Music can give some students success in a subject other than an academic one. There is also the benefit of pure enjoyment, as the pupils may not be studying music after year nine, the academic pressure is off, and music lessons could at this point be purely recreational. It is up to me to make sure that my lessons can be. The following chapter describes the process that I used to follow my research.

Chapter Eight The methodology

In this chapter I am going to describe how I set about my research and the reasons for tackling it this way. Bassey writes an adaptation from Perry (1978) My most recent discovery is research. If I reflect on some of my actions, analyse why I did what I did and what the consequences were for others, seek criticism from colleagues, read what others have done in similar circumstances, and test out my ideas by searching for evidence, I believe my judgement improves and so, in the heat of the moment when there is little time to think, I make

30 better decisions. It may sound ambitious, but that is my credo (Bassey 1995. vi) I felt that these words jumped out of the page at me when I read them. It is exactly what I tried to do. This may sound a highflying piece of writing, but it could be my credo also. I am learning through watching, reading, writing, thinking and trying to act upon all these ideas. I undertook a piece of action research within my classroom. Action Research was the term which was originally coined by Lewin (1946). The action research spiral that Lewin developed indicates how practitioners identify a problem, implement a plan for improvement, observe what happens, reflect on the outcome, revise the plan, and identify the next subject for improvement and so on. Reflective teachers learn from experience and therefore I feel become more effective. Carr and Kemmis give neat straightforward definition that action research is simply a form of self-reflective enquiry undertaken by participants in social situations in order to improve the rationality and justice of their own practices, their understanding of these practices, and the situations in which the practices are carried out (Carr and Kemmis 1986: 162). One of the aspects of action research that Elliot (1991) emphasises is the practicality of action research and that action research improves practice by developing the practitioners capacity for discrimination and judgement in particular, complex, human situations. (1991:52) My action research is qualitative, in which I aimed to ...understand, report and evaluate the meaning of events for people in particular situations, that is, how their social world is structured by the participants in it. (2006 op.cit.) Lewin It used data gathered in natural or real-life settings Lankshear and Knobel (2004 p68). It is ethnographic, i.e. a study that is looking closely at the relationships between pupil and teacher. A quantative study would not have been appropriate in this situation as I am discussing the attitudes of pupils toward their thoughts on music lessons and the changes to my own practice in consideration of these. My research describes a piece of curriculum development which was developed from an initial questionnaire given to year nine students. Elliott et al (1979) suggest that teacher

31 researchers in school tend to opt for questionnaires in preference to qualitative methods such as naturalistic observations and interviews. They are of the opinion that questionnaires allow for a distance from the disturbing effects of interviewing (Elliot et al in Elliot 1991:62). I felt that my use of the questionnaire had allowed the pupils to be very honest, something they may not have felt able to do in a personal interview, however my analysis of the data is mostly qualitative and not quantative. I reflected on events and discourse with the students as I taught the scheme of work. Schn (1983) popularised the term reflective practitioner to describe somebody who is awake to, and aware of their practice, and not just immersed in it. Mason (2002:15). My reflection is personal, being about how I responded in certain situations and contains mostly reflectionon- action, the reflection that happens after the event which can be rational and considered, rather than reflection- in- action, the reflection that occurs on the spot. Schn (1983) I have included journal entries written after or during events and have analysed my writings at a later date.

Limitations Both Mason (2002) and Maclure (2003) identify the problem of being an observer in ones own classroom. Both authors feel that observing ones own classroom could make any data gathered less valid. Given any situation the description would differ from viewer to viewer. Mason (2002:227) asserts that All research is problematic precisely because there is no guarantee of truth. Maclure (2003:87) writes that there are no pure qualitative research texts. and that The contrary pull of subjective and objective authority influences the style of ethnographic texts. Whilst Griffiths (1998) says that researchers have opinions about their research precisely because they have chosen something of significance to themselves.

32 I can only ever give my own personal view of events and whilst these views are not untruths, if they were described by someone else they would I know the situations would be described differently. My data has been scrutinised regularly by my critical friends, in my case my tutor and other members of the MA group. They analysed what I had written and highlighted areas that I had not considered. They assessed the Face validity which Griffiths says is one way of assessing whether the findings are really about what they appeared to be about,(1998:132). None of my group were music teachers and it was therefore very necessary for me to ensure that what I wrote was easily understood.

Another limitation is that of time. The lead up to the scheme of work began in January and the scheme of work which took six weeks was finished shortly after Easter. The second questionnaire was completed at this time. I write later that other events in school got in the way of the scheme of work. Pupils were absent during some practices and performance recordings which affected the quality of the final product.

The pupils who took part As part of my qualitative research; I canvassed opinions through two questionnaires and a group discussion. I had planned originally to include all the year nine students in my study. However I teach four classes which amounts to over 100 students which I soon realised was too large a number. Therefore, after the initial questionnaire which I gave to all 100 of the students, I then limited the study to just one class containing 24 students. I will refer to them as class 9A. The mixed ability class contained 12 boys and 12girls. Only two members of the class, both boys, have opted to study music at GCSE. They are both excellent musicians and play several instruments each. One other member of the class plays the piano a little but does not consider himself a musician. The rest of the pupils have only ever had class music

33 lessons and only therefore only gained musical skills as a group within the school classroom. One boy has severe concentration problems that can sometimes result in some low level disruption. One girl is often absent due to poor behaviour around the school, her behaviour however is generally reasonable in music lessons when she is present but her absence hinders her continuity. This is a very typical make up of a class in my school.

The Data The data analysis from questionnaire number one, in chapter ten, includes the answers I received from all of my classes. Out of the answers I obtained from the students and their choices about future topics to study, I then wrote a scheme of work about rap music. The choice of rap came about because many of the pupils expressed a liking for rap music (see chapter nine). I felt that all pupils would be able to take part in a rap performance as the focus is on the use of the voice and not on instrumental ability. The scheme of work began in February and I observed my chosen focus class, 9A, and discussed ideas with them as the scheme of work on rap progressed, (see chapter 10.) A discussion was organised to pursue the topic of identity that had been highlighted as the scheme of work progressed. This discussion was opened to all my year nine students but in fact only five participated. (Details of this discussion are given in chapter 13). The final data collection was a questionnaire given only to 9A, asking how they had enjoyed the project and what ideas they had for improvements.

