Learning through dissonance: Critical service-learning in a juvenile detention center as field experience in music teacher education

Abstract

Though many pre-service music teachers have received exemplary instruction in their high school music programs, these programs may not be representative of the social, cultural, and economic diversity of their broader communities. This insularity may hinder their perceptions of their community as they step into an increasingly diverse school environment. The Champaign County Juvenile Detention Center (CCJDC) Arts Project was adopted as a critical service-learning course in order to introduce pre-service music teachers to students and ways of teaching that may be different from what they typically encounter through their university field experiences. Participants in the project designed and facilitated music and arts experiences with the incarcerated youth once per week over an entire semester. In this case study we examine the experiences of six pre-service music teachers who participated in the CCJDC Arts Project during 2012, looking for moments of “dissonance,” which Kiely defines as incongruities between participants’ past experiences and the challenging reality they encounter through the project. Entry into the facility, interactions with the youth at the facility, and the musical practices shaped by the needs of the facility all worked in tandem to challenge participants’ latent expectations and beliefs about their community, and to heighten their awareness of the sociocultural systems that shape their future students, their developing teaching practices, and their own privileged positions in school and society.

Keywords

field experience juvenile detention music teacher education service-learning social justice

Introduction

Allsup and Shieh (2012) contend that, “there is no teaching for social justice without an awareness of the inequities that surround us” (p. 48, emphasis added). Thus, in order to shape music teaching and learning into a more socially just practice that serves the common good, music teachers must “move from our isolated classrooms and sealed traditions … into a public space” (p. 47) in order to notice and name inequity. Though many pre-service music teachers in the USA have received exemplary music instruction in selective high school band, choir, and orchestra programs, these programs may not be representative of the social, cultural, and economic diversity of their broader communities. One of the central tasks of learning to teach is to examine and challenge incoming beliefs and prior life experiences in light of compelling, and potentially dissonant alternatives (Feiman-Nemser, 2012). Pre-service music teachers are entering into the teaching profession at a time in which educators and the wider public are focused on issues of social justice; including, but not limited to, a trend towards school re-segregation (Kozol, 2005; Orfield & Lee, 2010), the racial mismatch between overwhelmingly white music teachers and a diversifying student population (Koza, 2008; McKoy, 2013), and privileged access to music classes (Butler, Lind, & McKoy, 2007; Elpus & Abril, 2011; Salvador & Allegood, 2014). How might music teacher educators assist pre-service teachers to examine their incoming beliefs, to experience compelling alternatives, to notice and name inequality, to develop a critical social justice sensibility, to respond to the musical needs and abilities of every student, and to become change agents in their classrooms, schools, and communities?

Critical service-learning is one means of fostering such encounters between university students and their communities (Bringle & Hatcher, 1996; Kezar & Rhoads, 2001; Reardon, 1998). In addition to working alongside community partners to improve local circumstances, participants in critical service-learning projects seek to understand the systemic social issues that make their service necessary in the first place (Mitchell, 2008). Pre-service teachers engaged in critical service-learning have the opportunity to develop the social awareness necessary to notice, name, and respond to the needs of their future students, and to work to positively affect the circumstances that create those needs in the first place (King, 2004; Romo & Chavez, 2008).

We, Jeananne as instructor and Brian as graduate assistant, found an opportunity to foster the connection between our pre-service teachers and their community when we were invited to provide music and art sessions at the Champaign County Juvenile Detention Center (CCJDC).¹ In response, we developed the CCJDC Arts Project as an elective, service-learning course for pre-service music teachers and other interested undergraduate students. In this study, we examine the experiences of the six music education students who participated in the inaugural year of the course. Through this process we also came to question our own assumptions about the aims and ends of the course, and of critical service-learning in general.

Review of literature and theoretical framework

Service-learning is “a pedagogical approach in which students learn and develop through active participation in thoughtfully organized service experiences that meet actual community needs” (Buchanan, Baldwin, & Rudisill, 2012, p. 28). Critics argue that service-learning can gloss over the root causes of social inequity (Butin, 2006). In response, Mitchell (2008) proposes a critical form of service-learning that is “unapologetic in its aim to dismantle structures of injustice” (p. 50) and offers several markers that distinguish critical service-learning projects from volunteerism or pre-professional internships. These characteristics are: 1) the distribution of power among all the stakeholders in the project, 2) the development of authentic relationships in both the classroom and community, and 3) the commitment to work from a social change perspective (p. 50). The student who participates in a critical service-learning course should develop a critical consciousness of the social problem addressed by the service-learning project as well as contemplate the “systemic and institutionalized nature of oppression” (p. 54) in order to foster “personal and institutional contributions to social problems and measures that may lead to social change” (p. 54).

