Abstract
It is my great privilege to work with doctoral students on their dissertations and to learn more about music education through the ways in which they construct their research problems. Recently, I have been engaged with a small group of doctoral candidates who are pursuing questions of how cooperating teachers and clinical faculty develop identities and practices as music teacher educators. When do these individuals stop calling themselves “music teachers,” and begin to introduce themselves as “music teachers who teach music teachers”? 1 Because they are themselves cooperating teachers and clinical faculty, the doctoral candidates have used narrative inquiry and self-study methods, and they have already confirmed several findings from the self-study literature: First, initial beliefs about how to teach music teachers arise from teachers’ own experiences of schooling—sometimes supporting and perpetuating those experiences, but more frequently reacting to them. For instance, a cooperating teacher who has a strong sense that her mentor did not give enough detailed feedback may arrange her own student teachers’ experience mainly as co-teaching, so she can offer the kinds of demonstration, coaching, and feedback that she missed in her professional development.
A second finding confirmed in these dissertation studies is that, as cooperating teachers and clinical faculty begin to think of themselves as music teacher educators, they immediately focus on the subject matter, on the what of teaching, including conducting, rehearsal techniques, repertoire, children’s musical development, and so forth. Russell (1997) calls this the “content turn” (p. 44). Demonstrating and guiding preservice teachers’ interactions with high-quality models of music content are, indeed, essential components of music teacher educators’ work. Likewise, music teacher educators must help preservice teachers consider child and adolescent development so music content can be sequenced appropriately. As Russell (1997) indicates, “teaching affects one’s understanding of what one teaches” (p. 44), and cooperating teachers and clinical faculty appear to reflect frequently on content they present to preservice teachers. Still, music content is merely the visible portion of the teacher educators’ work—music teacher education is actually a complex and difficult practice, much of which lies beneath the surface (Labaree, 2005). The how aspects of teaching music teachers may seem least accessible to cooperating teachers and clinical faculty: How do preservice music teachers become curious about different classroom contexts? How do they learn to collaborate with other teachers, beyond the subject of music? How do they imagine school music as it might be, rather than how it exists currently? How do preservice music teachers become authors and agents of their own practices? Some cooperating teachers and clinical faculty will always remain focused on content, but, as Russell (1997) contends, others “go further, moving beyond the various content pieces . . . to begin to make the pedagogical turn, realizing that how we teach teachers may send much more influential messages than what we teach them” (p. 44).
When I wondered what might keep cooperating teachers and clinical faculty from making the pedagogical turn, the doctoral candidates shared information on the historic divide between schools and universities with regard to preservice teacher education. “Prospective teachers are supposed to learn theories [of teaching] in the university and then go to schools to practice or apply what they learned” (Zeichner, 2010, p. 90). An alternate model valorizes experience, so “the role of the university in the process [of learning to teach] can be minimized” (Zeichner, p. 91). Regardless of the model employed, cooperating teachers and clinical faculty feel distanced from teacher education programs and sense that they lack authority to make decisions about what preservice teachers should know and be able to do. Relatedly, full-time teacher education faculty often “maintain hegemony over the construction and dissemination of knowledge” (Zeichner, p. 90). They discount the ways of knowing that cooperating teachers and clinical faculty employ.
Typically, cooperating teachers and clinical faculty are asked to serve because of expertise developed through many years of teaching children with diverse abilities. It seems less recognized that, as reflective practitioners, these teachers also have developed “living theories” of teacher education (Whitehead, 1993). One of the prevalent and well-developed theories among cooperating teachers and clinical faculty is that of moral responsibility toward unseen children. This theory begins with a premise that students must trust their teachers to help them build reliable processes of learning. Students must trust that their teachers are acting with integrity when they give feedback, and that teachers are treating them with care and kindness. Furthermore, such trustworthiness is important not only for those who teach children but also for those who teach teachers. To act with such trustworthiness as a teacher educator helps “prepare teachers who are worthy of their future students’ [the unseen children’s] trust” (Hamilton & Pinnegar, 2000, p. 238). This living theory of teacher education seems worthy of full-time faculty’s recognition.
Finally, the group of doctoral candidates confirmed the finding that cooperating teachers and clinical faculty want to be included in a community of practice, where the practice is focused on music teacher education. They are aware, as Lave and Wenger (1991) indicate, that their initial entry into the community begins on the periphery. They are newcomers learning from old-timers, but with each new aspect of music teacher education entrusted to them, the cooperating teachers and clinical faculty hope to move closer to the center of practice. They want to negotiate a joint enterprise and shared repertoire of music teacher education (Wenger, 1998) with full-time music teacher educators, but they often feel as if they threaten the community of practice from their positions on the periphery (Lave & Wenger, 1991).
Through listening to and reading the work of doctoral candidates, I have come to believe that conceptions of music teacher education are impoverished without the contributions of cooperating teachers and clinical faculty. As recently announced on the Society for Music Teacher Education (SMTE) website (smte.us), the 2015 Greensboro Symposium on Music Teacher Education welcomes proposals and presence from anyone interested in music teacher education. Those planning to submit proposals should consider whether the how aspects of music teacher education might be made more visible, enabling many music teacher educators to move beyond the content turn to the pedagogical turn. Furthermore, those intending to submit proposals should consider the extent to which living theories of music teacher educators can be represented in presentations. Collaborative proposals are especially encouraged for the symposium: Do we have model communities of practice in music teacher education that include full-time faculty, clinical faculty, and cooperating teachers who are negotiating a joint enterprise and shared repertoire? As the call for proposals indicates, SMTE is interested in broadening the diversity of voices that take part in conversations and strategic actions and in moving toward a stronger, richer community.