The Ethics All pupil names have been changed to preserve anonymity, However as I have a group students from the Indian subcontinent, I have used a mixture of both Asian and Western names. I consulted my line manager, a deputy head in the school, about whether I needed to write to parents to ask permission to undertake my practitioner research. (See journal entry

34 page 40). She advised me that this was not necessary as the pupils would not be identifiable in the document. I informed the pupils personally both verbally and with a short paragraph at the top of the questionnaires that I was doing the research and would use the data they provided but not their names. The questionnaire was done anonymously. Pupils were allowed to opt out of any questionnaire, although none chose to.

Finally Although I realise that there is not necessarily an answer to a specific question in my research. I intend it more as a way to inform my practice by focusing on my pupils thoughts about music lessons. I intended it also to be a vehicle for my learning about their kind of music. As I have stated the outcome of my research will probably not be an answer to a question. Rather I hoped it was an attempt to make my year nine students enjoy some of the last lessons in music that they will have in Key Stage 3, and possibly the last music lessons most of them will have forever. It undoubtedly became a learning curve for me, as I looked to update my knowledge of some of the music my pupils enjoy. The following chapter describes in detail how the study unfolded from the initial ideas

Chapter Nine

Beginning the research

As I wrote this in February, I had been already trying to put some ideas into action. I had signalled that I wished to consult the views of my pupils; this is something that seems to be happening more and more both in my school and elsewhere. There is a movement in my school at the moment to consult pupils and give them greater autonomy over what they study and contribute to the general ethos and rules of the school. Pupils take part in school council meetings and members of the school council send representatives to many of teaching and learning forums, which happen monthly. There have been questionnaires sent out to all pupils asking opinions on topics such as changes to the school day among others.

35 In places other than my school, pupils have been asked by many researchers to give their opinions on what constitutes a good teacher. A long term project was run (2001-2003) by the Teaching and Learning Research Programme based at Cambridge University, which supported over 30 research projects over this period. The researchers suggest many outcomes, amongst which are that pupils develop a stronger sense of membership and of being more included in the schools purposes the organisational dimension They suggest that teachers develop the capacity to see the familiar from a different angle and a practical agenda for improvement I take this to mean that teachers should not be set in their ways, but always be willing to try new ideas. Seeking the viewpoint of my pupils directly is one of the ways I wish to improve my practice. It is my wish to develop a practical method of improving the learning of my year 9 students. Including their suggestions and seeing some aspects of music lessons from their point of view may be the way to do this. Ruddick and Flutter (2000) argue that firsthand accounts of classroom life should be gathered from those who experience it on a daily basis. The researchers from the Teaching and Learning Research Programme also reported that the pupils appreciated being taken seriously and they felt that they were able to manage their own progress better. The process helped to build more open relationships. Perhaps I can emulate them. One of the first requests I have had from my pupils, is to do to do more class singing. The request arose during casual conversations during my lessons. This is an activity I admit I have neglected due to the topics studied from September to Christmas. Journal Entry Proper Songs December 2005 In a year 9 class the other day we sang some carols as it was near to Christmas. The class was mostly enthusiastic. This was actually the first time that I had sung with them all term, as we had done projects in the keyboard room and computer room up until now. I told them that after Christmas we would sing much more. Hooray shouted S. But can we sing proper songs. What do you mean by proper songs? I asked. You know things that are in the charts, stuff like that I do intend to sing some songs that are familiar to them but it is quite sad to think that they think that current chart items are the only proper songs.

36 With this in mind the first action I took was to ask them what songs they wanted to try. They gave me a long list of mostly current or near current pop items. I obtained lyrics, sheet music for some and backing track for a few others. At the start of the new term in January I was very keen to get the classes singing and tried one or two of the numbers out. I played a couple of songs by Coldplay on the piano, Clocks and The Scientist. They were very, very reluctant to open their mouths and sing. The following week I played a backing track for Michael Jacksons Billy Jean. Again, I got a really feeble response. Both these items had been specifically requested, so I was surprised that they did not feel able to join in. I realised after a discussion with a group of pupils at the end of the lesson that there was something about peer group identity that each of these songs gave to the pupils. During the lesson despite not singing themselves, a group of pupils who had not tried to sing themselves were very disparaging when another group specifically asked for Coldplay. The Coldplay group stayed behind after class to speak to me. Journal Entry Singing January 2006

A group of year nine girls stayed behind after class today. They were fed up. I have been trying to encourage my year nine classes to sing and have been trying to update their repertoire by asking for requests. From the list they produced I have sourced some lyrics sheet music and also some backing tracks. We tried some Coldplay songs one week which I accompanied on the piano. It was awful. Nobody sang except me and one other. I wondered if the solo piano was not encouraging them. so the following week I introduced them to a backing track of Michael Jacksons Billy Jean, also one of their choices. This was met with no better response. What ever is the matter with them! A group of pupils said lets sing some Coldplay Another table of pupils said What do you want to sing Coldplay for? Theyre rubbish. After the class the Coldplay group stayed behind and complained that the other group had chosen Billy Jean but still wouldnt sing it. They then rubbished their choice. I have realised that this is a classic case of peer pressure and the fact that it may be music almost more than anything else in their lives that determines who they are. This identity has been written about extensively. For example Chris Richards has written a very interesting book called Teen Spirits (1998) which discusses music and identity in media education. In the book he traces his attempts to teach pop music within the context of media

37 education. He discusses his own personal history and his present position, showing clearly his own background and the way it has shaped his thinking. This is very much like I am trying to do. Of particular interest are the interviews with his students that he writes about in detail. I intend to pursue similar lines of enquiry with my own pupils. Later in this dissertation I describe a discussion I held with some year nine pupils on the subject of identity. (Chapter 13) I realised that I needed to pursue the attitudes of my students towards music and so I wrote a questionnaire which was given to the pupils in January. The following chapter analyses some of the answers I received for my first questionnaire.

Chapter Ten

The first questionnaire

I gave the questionnaire (appendix) to all four of the year nine classes that I teach. This amounts to approximately 100 students, (a flu virus during the week I did the questionnaire meant there were fewer pupils than this canvassed). I asked the students to be completely honest and really write what they felt without fear of reprisal. I had put a short paragraph at the top of the questionnaire explaining what it was for and how their honesty would be respected.