Scholarship in music teacher education has shown the efficacy of service-learning as a means of curricular field experience. Much like student-teaching, or other practicum experiences, service-learning provides pre-service music teachers with opportunities to develop their identity as music teachers by enacting pedagogies and applying musical content knowledge in authentic learning environments (Bartolome, 2013; Burton & Reynolds, 2009; Reynolds & Conway, 2003; Siebenaler, 2005). Service-learning departs from other forms of field experience in that service sites are most often community settings without full-time music teachers or places where music instruction is not offered at all. Examples of service-learning contexts from the literature include an elementary school without a music specialist (Reynolds & Conway, 2003), a disability-inclusive preschool program (Bartolome, 2013), community centers (Burton & Reynolds, 2009; Siebenaler, 2005), and various community outreach organizations (Burton & Reynolds, 2009). The shift in teaching context from familiar music classrooms to less familiar community settings may be key to understanding the educative benefits of service-learning (Hayes & Cuban, 1996).

For example, in a study examining service-learning with students with disabilities, Bartolome (2013) found that pre-service music teachers had the opportunity to “think about the realities of providing equal opportunities for students with disabilities and the ways they might adapt traditional instruction to allow all students to achieve their musical potential” (p. 88). Burton and Reynolds (2009) present the case of a pre-service music teacher who partnered with a Latin American Cultural Center. Through the processes of teaching music, developing curricular aids, and navigating the sociocultural mores of the center, this student learned that teachers have to be flexible and responsive to the “social, economic, and ethnic backgrounds of the learners” (p. 25). “Most importantly,” the authors note that this experience, “broadened [the student’s] views of multicultural music and its potential use as a means for fostering positive attitudes of teachers and school children toward another person’s culture” (p. 25). In both of these examples, the students’ willingness to step into an unfamiliar environment was key to examining their prior beliefs and fostering a deeper understanding of the persons they worked alongside.

An educator’s closely held beliefs and moral character, as well as the impact of these factors on professional practice, have been of concern to education scholars since the early 1990s. Teacher educators have been embroiled in an extended, multifaceted debate over the assessment of a pre-service teacher’s disposition. At the heart of the argument is whether a teacher candidate’s disposition is mutable and if so, if it is ethical for education programs to attempt to assess and influence a teacher candidate’s core attitudes, values, and belief systems (see, e.g., Diez & Raths, 2007; Katz & Raths, 1985; Wasicsko, 2007). Villegas (2007) notes that assessing teacher dispositions, specifically related to social justice, has come under scrutiny, stating,

Critics charge that [these assessments] make teacher candidates vulnerable to the imposition of their professors’ ideological viewpoints … and that the social justice agenda is nothing more than indoctrination . . . [which] detracts from the real work of giving teachers-to-be the knowledge and skills needed to teach their future students effectively. (p. 370)

Diez (2007) argues that the aforementioned controversy is precisely why teacher educators should “move beyond the mandate of dispositions, reconceptualizing the role of the professional as a moral agent working collaboratively for the common good” (p. 395). The means suggested to achieve this aim include focusing on learning in and with community, developing skills to collaborate with all stakeholders in the educational endeavor, and creating opportunities for reflection on individual work, but also on the resources and needs of the broader community. As previously mentioned, learning to engage with the broader community while focusing on issues of social justice is a central aim of critical service-learning.

Kiely (2005) posits that one educative characteristic of service-learning is the “dissonance” that occurs as participants’ prior frames of reference are found to be incongruent with the reality they encounter. Kiely found that the intensity and duration of the dissonance is positively correlated with the transformative potential of the service-learning experience. Low-intensity dissonance includes adjustments to concrete routines of language, habit, and communication required by the service-learning site. The dissonance of these adjustments is short-term, requiring participants to acquire some basic knowledge or skill in order to establish comfort in the setting. High-intensity dissonance is most often experienced as participants witness and interact with issues of systemic injustice. Kiely concludes: “High-intensity dissonance often causes powerful emotions and confusion and leads study participants to reexamine their existing knowledge and assumptions regarding the causes and solutions to ambiguous and ill-structured problems” (p. 11, emphasis in original). Situating a service-learning project in a juvenile detention center creates an opportunity for high-intensity dissonance as participants encounter the complicated, often hidden connections between schooling, community segregation, child welfare, and class-based, racialized justice.

We would also like to acknowledge that we are not the first music educators to offer music programming behind bars. Wind bands (Lee, 2010), songwriting groups (Shieh, 2010), guitar programs (Marcum, 2014), gamelan ensembles (Henley, 2015), and string orchestras (Warfield, 2010) can be found in jails and prisons across the United States and beyond. Choral participation has brought inmates together with community members to foster a sense of community and shared humanity (Menning, 2010; Roma, 2010; Silber, 2005), and has had a measureable effect on inmates’ sense of wellbeing (Cohen, 2009). Teacher educators have begun to examine how teaching in detention centers can affect a teacher’s ability to be culturally responsive (Thompson, 2014) and socially just (Abrahams, Rowland, & Kohler, 2012).

Method

Program overview

The College of Fine and Applied Arts at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign offers the CCJDC Arts Project as an elective three-credit service-learning course each semester. University students who volunteer for the course tend to be music education and art education majors, but anyone who desires to work with youth in the arts may enroll. The class meets once a week for three hours onsite at the juvenile detention center in the evening. During this time the team spends one hour planning for future weeks, 90 minutes leading two 45 minute sessions—one in music and another in art—that are then repeated so the detainees may participate in both sessions. The final half hour is devoted to reflection, discussion, and evaluation of the night’s activities.