Predictably, some of the answers for the question

38 What are your opinions about music lessons in school? Were; (sic) I think music lessons are boring and other answers of a very similar nature. However, some answers that the students gave were very constructive, for example; (I quote verbatim) Music lessons in school is quite boring because we only do classical music. It is fun when we listen to modern music or play the keyboard. The music is sometimes weird and sometimes what you do is boring. I like working on the keyboards Calmer and easier and more enjoyable than other lessons They can be good at getting people to try new things and instruments they might not usually get to use. They are quite good and I cant really think of any suggestions to make them better I enjoy them however I feel the majority of people mess about too much and it makes it more difficult to do quality work in groups. It is frustrating Music lesson are great if the class co-op but its a bit nervous racking when you have to perform in front of the class Conversely, I had some very negative answers to this question; Pointless waste of my time, rather do 7hrs Spanish I do not know whether this comment means that the only other thing that this pupil hates more is Spanish? Even worse are the two comments that follow; Theyre boring and we never learn anything or do much music-related Never had one so dont know Fortunately I am not so insecure to feel that I am a complete failure and perhaps should give up teaching. What I must learn from this nevertheless, is that these are three pupils whom I have not reached and motivated. I am hoping however that the last answer came from a pupil who thought he or she was answering a question about instrumental lessons. Another question I asked was; What kind of music do you like to listen to? The answers again held no real surprises. The vast majority of the students listen to a diet of Hip Hop, Rap and R&B. B. There were many pupils who expressed a liking for rap music. I am going to design a scheme of work on the theme of rap, because I can focus on the use of

39 the voice which all the pupils have access to and not instrumental skills which most of them do not have. Although personally I would not choose to listen to rap music for pleasure myself, I feel that it is nevertheless very clever. Rap musicians need to have a very strong sense of rhythm. Rap, is after all poetry, spoken in rhythm, or rhythmically accented poetry as I have heard it defined. I asked my year nine pupils as part of the first questionnaire in January; exactly what type of music do they listen to at home? Who are they with when listening? Do they feel listening to music in school is different than listening to music at home? The answers they gave about their choices were not very surprising. The majority of my pupils enjoy a diet consisting mostly of Rap and R&B. There were a few choices of rock and Indie music and some cited particular artists such as Blink 182, Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Chiefs and Snow Patrol. There was even a reference to the rock band Queen, which I was not expecting. I asked the question; Who are you normally with when you listen to music? I was quite surprised that the majority of my pupils listen to music alone. (See table 1) I had expected that most of their musical entertainment came whilst they were with their friends. I wonder if this solitary listening to music is through their MP3 players. This could be material for a further question perhaps?

TABLE 1

n.b. some students ticked more than one answer 9A 9B

**** **** **** ** **** *

9C
**** **** **** ****

9D
**** **** *** ****

Nobody

**** **** **** *** **** ****

My Friends

My family

**

****

***

Other

**

****

****

40

I was asking a member of the senior management team in school, about the ethics I needed to consider whilst doing my study. She highlighted to me during this conversation, the fact that music is very fashion oriented, something I had not properly considered as an important facet of my lessons. Journal Entry Chat with line manager December 2005 Spoke to my line manager, J, a deputy head, today about the ethics of my doing research in school. She was very pleased that I was pursuing this line of enquiry, as it fitted in with the school improvement scheme that is very current. .. I also asked J, whether I needed to send letters home to the pupils parents informing them of my study but she said it was not necessary. A further facet to this story was that J, a Maths teacher, had not appreciated that music is constantly developing She said that unlike some subjects whose basic content remained the same, music could be fashionable or out of date very quickly. It was an interesting view from another subject. In many subjects, whilst teachers may be constantly updating the way they present information, the basic content remains the same. In music this is not so, as tastes and fashions evolve very quickly. It is therefore quite difficult to constantly try and find up to date examples by which to demonstrate a concept. It is very easy to appear to students as out of date, not up with current chart sounds. There is also the issue of identity. Music has always played a major part of being a teenager. This goes right back to the beginnings of Rock and Roll in the fifties with the emergence of the Teddy Boys, identified by their uniform of winkle picker shoes, drainpipe trousers and hair swept up into quiffs. In the sixties you were either a Mod or a Rocker and it was obvious from your style of dress which one you were. Today it is still the same, adolescents choose which gang they belong to. The idea of music forming the identity of an adolescent is not a new one. I have already cited Richards book (1998) also the studies done by Szubertowska (2000) the influence that the family has on pupils attitude to music. One of the conclusions that

41 Szubertowska unsurprisingly drew was Adolescents glean their music from family environment and their peer group (page 318) This reluctance of my pupils to sing songs that they feel are not representative of their peer group, posed a bit of a problem for me. It made the whole class singing activity difficult. I could have made the small groups sing their songs but they might have felt too exposed to try that. I decided to change tack and introduced them to some songs I have put together for year seven pupils. I compiled them into a booklet that I have called silly songs. The booklets contain songs such as The Old Bazaar in Cairo, Camp Granada and Supercalifragalisticexpialidocious to name just three. The pupils in year seven love them. I am hoping that the easygoing nature of these songs may encourage the year nine pupils to be brave and use their voices and we can return to the pop songs at a later date. These songs are not fashionable in any way and therefore have no easily determined stereotyping attached to them. All the lyrics are light-hearted and some of the melodies are familiar and recognisable. We sang some of the songs in class and their attempts at singing were much better. I felt that I could now introduce the scheme of work on rap. The following chapter describes the construction of the scheme of work.

Chapter Eleven

The Scheme of Work

I had originally decided to teach the scheme of work to the other three of my year nine classes after the February half term. I had thought it would be useful to try out this scheme of work at this point in the year and then teach it to my fourth class after the Easter break when I made any improvements necessary to it. This was to have been the class that I focused directly on, although I intended to evaluate how the rap scheme had been received by the other three classes.

42 I already needed to make a change here. I decided to limit my research to just one of the classes who completed the scheme of work before Easter. This gave me the opportunity to examine their thoughts about doing the rap project and I would be able to begin the write up shortly after Easter. The scheme of work requested that the pupils do a small amount of research. I gave each group an information pack containing articles about rap music. This is the contextualising part of the scheme of work. After an initial discussion and a demonstration of some different styles of rap; they used the information pack to produce an information poster or booklet that gives an uninformed reader some facts about the background and description of the rap style. The next task was a listening exercise the pupils were asked to directly compare two rap songs, namely; 1. Youve got to fight for your Rights by Beastie Boys a piece of rap in the old school style from the 80s which is a fusion of rock music and rap. 2. It Doesnt Matter by Wyclef Jean a piece of rap from 2006 which demonstrates how rap uses sampled loops of music to create a collage. I selected these two songs because they demonstrate clearly two different types of rap and do not contain any offensive language. The students were made aware that there is more than one type of rap music and I wanted them to start listening closely to the structure of songs and not just let the sounds wash over them. They then analysed a given rap song; Dont Believe the Hype by Public Enemy (Appendix) a black group who were vociferous during the Black Power movement in New York during the 1980s, the students were asked to try to emulate the sound of part of this piece using simple percussion instruments and their voices. My reason for this exercise was to try and encourage all the students to have an attempt to speak in rhythm at a fast pace. I had anticipated that that there were several students who were not comfortable in trying to do this, but I had hoped by creating larger performance groups than I usually allowed, there was an element of safety in numbers.

43 The final task was for the students to create their own rhymes by a choosing rap backing track from several that I have downloaded from the web and adding their own words. In an ideal situation I would have preferred for all of the pupils to have either created their own rap backings using loops created on music programmes on the computer, or composed their own riffs using drums, guitars and other instruments. The problem of resources was the difficulty here, as other year nine classes were using the computer suite at the same time I was teaching mine. Very few of the pupils I teach play instruments well enough to tackle using instruments. However those that were able and have their own instruments were given the opportunity. As the scheme of work progressed I observed how it was received by the pupils and eventually gave a second questionnaire to evaluate their responses to it. This is discussed in chapter eleven. I then interviewed a small selection of the pupils directly, chapter thirteen. The following chapter describes how the scheme of work on rap music was followed, events that happened and some of my thoughts as it went along. I have written the descriptions as a form of diary. Writings done at the time or very shortly after are written in italics. I make some comments when considering my writings later within the diary entries in normal font

Chapter Twelve

A Rap Project

Week One I began the scheme of work on the first day back after the half term break in February. It was snowing. I mention this fact because the presence of snow may have had a bearing on what followed. Journal Entry Disappointment February 2006 I was very fed up today. I did my first lesson of my new rap SOW with a year nine class today. I have to admit I was a bit apprehensive, as I do not feel on familiar ground with this topic. I did not realise how apprehensive I was until I actually began to teach.

44 However the pupils had asked that the topic of rap be studied so I am complying with their wishes. It is their idea and I am doing it, I actually sound quite resentful here although I my feelings were actually quite the reverse. I introduced the topic by telling them that I had picked the idea out of some of the responses they had given me to my questionnaire. They were in a very chatty mood and I eventually I had to get a bit angry in order to get them to listen to what I had to say. I felt wrong footed as had wanted the pupils to feel interested in what they were going to do and had not wanted to alienate them by getting cross. I know that I had wanted an immediate enthusiastic response from them. I mentioned earlier that this was the first day back after a holiday and it was snowing. Perhaps I should have let them get their back to school gossip out of their system first. I could not get enough them interested enough to discuss what they thought rap was. I had anticipated answers such as speaking, rhyming and the use of heavy beats. Of course they latched on to the fact that some rap uses a lot of swearing. Very few of the pupils seemed able today to take part in a class discussion, so I abandoned this and instead handed out my objective and task sheets. I had anticipated that they would have mentioned swearing as being important to rap. I was disappointed that I was not able to get enough discussion going in order to introduce them to other kinds of rap at this stage. I know I felt defeated. The tasks that they will do first will be to produce a poster or booklet about rap by reading some information sheets I have prepared for them. They will then copy a Public Enemy song from the 80s, using some simple instruments and their voices and the final part of the scheme will be to produce their own rhymes in groups over a chosen rap backing. On the task sheet I had written that they would not be allowed to use swearing or any offensive remarks in their raps. This produced remarks like but that what rap is all about and would not listen to my information informing them that rap has lots of styles and it is only Gangsta rap which really uses offensive language. I played them some Public Enemy and because they were unfamiliar with it some of them were not prepared to give it a hearing denouncing it as is this rap? Here is another example that shows how important identity is, the denouncement of something out of their sphere of experience and not their music. They did not know this style of rap so therefore to them it was not rap. Public Enemy are in fact an American white

45 rap band from the 80s, they use a combination of rock music and rapping to produce their sound. I tried to tell them the background to the band but it was an uphill struggle. I insisted that the written work was done and they sort of settled to do it. After some time I played a mixed rap CD that I had compiled, to them. Only at the point when Kanye West, a current rap artist, began to perform Diamonds of Sierra Leone did I detect any enthusiasm. The funny thing about this track is it is sampled from Shirley Bassey singing Diamonds are Forever. I am sure if I had played Shirley at any other time I would have been laughed at. She has obviously gained some street cred! This is a track that they are familiar with and therefore it had credibility. I write more detail later about identity in chapter 13. I had prepared a detailed listening sheet for them but there was no time. I was heartened only by one lad asking if I had a particular track by Aerosmith. I said I would source it and play it in a lesson. My last request to the class was that they could bring rap examples of their choice as long as they were not offensive in any way. Not because I am a prude but because it is not suitable on school premises. They left. I was left feeling frustrated. Where did I go wrong? I got a better response from this class when we started Minimalism, something that can actually be a dry and difficult topic. I think with the classes I have later in the week I will try starting with the Kanye West number and see if I get their attention sooner. I will then follow this up with the listening questions and see how it goes. What has surprised me is that I thought that I was giving them something that they wanted. I can only hope for a better response from the other groups. I wrote the journal entry almost immediately after the lesson. My disappointment was that I had thought that the pupils would be interested in what they were going to be doing for the next few weeks and I was surprised to get such a poor response. In the first part of this journal entry I write that I was a bit apprehensive, as I do not feel on familiar ground. I wonder did I convey this feeling to the pupils. Normally I am quite up beat and confident in my knowledge, perhaps on this occasion I came across as nervous. Was the fact that it was the first lesson back after a weeks holiday and that they needed to sit and chat together for a while? Should I have given them the opportunity and not been so anxious to get on with the lesson? Was it the fact that it was snowing? This is something that

46 always distracts pupils at any level. I admit do not know. However, I wrote a journal entry about the same group two lessons later;

Week Two and Three The task for these two weeks was to copy a performance by Public Enemy using their voices and some simple percussion. I had picked the track because of the simplicity of the instrumentation. The rapping itself is not easy. The reasons for this task were to give all the pupils an opportunity to rap in rhythm straightaway. I had printed the lyrics onto sheets for them and they were expected to try to copy the first verse in groups of about six.