The Champaign County Juvenile Detention Center houses arrested youth deemed a danger to their community until their release has been authorized by the courts. On average, a youth’s stay in the facility is about three weeks, though some are released sooner and others may be sentenced for up to sixth months. Given the temporary nature of juvenile detention each music or art activity must be completed in one session and designed so that the youth, regardless of ability, can participate fully. Participatory music making (Turino, 2008), popular music learning, and creative experiences with sound are the main musical approaches in the program. For example, over the course of the 15-week semester JDC youth played in drum circles, created covers of popular songs using classroom instruments, composed music using found sounds, and created soundtracks for short films.

An emphasis on authentic engagement and distributing power across the stakeholders is foundational to the project experience and manifested in multiple ways. We focus on the word “with” to describe how we wish to relate to each other, our facility partners, and the youth. Rather than providing music and art experiences “for” the youth, or positioning ourselves as purveyors of music education “to” the facility, our goal is to be “with” the youth and each other. The university students, instructors, and facility supervisors collaborate “with” one another in imagining and designing sessions. Leadership rotates through the university students who take turns coordinating supplies and leading each week. Because many youth in detention have had complicated relationships with schoolteachers and administrators, we consciously avoid the discourses associated with formal education. For instance, we “lead sessions” instead of “teach lessons” and approach the role of the teacher as one who facilitates the experience as other team members participate equally in music and art making with the detainees in support of both the leader and the youth. We also divest ourselves of other signifiers of power commonly found in classrooms. We address each other using our first names, wear mostly jeans and t-shirts, and seek out conversations with the youth on anything they wish to discuss. (Food is always a popular topic as the JDC menu offerings are repetitive institutional fare.)

Three complementary philosophical frameworks inform and support this approach. First, we align the practices of the project with the characteristics of critical service-learning (discussed above). Critical service-learning scholarship advocates heightening the students’ awareness of power relationships in a learning context and encouraging the building of relationships as a starting point for creating social change. Second, the Illinois Juvenile Justice System has endorsed Balanced and Restorative Justice (BARJ), a philosophy that addresses crime as harm against individuals and communities, rather than harm against the state. BARJ prioritizes enabling offenders to take responsibility for their criminal actions by making restitution to their victims and protecting the public through a dialogic process in which victim and offender are active participants (Ashley & Stevenson, 2006). Music and art instruction are valued avenues for personal expression and creative accomplishment that can positively impact the offender’s “perspective of school, learning, and life in general” (DeVore & Gentilcore, 1999, p. 98). BARJ also supports strengthening the offender’s social skills by providing the young person with opportunities to build positive relationships with peers and authority figures (Ashley & Stevenson, 2006).

Finally, we position the CCJDC Arts Project as action research noting that the project’s complex, collaborative nature is comprised of multiple types of “action” that generate many questions worthy of “research.” Action research aims to address community needs while simultaneously studying the issues that give rise to these needs, (Brydon-Miller, Kral, Maguire, Noffke, & Sabhlok, 2011; Robbins, 2014; Somekh, 2006). Somekh (2006) emphasizes that a set of principles guides the assumptions, purposes, and practices of the inquiry. Distinctive to this approach is that 1) action and research occurs in a series of flexible cycles, 2) it is conducted by a collaborative partnership of participants and researchers, 3) it starts from a vision of social transformation and aspirations for greater social justice for all, and 4) it engenders powerful learning for participants by combining research with reflection on practice. These three epistemological frameworks—critical service-learning, BARJ, and action research—all of which emphasize elements of collaboration, social change, and local action, cohere seamlessly within the CCDJC Arts Project and inform our teaching, collaborating, reflecting, and research.

The study

We selected a case study research design for this inquiry. Case study methods are useful for in-depth examinations of a phenomenon within a context, particularly when there are unclear borders between phenomenon and context (Stake, 1995). In this case study, the nature of the critical service-learning partnership and its location at a juvenile detention center appear intimately linked to the reported experiences of the participants. Thomas (2011) makes a useful distinction between two essential components of a case study, both of which are a focus for inquiry: the “subject”, or phenomenon of interest, and the “object”, the case’s theoretical underpinnings. The “subject” of this case study is the experience of the pre-service music educators who participated in the first year of the JDC project. The “object” is a theoretical exploration of how curricular field experiences for pre-service music teachers might be informed by the inclusion of action research epistemologies in critical service-learning partnerships.

Specifically, we investigated:

1) How did social and musical encounters with incarcerated youth at the JDC shape participants’ perceptions and understandings of their community and their future students?

2) How are participants’ views of music education and the role of the music teacher challenged by their JDC experiences?

3) To what extent was the project’s focus on community-minded practices, such as collaborative planning, emphasis on social engagement, and participatory music making, important to participants’ experiences in the project and how did this affect their future practice?

Participants

The student team in the first year (2012) of the CCJDC Arts Project included six undergraduates in music education, among others from art education, engineering, agriculture, and psychology. We invited the six music education students to participate in this study. Noelle, Kelly, Logan, Kathleen, Cora, and Lyla (all pseudonyms) also shared other commonalities: 1) all identified as white, middle to upper-middle class, 2) all attended high schools in the suburban Chicago area, and 3) all excelled in their school ensembles and were preparing to teach either band or choir upon graduation. That is not to say that these participants approached the project in the same way with similar beliefs and attitudes, but to acknowledge some of their shared perspectives.

Data collection

Data were drawn from observations, journals, and interview transcripts from the first year of the project. Brian maintained a weekly observation record of the participants’ class discussions and their interactions with the youth during the spring and fall semesters of 2012. We, Jeananne and Brian, each kept our own personal research journals during the same time period. Participants all gave consent for their weekly course journals to be included as data. During the late fall of 2012 and the spring of 2013, Brian interviewed the participants, all of whom were either in their student teaching semester or had begun teaching professionally. The interviews lasted approximately an hour and were conducted in a comfortable location suitable for recording. Adhering to a semi-structured format (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2008), potential interview questions were scripted ahead of time, but participants were encouraged to follow their line of thinking and to contribute additional thoughts. Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed.

Analysis

Analysis of the data record was an ongoing, recursive process. During the first year of the project we cycled through a series of observing and participating in the weekly activities, reading relevant literature, discussing our emerging understanding and writing interim research texts including journal entries, descriptive essays, and reviews of pertinent literature. At the conclusion of the fall 2012 semester, we refined the research questions that would guide this study and interviewed the participants. Participants’ journals (approximately 15 entries each), the interview transcriptions, our journals, Brian’s observation notes, and the interim research texts were all uploaded to Dedoose, an online qualitative analysis program. We then recommenced the iterative process of reading, sifting the data, discussing themes, and developing the final research text.

In light of the radical departure that a juvenile detention center represented from the school classroom for field experience in music teacher education, we chose Kiely’s (2005) concepts of “contextual border crossing” and “dissonance” as our central analytic tools for understanding our participants’ experiences. We searched the data record for moments of “dissonance,” which Kiely defines as participant experiences that are incongruent with what had been known previously (p. 8). These moments included statements of fear or surprise, accounts of when “what happened” appeared to be unexpected, and narrations that described “wrestling” or “struggling” with an aspect of the project or occasions when the participant’s experience altered their previous understandings. These instances of dissonance suggested that the participants were encountering and crossing “contextual borders” and are detailed in the findings section below.

Trustworthiness

The trustworthiness of this study is primarily supported by our prolonged engagement in the field and persistent observation of the participants’ work in the project. We acknowledge Cora, Kathleen, Kelly, Logan, Lyla, and Noelle as co-researchers. They contributed their insights at our regular weekly class meetings and in the post-semester interviews as well as composed thoughtful, detailed course journal entries. The participants also reviewed and approved a draft of this article.

As coordinators of the project our positioning in this study is well beyond that of “participant-observer.” We are not neutral inquirers. We convened and shaped the university students’ efforts in the project and were invested in the notion that the experience would affect the music education students’ emerging teaching practices. We engaged with the participants in other roles as their teachers and field experience supervisors and concede that our positions may have influenced their choice to participate in this study and their responses in the group discussion and the individual interviews. However, based on our experience, we believe that our presence in the daily lives of the participants contributed to trusting interactions that yielded deeper reflection on their experiences and greater self-revelation.

Findings

Students described dissonant experiences relating to the place, persons, and practices of the project. We begin with “place” as the “persons” and the “practices” are intimately intertwined with the JDC as a place (Stauffer, 2009, 2012). The “persons” that participants encountered in this project were notable because of their relationship to the detention center as a “place.” The “practices” of the project were adopted in response to the needs and desires of those “persons” and constricted by the logistical and ideological structures of the “place.”

Place: A juvenile detention center

The Juvenile Detention Center is a place set apart. To travel to the facility students must drive several miles from campus, through a low-income residential district, across the railroad tracks, and onto county property where several service buildings are located. The University students are under video surveillance from the moment they enter the lobby, their every movement monitored by a staff member in central control. A heavy steel door bars the way into the secure area of the building. “The sound of the first door,” recalled Cora, “it would just SLAM!” She continued:

I was terrified, absolutely terrified, because [we could bring] no phones, no keys, no ID [into the secure area]. I was like, “What if there’s an uprising there and I don’t even have an ID on me for someone to identify me?” I didn’t know what to expect but I was, of course, expecting the worst. (interview, February 4, 2013)

Noelle was equally concerned about her personal safety in the beginning; she worried that she might be “left behind” or get “stuck between two walls,” despite the security measures that were in place (interview, February 4, 2013). Others noted that their initial anxieties were quickly allayed by their first visit. Kelly expected the facility to “be a little more intense than it was” (interview, February 18, 2013), and Lyla “was surprised that it didn’t feel uncomfortable” (interview, February 26, 2013).