Journal entry Rap lessons March 2006 I had been really disappointed initially with the response of one of my year nine groups to my rap scheme of work. I have since been very pleased with their response in the weeks following. Some of them had obviously thought about the tasks I had set them. They walked into the classroom saying things like you wont make me rap on my own will you miss? This may be a negative comment but I was pleased that their thoughts were on what was to come and there had obviously been some discussion after class last week. I admit that I was very pleased to have this conversation. The fact that some of them had thought about last weeks lesson may mean that they were in fact listening to me talk about rap. Another pupil brought in a rap CD for us to listen to. Their first attempts to perform Dont Believe the Hype were not very good. But the following week absolutely everybody in the class really tried. Two girls even memorised the words ready for class. I was able to make a recording of each group that we will listen to next lesson. Now I feel that they will be willing to attempt to perform their own raps and understand why I set them the task to perform previously written one. What is really surprising in this paragraph is the phrase everybody in the class really tried. I had expected one or two students to try and opt out of the process and either do nothing or just be the percussion accompaniment. The groups were originally meant to stay at a

47 maximum of six, the normal size for practical work, but I did allow the numbers to be larger in order to give some pupils a kind of anonymity. It has cheered me up considerably as the whole atmosphere of the class has been better. I thought they were going to resist my attempts to please them. My MA group read this journal and I was questioned about my use of the words attempts to please them. I used the words please them here quite genuinely. I was trying to please them and by pleasing them make my experience with them more agreeable. The following weeks will see the groups composing their own rap lyrics and the scheme of work will finish with the raps being performed and assessed.

Week Four Rap This week the pupils started to compose their own raps. I had downloaded some rap style backings from the web to give them a choice of different sounds. Journal Entry Rap Composition March 2006 The pupils started to compose their own raps today. I have left them in their larger groups to assist some students to merge into the background. Using larger groups is not a method I had used before. Whilst it can present problems of space and the problem of negotiation within the groups, I can see a value for certain projects. In fact I have experimented with some year seven classes performing samba. Using larger groups in this situation was interesting and threw up new situations for the pupils to deal with, such as having to obey the instructions of one leader rather than inputting their ideas. In the rap situation my thoughts were to give less confident pupils a way of hiding in the background. The class as a whole seem to be quite enthusiastic about this task and have decided on some topics to rap about already. Picking the backing track has been difficult. I only had one CD player and one CD so after an initial playing of the backings in class I then had to tour round the groups in different areas with the player. For next week I will burn some more CDs. In on of the groups there is a boy (Q) with ADHD. He has worked really enthusiastically with his group today. Quite unusual.

48 Q has been very disruptive on occasions. He has some learning difficulties and does not achieve well academically. He often finds excuses to wander about when he should be working with his group in a practice room. It really was surprising to find that he was so focussed today. There are only three groups, which is a bit strange, as normally they would work in no more than fours. The size of the groups does not seem to have caused any behavioural problems at all. Am I succeeding? Are they enjoying this topic? Have my attempts to modernise worked? At this stage I dont know. I will only have those answers at the end of the project. At this stage I did not know whether I was succeeding at all. The atmosphere as I visited each group was very positive. I still am at this stage, clearly worried whether the project is a winner. Week Five Rap Week four of the project became week five because other events in school impinged upon my planning. This is a normal occurrence as all teachers soon realise.

I had not taken my year nine classes last week because I was recording and accompanying A level performance course work. I was worried that when they came back to me this week, they would have lost interest and momentum. The plan is to give all the groups another lesson to continue writing and practicing their raps. I would then take the first lesson back after the Easter break to give them a final rehearsal and then record and assess their work. . It was heartening therefore to be asked whilst queuing ready to go into the building. We are doing our raps today arent we miss? When I said Of course the response was Yippee. What a great start to the lesson! They do not seem to have lost any interest and seemed to be looking forward to proceeding with their raps. This continuing enthusiasm was one of the highlights of the project for me. At this stage in the year I have never known year nine pupils to be looking forward to a music lesson. The groups were organized into their practice rooms and they got on with their work. It was interesting to note the great differences from week 4 (see journal appendix) in the dynamics of the groups today. One group had lost their leader as he was off ill. They were floundering around not really knowing what to do. Ahkbar is away they said we cant do this without

49 him, he knows how it goes. I asked did they have the words written down. Yes they said but we still dont know how to do it. I had a look at what they had written and made an attempt to read it rhythmically. They said that that had helped, so I left the room. In truth this group were the least hardworking of all the groups. They had obviously relied on Ahkbar to do the work for them and had sat back and done very little themselves. Another group had a member of the class with them who had been absent for several weeks. She has missed all the lessons since the introductory one. She can be a difficult girl and is often excluded from school for short periods, for her bad behaviour. She was one of the students who had complained the most, that what I was playing to them in the first class was Not rap at all because it had no swear words. She was also the student who was very disparaging about the Coldplay songs (see Journal appendix) Clare was not really behaving badly today, but the work rate of the group was really disappointing, I felt that when I left the room they would just spend the time chatting. How interesting it is to see the influence one person can have on others. This group were genuinely very enthusiastic and hardworking without Clare. With her in the room they were very reticent to try out their rhymes. She obviously holds some sway with them. Unusually Q a lad who has a very short attention span and is often off task, was working the best in this group. He was sitting quietly, a feat for Q, trying to organise some words to rhyme. I praised him. Again I write about Q. The fact that he is sitting down writing, trying out different rhymes and really attempting to complete the task, is quite remarkable. Encouragingly the other two groups were working much better. A group of seven girls had copied the melody from one of the backing tracks that I had provided for them and made it into a sung chorus. Three of them sang this and another group rapped some rhymes over the top.(minidisk 1) The approach that the girls had to their rap composition was one of those surprising and creative moments. At no time had I suggested that they used the melody from the backing track. They had taken the taken the concepts and really come up with something new.

50 I was particularly pleased that one of the rappers was a girl who has already said she did not want to rap at all and I know particularly feels that music is a waste of her time. I said well done Sulima, see what you can do when you try. I didnt think Id ever get you rapping she looked really pleased at getting some praise. How nice it was to hand out some praise to Sulima. I think to my shame that this may have been the first time that I had ever singled her out for any. The last group was an all male group comprising six boys. The group contains two very good musicians; they are going to study GCSE music and will probably continue into A level. They have opted to compose the rap background themselves using a drum kit and piano. They do not feel at all comfortable with the subject of rap, but are trying their best. Unusually, I walked into an uncomfortable atmosphere; one of the boys was sitting far apart from the others. He is a quiet lad, not a great musician, but very pleasant. Why are you not working with the others I asked they wont let me do it he said they keep telling me Im getting it wrong and that I cant be in it. I said to the group as a whole that it was not fair to exclude him; they had to let him take part. Thats not what we said they argued He was just being too loud the whole time and not listening to the beat, so we told him to shut up! Well I said show him clearly what the beat is and let him practice, I am sure he will pick it up I left them to it. In this room were two perfectionists. They are excellent musicians and always strive to make their work of a high standard. It was unusual for them to work with pupils who find music difficult. It was possibly a useful task for them to try to improve the standard of another pupil, and realise that not everybody finds music as easy as they do. A lesson in tolerance for them maybe? Returning to both groups towards the end of the lesson, I was encouraged that these groups had really produced some good work and recorded it as work in progress onto a minidisk. The other two groups did not produce anything recordable; however they did at least write some more rhymes. Back in the classroom for the plenary, I played the work of the groups that I had recorded. I wish that I had had a video camera to record their reaction when they heard their performance. It was like watching some very young children. The girls particularly reacted by hiding their faces on the desk and giggling. The boys also showed some discomfiture but were laughing along. The other two groups listened carefully and did not comment, interestingly. I write that the other groups listened carefully, without comment. There was no laughing or critical remarks from the groups who did not record anything. I wish I

51 had had time to explore their thoughts in detail at this point. My own feeling was that they were quite impressed at what the groups had produced. There was not enough time left to discuss the performances today, I am looking forward to recording a more polished version after Easter and hope that the other two groups will have something worth recording. We will assess the performances together as a class and I will ask the group to write some reflective notes on the scheme of work as a whole. It is my intention to give this group a short questionnaire to gauge their reaction to the scheme of work and offer possible improvements to it. Week Six Rap The Assessment

In some ways the final week was a bit of an anticlimax. The Easter holiday had meant a two-week gap in the scheme of work. I felt that some momentum in the creation of slick performances had been lost, even though I felt that their enthusiasm was still there. This lack of momentum and the fact that several members of the class were missing, spoilt what I had hoped would be a good final performance. However, I am not judging their work solely on the final performance but on the process that they took to make it. The class, as is usual in the music department, assessed each others performance against a set of criteria. I did not record scores for the performances. Instead I am going to use the data I recorded onto an assessment sheet which showed each students level of participation during the process of making the raps. During the latter part of this lesson the pupils filled in a second questionnaire. Here as follows, is a summing up of the answers I received.

Chapter Thirteen

The Second Questionnaire

Although this is not a quantitative piece of research I am going to show some of the figures for questions that I asked. Appendix 1. Did you enjoy the rap project? (circle the number)
Not at all 1 * 2 * 3 *** 4 5 ***** 6 7 * 8 ****** 9 10 ** Yes

The answers are fairly well spread out across the range not at all to yes. There are 5 pupils who seem fairly ambivalent about whether they enjoyed it or not, 9 pupils answered in the range 7-10, and only 5 pupils answered in the range 1-3. The results are quite pleasing; the majority of the pupils have signalled that they enjoyed the project.

52 I asked how useful and informative each activity had been. For the activities of reading and writing about rap, the comments I received were fairly evenly balanced, some positive and some negative. Some enjoyed these tasks useful because we learnt about its history it was kind of informative and useful. Others found reading and writing about rap boring, not really useful. Listening to rap only produced only one negative comment didnt really help much some positive comments were you got to understand it better, helpful. It was good. Interesting. More negative answers were given to the question about answering questions about rap, which involved filling in answers to a set of questions. Seven pupils felt this task was boring and not really useful. However some of the other pupils said that you got to understand it much better It was good to hear different types of rap. The next set of activities was practical. The pupils tried to emulate a professional rapper by copying his performance. There were only two negative comments for this activity. This was an activity I had included to encourage all of the class members to speak in rhythm and rhyme straightaway. Some positive comments were was helpful to get into the project, good for being able to learn how to do raps and my group were enthusiastic and enjoying and so was our rap. I am happy that this activity was successful and gave a kick-start to some of those students who were too shy at the beginning of the project to try and rap. The pupils were mostly happy to make up their own rap rhymes there were only five unenthusiastic remarks here. One pupil said it was hard and two said didnt like it. The enthusiastic pupils answered good very useful it was fun and it was hard but worth it but I didnt like the group I was with. Performance of their own rap produced a real divide, eight students were really unhappy about performing embarrassing, didnt really want to do it. Bad and some text speak H8d it. Several of the other pupils found it good and useful fun exciting. The final question I asked was how would you improve the rap project for other students? In some ways the answers I received here are the most interesting. Certainly some of them

53 are longer more considered comments. Perhaps the pupils enjoyed being able to feel they had an input into the curriculum. Six pupils had no comment to make about any improvement. Constructive criticisms were Few more choices in backing tracks. Not writing our own raps and doing a already written. More time to work on performance and more help on instruments. More background beats, being shown examples by other students. That they want to actually perform. Some particularly telling comments were Make it modern. Use newer examples of rap that are like new. You should let us listen to popular rap. As in rap people that everyone has heard of. It is clear, however up to date I thought I was being, my examples were still considered old-fashioned. Finally two pupils expressed a wish to make the rap project longer. Summing Up I feel I can assume from these replies that the majority of the class were reasonably happy with the topic and I can comfortably add the scheme of work to the departments repertoire with a few amendments. It is of no surprise really that there was a general dislike about reading and writing about a topic in music. I recognize that this reluctance to approach music in an academic manner is normal. I wrote earlier that many students regard music lessons as something of a break from their normal academic toil. One very clear issue has arisen in the lead up to and during the process of the rap project. That is the subject of peer group identity, a topic I need to explore further.

Chapter Fourteen

Identity Crisis?