During orientation the superintendent asked team members to share their impressions of juvenile detention. The university students mentioned “Scared Straight” a television “reality show” in which young offenders are subjected to brutal environments and harsh treatment as a punitive deterrent from future criminal activity. The superintendent explained that, unlike the shows on television, the JDC operates according a restorative model. The secure area of the JDC, as expected, does contain individual cells, close observation rooms, visitation booths, and an intake area. But it also houses classrooms where two certified teachers continue school for the youth while in detention and a variety of therapeutic, social service, and enrichment programming is also available.

The trepidation participants described as they “crossed the border” and their expressions of surprise at the realities of the facility affirm the presence of what Kiely describes as “a gap between the student’s contextual baggage and … the new cultural context” (2005, p. 10). Their initial reactions point to unexamined assumptions and biases relating to juvenile detention. Facing their fears and crossing the metaphorical and literal border of a locked facility to enter the “place” was incipient to examining their “contextual baggage” and learning from the youth resident there.

Persons: The youth, the victim, and future students

Participants spoke of how their first music and art sessions with the youth challenged their assumptions, fears, and expectations of the detainees. Kathleen said that in her first week at the facility she “was super nervous, not knowing what the kids would be like and how the activity would go,” and continued …

In general, I try to always stay open-minded and didn’t really form too many judgments before going. Yet, once we arrived the first day and were told the background of the JDC and how severe of a crime a youth needed to commit to be admitted into the JDC, I began to get nervous. I started to wonder how the youth would react to [me] … I feared that the youth would hate me based on my appearance, privileges, or personality and started to worry about how I should act around them. (interview, February 7, 2013)

Because the participants’ main source of information about juvenile detainees had come from media sources, most expected that the youth would be resistant. They discovered that the youth were “a lot more receptive” than anticipated and were “willing to be open and try new things.” Kathleen offers,

After the first week, I actually forgot that these children had committed any crimes whatsoever. They were always so appreciative and polite… After the first session, I never once worried about how the kids would act or how they would treat me. I always looked forward to going, and felt so great after leaving. (interview, February 7, 2013)

This surprise was often heightened on the rare occasion that the participants discovered the nature of a youth’s crime. Kelly struggled in the occasional moments when the youth resisted participating in an activity and would say, “I don’t want to be here.” She says,

They would shut down before they even tried [the activity]. So you’ve got to let them [disengage] or else something could go wrong … Some of the things [make] you wonder “What did you do? You’re 12 years old, what did you do?” It was hard to wrap my brain around. (interview, February 18, 2013)

One youth in particular had been a favorite among the participants. He was bright and talented with a strong desire to learn everything he could about music. After the semester ended, the team members found out via media reporting that he had been in the facility for attempted murder. Cora reflected,

I never even thought of him as that type of person and I learned about it afterwards and just the fact that I was shocked by that … I was shocked by him being a good learner but having done something so horrible. It was just challenging for me, personally challenging. It was really my interaction with that student that made me want to do more. (interview, February 4, 2013)

When trying to understand the youth, participants occasionally compared them to other school-aged students they had known from suburban music programs. Kelly recognized that “a lot of the kids at the JDC have probably been through and seen more in their lifetime than I have in mine.” Realizing this made her more cautious about how to approach the youth, how to relate to them versus the “normal” (her word) suburban students she grew up with:

I feel like I had to be a little bit more careful with what I would say at the JDC. … It was just different, I had to separate that they had more things in their life than I had experienced [when I was in high school]. (interview, February 18, 2013)

Participants also described difficult conversations and other encounters with the youth. “At the JDC,” shared Logan, “I got a lot of answers that I wouldn’t have expected in my very white, upper-middle class, big four-year institution brain… answers that made [me] say ‘Whoa.’” He recalled an instance where the youth were asked to share their role models: “Some of the people that they mentioned were people that I don’t think my culture/peer-group would consider appropriate” (interview, February 1, 2013). He found it difficult to understand why some JDC youth would claim notorious gangsters, disreputable athletes, and violent musicians as role models and wrestled with the disconnect between his own values and those of the youth.

Navigating the facility rules concerning communication also presented a challenge to the participants. JDC volunteers are not to speak with the detainees about their criminal charges or of anything incriminating. Cora told of a time when “one of the [youth] started bringing up an inappropriate subject and just kept talking about it.” This youth, about 15 or 16 years old, shared a story of how he and his friends had gotten drunk and he was duct taped to a chair. She attempted to steer the conversation towards a topic away from underage drinking, but he persisted and she moved away from the young man. “He was trying to push my buttons,” Cora said. “I panicked and then I didn’t want to talk to him because I didn’t want to provoke him talking about dumb stuff” (interview, February 4, 2013).