I found by reading around this subject that the adolescent identity issue is an enormous one. Charting his career as a media teacher and the problems he found when teaching popular music Richards (1998) discussed similar difficulties. There is other research on the musical tastes of adolescents and how music aids the formation of individual and group such as ONeill & Green 2001. This research is concerned more with the playing of musical

54 instruments rather than the mere enjoyment of music through listening. They identify six groups which can influence individuals, gender, family, peer, social class, ethnicity/religion and musicians. There are overlaps within these groupings and they assert that isolating these groups can appear artificial and arbitrary. (2001:29). I found with my pupils that the family and peer group were the most influential. (See chapter fifteen) Lamont et al 2003 studied young peoples music in and out of school. They found that popular music plays a central role in their lives and constitutes a badge of identity for many (2003:230). Their concern was that although teachers have more positive attitudes towards popular styles their teaching strategies remain traditional. I wrote earlier about the work of Green and Walmsley and their musical futures project (2005). I feel more and more that this informal learning style that they advocate may be one solution. Nuttall and Tinson 2005, write about how peer groups influence what adolescents buy. The researchers used discussion as part of their research methodology. They gave examples of how language, dress and expert knowledge can used as a code to identify certain peer groups. This piece of research stimulated me to organise a discussion with my pupils (see chapter fifteen) I wrote earlier in the dissertation, that the matter of peer group identity had not only been highlighted during my own adolescence, see chapter 2, Biography, but that this identity had also manifested itself within my classroom one particular lesson, see chapter 4, entitled Beginning the Research. I stated that the pupils were very unwilling to sing songs that they regarded as being outside their group. The majority actually showed a reluctance to sing popular songs altogether. A survey carried out by the Church of England in 1992 stated that: 'Many teenagers feel embarrassed when asked to sing.... Other than at football matches and on school journeys, people sing less spontaneously than in previous generations.' [Report of the Archbishop's Commission on Church Music, 1992,: 133 in Durrant (2001): ] I think this is true. My own feeling that singing is not such a regular pastime anymore is because the way we entertain ourselves as a society has radically changed. In my

55 grandparents house singing around the piano in the evening was the norm. Families made their own entertainment; there was not much recorded music at this time. Today is entirely different; television is in every home, possibly in every room in the house. Music is piped at us in public places, DVDs are readily accessible and the latest chart sounds are displayed in all kinds of places. We cannot readily escape the media hype but it does not often encourage us to sing along. I found in my classroom that the pupils were fairly happy to sing along with neutral if silly songs. Whole class singing forms a part of the lower school syllabus at my school so they are quite used to the concept. I am convinced it was because the songs did not impinge in any way on their identities. How and why then do these identities arise?

A dictionary definition states that an identity is; a state of being a specified person or thing: individuality or personality. Collins Gem English dictionary 1991 Erik Erikson (1959) in Santrock (page 178-180) formulated a theory that we pass through eight stages before we develop our final personalities. He coined the phrase identity crisis stage five being the period between 12-18 when the crisis adolescents are facing is the egoidentity vs. role-confusion and that the significant relations this time are their peer groups and role models. We may have many different identities at different times. This different identity is a result of what sociology calls identity negotiation. a person has multiple identities that relate to different aspects of their life and personality and "negotiates" with society as to the meaning of that identity in their life For example, the identity of "office worker" would be negotiated separately from the identity of "mother." Wikipedia accessed May 2006 Some of my identities are mother, teacher, friend, musician and student. In fact I have noticed myself changing identity when meeting new people. I may still introduce myself as a musician, even now, when I do not earn my living as a performer any more. To my daughters friends I am Maxines or Annes mum. Usually I never introduce myself to this

56 group as a teacher. Why? When in other situations I am quite proud of the title teacher. I have not really thought about this until now. Maybe I am trying to appear friendly and not authoritative to my daughters friends. Richards (1999) states that; In British school discourse students are pupils, kids, children and sometimes youngsters, young people, young adults and learners. I find myself using the terms pupils and students interchangeably. However it is not necessarily the identities my pupils have from my point of view, but rather the identities that they perceive they have themselves, that I wish to pursue. Obviously I negotiate with society myself appearing as different identities when it suits. I am sure that my pupils do exactly the same. The identity people adopt changes over a period of time. The adolescent years are probably where identities change the most frequently, as Erikson states. Today the media is probably one of the most influential items in a teenagers development. Visual images are offered as role models, films offer idealised situations, magazines present pictures of unattainable body shapes and of the right clothes to wear, the latest chart sounds are played in a myriad of different places urging people to purchase them. It is clear that adolescents today are bombarded with many ideas by the popular media. I alluded to this media-hype earlier. The choices that adolescents make from this bombardment help to formulate who they are. With all this media-saturation it is probably not easy for adolescents to decide who they want to be. Teenagers are very much influenced by their friends. They want to dress alike; I observed this phenomenon many times watching my daughters and their friends get ready to go out. Sometimes there might be four young girls dressed almost identically, yet at the time school uniform was disliked. I appreciate the clothes that they were choosing to wear were their choices and not those foistered on them by parents and school. There was at this period in their adolescence no sense of individuality, I am sure the feeling was safety in numbers. They looked like their friends and therefore could be identified as a group.

57 Looking back, the response some of my pupils gave when choosing songs to sing and their denigration of the choices by other sections of my class, Journal entry Appendix highlights one other way in which teenagers form themselves into groups The influence of popular music to define these groups is enormous. many young people are extremely critical in their appreciation of various types of pop music and approach the latter with clear sets of criteria concerning the relative worth both of various styles and various records within one style (Whitty and Young, 1976:31 in Richards 1998:22) An example of the clear sets of criteria was shown; when I played some rap that did not include swear words and this was denounced as not rap by Clare. She was certainly very critical not only of my choice of rap music but she was also a member of the group critical of the Coldplay song choices. 'all adolescents have the same problems, all adolescents pass through peer groups, all adolescents use music as a badge and a background, a means of identifying and articulating emotion.' (Frith, 1981: p. 217) I intend to ask my pupils how much music influences how they identify themselves. Nuttall and Tinson 2005 found that peer group norms show themselves through language, music preference and disassociation with particular groups or artists and having expert knowledge. I have also observed that unfortunately music can be very class, gender and ethnicity ridden. I had an informal discussion with a group of pupils, the members who attend my Orchestra Club. This group is made up of white, middle class youngsters. This has come about quite naturally; I would really like a more diverse mix. ONeill & Green have identified that middle class children are more likely to take up instrument playing and be more informed about classical music, because they have heard it at home. There are definite gender norms when pupils choose which instrument to study. Research has been done in this area by Green (1997) Even though there are a large number of Asian pupils at the school very few take an active role in musical events. I understand that this is a reflection of their religion, which