On another occasion, Noelle was working with a particularly talented youth on a group art project. “I had really been encouraging him and supporting him,” she shared, “and he was really opening up and [I was] like ‘Yes! This is awesome he’s really enjoying this.’” Unfortunately, near the end of the activity the youth slipped Noelle a note with a website containing his artwork and an email address for her to respond with comments. Policies for volunteers forbid any communication with the youth outside of the facility. “He just wanted to contact us through the Internet when he wasn’t in JDC, to keep a friendship going,” Noelle explained. Despite the innocence of the gesture, she understood that this was a significant violation of the rules and with a heavy heart turned the note in to the staff. The supervisor discussed the incident with the university students and the young person. Agreeing with Noelle that the intention of the note was not malicious, she invited Noelle to compile a list of community art programs and summer camps that could be given to the youth upon his release. Noelle reflected that “he was awesome at art, we want to support him and have these awesome moments but we can’t be this personal” (interview, February 4, 2013).

Though the participants never knowingly interacted with those harmed by the offenders they came to know, Cora wrote in her journal of an evening run that took her near the facility that sparked a moment of empathy with crime victims and the challenges of restorative justice:

I saw a kid, young teen, black, baggy clothes, baseball cap, walking the opposite way. And for a second I thought about what I would do if he tried to attack me… I hate myself for having this reaction and to be fair, I think about how I would fend off an attacker all the time. This was just the only person I saw on my run after it turned dark. Further than hating myself for assuming the worst, I wondered what would happen if this kid was taken to the JDC where I come and participate. Would I be angry with him? Would I treat him fairly? Would I assume that he just made a bad choice and can learn from his mistakes? Honestly, I’d probably be pretty pissed, nervous, and I would not want to be around him. This experience made things click for me. … I can see the scary part of restorative justice; it’s hard to get past the action and see the person when the victim was affected by the action (journal entry, November 29, 2012).

At the time of their interviews, all of the participants were either student teaching or in their first year in the classroom and several related their JDC experience to their current teaching and future students. Lyla described using what she had learned at the JDC as she student taught in a middle school band classroom:

It’s very easy to get frustrated or upset when a kid is misbehaving in [band] class, but they have other things going on in their lives… [The JDC experience] helped me realize just treat them like you would want to be treated. (interview, February 26, 2013)

Kathleen, a first year teacher at the time of her interview, shared:

More than anything, the JDC taught me that all students can succeed, and to never doubt a student based on their background. So many of the JDC youth were talented artists in one way or another, and all of them were good people deep down. They always rose to the challenge that we gave them, and this is something that I keep in mind every single day. (interview, February 7, 2013)

Though facilitating music and art sessions was the formal learning goal of the course, developing relationships with the youth was an irreducible aspect of the curriculum. Participants learned much from the youth who taught them to not enter a new setting with lowered expectations and troubled their pre-conceived notions about “cultural appropriateness.” Participants noted instances where facility strictures shut down the relational exchange and one student even formed an empathetic bond with the victims of the youths’ crimes. From these meaningful, personal, and occasionally difficult interactions, participants formed new understandings of the JDC youth and then called on those understandings in new teaching situations.

Practices: Collaboration and participation

The educational practices that defined the CCJDC Arts Project developed organically in response to the structures of the facility, the experiences of our participants, the philosophies of the instructors, and the needs of the youth. These practices were a departure from what our participants had previously experienced and spurred them to think differently about their own music teaching. Participants discussed two aspects of the project they found particularly challenging: the collaborative process and participatory modes of musical engagement.

Collaborative planning, collaborative teaching: Being “with”

As previously mentioned, one of the goals of the program was to encourage collaborative planning open to input from the participants, university instructors, staff members, and the youth themselves. The participants described how their teacher preparation programs focused on their individual readiness to teach music, particularly large ensembles, and the challenge of the collaborative planning model and community-minded ethos of the JDC project.

Cora said that preparing to be a band director meant learning to be the “one person who arranges the puzzle pieces to make it look good,” whereas the focus in the JDC was on becoming “the facilitator of the group as a member of the group.” She shared, “I think that’s where the difference is. You’re a member of the group, you are part of the experience, everyone is [learning].” This distinction was her most valuable lesson from the JDC experience, “the understanding that we were collaborating. That moment when, it’s so cheesy but, the moment where it’s like, ‘This could be a good world if we could all just do things together and collaborate’” (interview, February 4, 2013).

Other participants echoed Cora’s enthusiasm, and several noted that the shared planning model created a heightened sense of responsibility for the quality of the program. “It really helped us all get in the mindset that this was for real,” Lyla noted in her interview, “these aren’t just subjects, these are people and we want to do right for them. Just because they’re in a detention center doesn’t mean that they’re any less of a person” (interview, February 26, 2013). Lyla appreciated how the team developed over the semester, that the participants became more comfortable with one another through the planning process. Kathleen also found that no one could be successful without the support of the others. As she shared, “that was something that was very unique and awesome about the experience” (interview, February 7, 2013). Logan commented, “we were on the same playing field… just people working together and talking about trying to do the best job that we can” (interview, February 1, 2013).

The focus on collaboration continued into the music and art sessions. The participants observed that the practice of participating alongside the youth while making music or art shifted the balance of power in the learning environment. “My whole life the teacher has been at the front of the classroom lecturing,” Kelly reflected, “but I really liked that I was able to be just one of the people in the room… It wasn’t me separated from them. There was no barrier” (interview, February 18, 2013).

Again, Kathleen found a connection between JDC experiences and her public school teaching:

At the JDC we never called ourselves teachers; rather, we were the “leader” of the day. Remaining a peer rather than an authoritarian teacher greatly helped the youth to trust and interact with us. I try to keep this in mind in my current middle school classroom. … I often remind myself that talking to my students as more of an activity leader rather than a teacher can be very beneficial (interview, February 7, 2013.

A participatory framework for music education

These six participants came to the JDC project well prepared as instrumental or choral music education majors, but had little experience outside the school ensemble context. The short-term nature of juvenile detention precluded the long-term sequencing of knowledge and skill building lessons common to music instruction. Instead we implemented a participatory framework that allowed the youth a chance to meaningfully engage regardless of their prior ability levels. Participatory music making (Turino, 2008) is defined by the absence of performer/audience distinctions; there are only performers and potential performers. Everyone has an opportunity to meaningfully contribute to the musical activity at whatever level they are capable, and success is determined by the depth of engagement, rather than just by the quality of the product. The participants found that stepping across the border from their familiar ensembles to participatory music making engendered new insights into their own professional development.

Noelle was struggling with her career path during the semester prior to her participation in the JDC project, and found herself asking, “Am I doing something that is really important?” She was disenchanted with her preparation to teach school choral ensembles. She felt disconnected from her peers, who she saw as being more concerned with their “conducting gestures” than with their future students. The JDC project showed her that she “can still have the [ensemble] side … [but] also take all these cool innovative, [participatory] ideas and the kids actually enjoy it” (interview, February 4, 2013).

Kelly stated that the “JDC experience helped me to think about things differently, how [to] teach music not just through teaching instruments, but talking about things, relating it to everyday life … I think that was really meaningful” (interview, February 18, 2013). Lyla saw the value of the participatory framework, looking at it as a chance to learn a new form of musical engagement, “It was kind of both things, I’m going to help these [youth] try and maybe find something new and exciting to hang onto, but I’m going to get to explore a whole new side of me too” (interview, February 26, 2013). Kathleen continued this line of thought:

It reminded me that there are many other ways to music than just the [performing ensemble]. The activities we did at the JDC reminded me that I can teach concepts to my students away from their traditional band instruments, and that not everything needs to be focused on band repertoire. (interview, February 7, 2013)

Logan found that his time in the JDC project provided valuable context for a later methods course in which participatory music making was presented in a more theoretical manner. He explained:

It’s one of those things where someone can tell you this, or you can read it in a book, but you really don’t know until you live it. … I think I would have believed it, tried to do things from [that other course] in my own classroom, but I think actually living it beforehand [at the JDC] I had this much stronger faith and trust in what [the other professor] was teaching. (interview, February 1, 2013)

Participants encountered unfamiliar pedagogical concepts through the CCJDC Arts Project. The collaborative structures of the project provided them with a clearer understanding of the power dynamics that exist in all school settings, and to experience an alternative to the teacher-centered model of educational planning and instruction. Participants worked alongside each other, the youth, and the staff to create musical experiences, which they described as a departure from the practices of ensemble directing. The participatory framework of the sessions afforded participants the chance to experience a new form of music making, one in which all persons had the chance to contribute. Rather than replacing their previous understanding of musical success, these practices seem to have enriched their approaches to school music.

Discussion, implications, and further research

Situating a service-learning course in a jail for the purpose of broadening music teacher education students’ perceptions of their community and their future students demands strong critique. The rift in American society across racial, economic, and class lines is clearly evident in a jail (Alexander, 2012). Every week we brought white, upper-middle class university students to make music and art at a locked facility housing predominantly black, poor teenagers who have been accused of crimes. Despite our good intentions, one must ask, “Just what are these pre-service music educators actually learning?”

The moments of “dissonance” we located in our participants’ description of their experiences suggest that participation in the CCJDC Arts Project did challenge their assumptions about the detainees, their perspective of their community, and their own teaching practices. The participants formed genuine, if short-lived, relationships with the JDC youth, which provided an opportunity to listen and learn. Musical interactions with the youth, and with one another, demonstrated that music teaching and learning could be adapted and reinvented in ways that the detainees found engaging and relevant. And these experiences heightened the participants’ awareness of the sociocultural systems that shape the JDC youth, their local community, and their own privileged positions in school and society.

We cannot predict if, and how, these seedlings of understanding will take root and bloom as a relational, democratic ethic in the participants’ day-to-day teaching practices. We see promise, however, in the insights they shared, such as Noelle’s deepened commitment to “not judge a book by its cover” (interview, February 4, 2013), Kathleen’s promise to “never doubt a student based on their background” (interview, February 7, 2013), and Logan’s recognition that “sameness is not equality” (interview, February 1, 2013). Despite these positive reports, we are also compelled to note some troubling issues.