58 does not encourage music playing very much. I think that there might be material for a further research here, but that is beyond the remit of this dissertation. During the informal discussion the words Scally and Chavs were used. Both these terms I understand to belong to what these youngsters thought of as some type of lower class. The youngsters in my Orchestra Club obviously did not see themselves as being either Scallys or Chavs. I have been made aware that there is a type of music that Scallys and Chavs listen to, which is mostly R&B and Rap. The music the Orchestra Club group liked most was Classical, Jazz and Rock. Durrant 2001:2 states that ... the music curriculum has not addressed the musical behaviour and development interface with the socio-cultural contexts in which adolescents live Maybe this was true in 2001; at my school we are trying to include more diverse topics taught at Key stage 3 now to include popular and world music. For example we require pupils to create a piece of dance music using computer generated samples for year nine pupils. We offer samba music for year seven pupils. My own project on Rap is another example. I wanted to explore the thoughts my students had about identity and music, so I organised a short discussion. What follows is what happened during discussion and some thoughts I had after transcribing it. Appendix.

Chapter Fifteen

Talking to my pupils.

I told each class when the discussion would be happening and quite a few pupils said they would come along. It was to be during lunchtime and there would be a reward of sweets and chocolates for their time. The lunchtime arrived and I was disappointed to find that only five students had turned up even though quite a number had expressed interest. The other unfortunate aspect was that the students who did turn up were all musicians of some sort and

59 members of my Wednesday evening Orchestra Club. I feel that these students already form a group of like minded people. However I went ahead with the discussion even though I felt the outcome would be inevitably skewed. I opened the discussion with a short description about why I had wanted this discussion. I include short excerpts from a verbatum transcript that I made from the discussion I recorded. Me You know Im studying for an MA? General assent Whilst Kate rattles her sweets Laughter Me So, I am writing about how Ive tried to come down from the classical level and approach, sort of things that young people are interested in. Hence the Rap project. Which I know you werent all totally thrilled about. Because youd rather learn about Bach, but there you go I did not plan in advance exactly what to say, so everything I utter is unrehearsed. What is shocking right from the start is my use of the phrase Ive tried to come down from the classical level how high and mighty I sound, I did not realise that I had this lofty view of classical music versus pop. I can only say that this was an unconscious use of words. I also realised when I listened to the recording that sometimes I cut across what the students were trying to say. Anne Theyre Rock, they split up. Me cutting across, theyre Rock? I should have sat back and let the discussion take its own course. The group consisted of five pupils, Anne, Helen, Kate, female and Graham and Michael, male. Very quickly Anne became the most vociferous of the group even cutting across other pupils comments. Michael I wouldnt say so no Anne talking across Michael It depends which type of group the boy is from. My comments about Annes input are not really implying a criticism about her, but a reflection on how I could have controlled the discussion differently. I possibly could have tried to lessen her contribution in order to stimulate the others to contribute. On the other hand, her comments were very enthusiastic and in fact many items that she contributed may have stimulated the others into speech anyway. I have already noted that the make up of the group was rather biased towards Classical music, it came as no surprise then when I received the comment from Graham that

60 once you listen to Classical music, everything else sounds so samey, its always the same in 4/4 or something.... I have to admit that part of me agrees with this sentiment although I am trying to cure myself of my bias. The result of Grahams comment stimulated Anne into defending her favourite group Blink 182 which opened up the discussion about Rock and Moshers and from there I was able to ask about other adolescent social groups. Later in the discussion Anne commented that We dress the way we want to, we like music and do whatever we want really I take from this comment that Anne and some of the others in the group are secure in their musical tastes and do not feel they have to dress in any particular way to be part of a particular group. Are this group then successful in negotiating the identity crisis and ready to face future challenges in life (Erikson 1970). I may be making assumptions but I wonder if some of reasons for these pupils to have such confidence of identity may possibly be a combination of a secure background and an ability to cope well with the academic side of school. These assumptions are at the moment something I can only guess at. Unfortunately I did not have the opportunity to organise another discussion with another set of pupils.

Chapter Sixteen

Conclusion

The title of this chapter conclusion may be a little misleading, as I do not believe that there is a definite conclusion at this point. I wrote earlier that this document was probably not going to be a victory narrative. I also wrote that there were not going to be particular answers to a research question, but rather that this document was going to describe my attempts to modernise my outlook and become more comfortable in presenting popular music. So, have I achieved what I set out to achieve? In some ways I think I have. If nothing else I have engaged with a style of music that I was unfamiliar with. I have not suddenly turned into a rapper myself. In fact there are many of my students who are better at performing rap

61 than me. However in attempting to be up to date and fashionable, I have realised that this is an impossibility. Without being reborn as an adolescent myself, not only unattainable but inadvisable, I can never hope to have a thorough knowledge of what all my students think is cool, to use a very old fashioned word. Nor do I feel that my pupils particularly want me to present this kind of image to them. I need to keep my teacher identity, understand their world but not encroach upon it. I will however when presenting new topics to them, search out where possible, examples which they recognise. I have begun to understand a little how adolescents negotiate their place in society in order to find out who they are. I now realise that I did exactly the same thing myself. I have had quite a journey myself through the three years of the MA. I began as a very late entry to teaching, feeling very unconfident and not a little out of touch. My complete immersion in an elite environment that I describe in my biography, chapter two, did not prepare me for some of the situations I found myself in. Sharing thoughts and writings with the critical friends I encountered in my MA group have developed my persona as a teacher. I am now much more confident in certain situations and feel more able to approach situations without feeling inferior. I am very keen now to experiment with the informal learning style advocated by Green and Wamsley (2005) that I have discussed. The information pack was sent to me at the end of last term and the music department have already discussed ways we can use the ideas. Reading through this dissertation I was aware of a real highlight for me. This was when the pupils were showing a real enthusiasm to come into my classroom and continue their rap projects, (week five, rap project.) This enthusiasm was what I set out to achieve. I will use the rap project again with some of next years cohort of year nine pupils. I am certain however they will consider the examples I picked this year as desperately oldfashioned so I had better start listening to the charts from now!

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