We observed that several of the participants struggled to talk about race and used coded or veiled language that tended to conflate race, poverty, violence, and school failure. For instance, one participant spoke of a desire to teach in a “high-risk situation,” another questioned the differences in “appropriate behavior” between the participant’s “culture” and the “culture of the youth.” Others spoke of having no experience with youth who had been “in trouble,” stating that “those kids” were not in band, choir, and orchestra. One participant stated, “In my band program there were a few [students] that were from different ethnic backgrounds, but I’d say the majority were your typical norm, suburban high school type.”

Ladson-Billings (2006) observes a similar phenomenon, noting that her teacher education students often attribute minority students’ difficulties to differences in “culture.” Ladson-Billings states that, “culture” is useful “as a catchall phrase [because] it is often a proxy for race,” and writes:

I do not believe my teacher education students are unusual in their tendency to suture race to culture and then struggle to disentangle the two. Culture is regularly used as a code word for difference and perhaps deviance in the world of teacher education. First, most of my students are white, middle-class, monolingual Midwesterners. They are surrounded by people who look, talk, and perhaps think as they do. (p. 107)

Our participants’ use of the words “culture,” “troubled,” “those kids,” “ethnic,” and perhaps even “appropriate,” suggest that while they had entered the place of the facility and had negotiated a connection with many of the youth across relational boundaries, they had not broken through the internal, sedimented, and inculturated boundary of racial discrimination.

This realization sparked a moment of dissonance for us as researchers when our prior beliefs about our participants came into conflict with our emergent findings and caused us to question if we were perpetuating a negative social construction of black youth by accepting an invitation to teach a service-learning course in a jail. Ladson-Billings (2006) agrees that teacher education experiences and activities should be structured “so that our students can take a close look at their cultural systems and recognize them for what they are—learned behavior that has been normalized and regularized.” But she also contends that field experiences in non-school settings need to be “in places where [youth] are likely experiencing success—community and neighborhood centers, clubs, teams, and after school activities” (p. 108). One can hardly justify a juvenile detention center as a place where youth are experiencing success. If music teacher educators only encounter poor, persons of color in jail then we are only perpetuating the prevailing narrative about the success of black youth. This is unconscionable.

Yet, time and again our participants spoke about the kindness, openness, and musicality of the JDC detainees. They viewed the youth as “talented” individuals, and were “surprised” by the willingness of the detainees to get involved with artistic processes. The youth were often deeply thoughtful when given a chance to express themselves through written, spoken, or musical language. These successful interactions, these moments of surprise and artistry, rewrote our participants’ deficit narratives of these young persons, and by proxy, their understandings of their future students.

As action research is part of the philosophic framework of the CCJDC Arts Project, we were also compelled to rethink the service-learning course curriculum for subsequent semesters. We revamped the course readings to include critical readings about youth development, the school-to-prison pipeline, and issues pertaining to juvenile incarceration. We also reapportioned our weekly schedule to create time to discuss these readings and foster candid conversations about racial and other social issues.

For this case study we focused on the experiences of the pre-service music teachers involved in the CCJDC Arts Project, but other voices deserve to be heard, particularly those of the detained youth, the social service and corrections professionals who work with them, and the families and communities to which they will return upon their release. Continued inquiry into critical service-learning in music education should also investigate other partnerships within the community and with youth services networks such as community centers, churches, youth residential treatment centers, and children’s homes, as well as the long-term impact of critical service-learning for practicing teachers.

Pre-service teachers, who have spent their lives in classrooms, know well the norms and structures of school as a type even as the individual classrooms of their field experiences change. The social forces that affect students in school music classrooms are often invisible to school people experientially and intellectually nestled within institutionalized education. Pre-service music educators may be more likely to recognize structures of inequality and exclusion within schooling if they have the opportunity to step outside the classroom to learn from the community the ways in which diverse places, persons, and practices intersect and interact in school. However, we must also note that these interactions and intersections are seldom clear and often fraught with seemingly insurmountable contradictions. In the face of such difficult encounters and conversations we must not allow ourselves to back down from continued, reflective action. We learn nothing from fearful inaction. Rather than diluting the impact of field experiences, critical service-learning can inform pre-service teachers’ understandings of the community contexts at work in their classroom such that they can “arrive where we started and know the place for the first time” (T. S. Eliot, 1943/2009).

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Connie Kaiser, Superintendent and the staff of the Champaign County Juvenile Detention Center for their support of the CCJDC Arts Project.

Funding

The CCJDC Arts Project was funded by a seed grant from Action Research Illinois, an initiative of the College of Fine and Applied Arts, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Notes

Author biographies

Jeananne Nichols is Assistant Professor of Music Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. Her current research interests include narrative inquiry in music education, critical service-learning in music teacher preparation, and women’s history in the American band tradition.

Brian M. Sullivan is a doctoral candidate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. Prior to graduate study, Brian was a public high school band director and music teacher. His research interests include ethics and philosophical inquiry in music education, sociocultural issues in pre-service music teacher preparation, and the curricular potential of participatory musics.

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