Healing bruises: Identity tensions in a beginning teacher’s use of formal and informal music learning

Abstract

The purpose of this narrative case study was to describe the developing teacher identity of Nicole Downing, a first-year teacher in the US, in her use of both formal and informal learning processes. As music education continues embracing approaches like informal music learning, it should also reflect on the voices of teachers in the field. Data collection included interviews, observations, and participant writings. Findings revealed that Nicole (a) questioned and eventually accepted her music teacher identity, (b) exhibited a dualism between her use of formal and informal music learning processes, and (c) broadened her community’s definition of school music. Nicole used the metaphor of a bruise to describe how she believed some in her undergraduate studies would judge her interest in popular music and creative musicianship, but as she became a music teacher she had agency to incorporate the informal learning she valued. Nicole exhibited a duality in her use of formal and informal learning processes, which were not integrated in her teaching. Ultimately, she developed a broadened definition of school music that she believed was beneficial for students but perceived negatively by other music teachers. Music teacher education should support teachers’ diverse identities and continue to explore the teaching strategies used in facilitating informal music learning experiences.

Keywords

beginning teachers constructivism informal music learning popular music teacher identity

Most music education programs in the United States center around large group performances of classical and folk music in large ensembles like concert bands, choirs, and orchestras, and many music teachers feel unprepared or unwilling to teach using musical styles or pedagogical approaches outside of this traditional model (Kruse, 2015; Randles, 2009). Nicole Downing*, the participant in this study, incorporated a more progressive approach to teaching by incorporating informal music learning processes, popular music, and songwriting, and her use of these teaching practices stemmed in part from the tensions she faced in developing her music teacher identity.

As more music teachers in the U.S. begin adopting progressive forms of music education like informal music learning, music teacher educators need to reflect on their voices. Dolloff (2007) explained that, “It is through continually bringing the individual voice into the community and allowing ourselves to question our experience and prior knowledge in dialogue with others that our evolving individual and collective identity will be nurtured and socialization interrogated” (p. 7). In this study, I sought to examine Nicole’s voice in order to add to the discussion about the collective identity of U.S. music educators and the socializing structures of music teacher education programs.

Informal music learning

According to Green (2008), informal music learning is characterized by the following: (a) opportunities for learners to choose their own music, (b) aural copying, (c) peer learning, (d) non-sequential learning processes, and (e) an integration of roles as performers, listeners, improvisers, and composers. Although Green has examined informal music learning in depth through a number of studies, similar findings have been reported in a variety of research (Allsup, 2003; Davis, 2010; Jaffurs, 2004; Woody & Lehman, 2010). While the majority of scholars have explored adolescent and adult experiences with informal learning, others have found that younger children experience similar processes (Campbell, 2010; Davis, 2013; Harwood, 1998; Marsh, 1999).

Additionally, researchers have described informal music learning as a social constructivist process (Abramo & Austin, 2014; Jaffurs, 2004). However, Windschitl (2002) explained that teachers often face challenges in implementing constructivism. Specifically, teachers may have difficulty in understanding the epistemological basis of knowledge development, developing a student-centered culture in the classroom, and having political awareness about their teaching context. In order for constructivist teachers to “flourish,” Windschitl proposed that they must “draw from multiple dimensions of experience” in their lives to adapt and refine their teaching approach (p. 160).

Pedagogical practices in informal music learning

Researchers have examined teachers’ educational aims and strategies in using informal pedagogies, revealing several “affordances” and “constraints” (Cain, 2013, p. 75). Cain described how formal pedagogy had an aim of “transmission” and informal learning had one of “authentic reproduction,” a finding supported by Abramo and Austin (2014). Kastner (2014) found that general music teachers who used informal music learning valued their students’ development of independent musicianship, rather than transmitting knowledge or reproducing pieces. Teachers using these processes provided an environment in which learning happens holistically and placed less emphasis on formal notation and music vocabulary (Abramo & Austin, 2014; Cain, 2013; Davis, 2010; Green, 2008). Kastner (2012, 2014) found that general music teachers exhibited a range of pedagogical strategies, such as a continuum of teacher scaffolding that included providing lyrics and notation, modeling examples, encouraging students to make their own decisions, and being hands-off in students’ musicking. McPhail (2013) also described how teachers using informal pedagogies valued the “socially-contextualized procedural knowledge” (p. 14), instead of emphasizing conceptual, historical, or theoretical knowledge.

Scholars have found that both preservice and experienced teachers often express initial reticence in using informal music learning (Abramo & Austin, 2014; Davis & Blair, 2011; Finney & Philpott, 2010; Kastner, 2012, 2014; McPhail, 2013; Wright & Kanellopoulos, 2010). Over time, many eventually appreciated its student–teacher interaction and musical aims. For example, Abramo and Austin (2014) conducted a narrative inquiry of Austin’s experience in taking over instruction in a U.S. high school composition class that had previously been taught using informal music learning practices. Austin was a band director with 15 years’ experience, who viewed his trumpet as a metaphor for his teacher-directed instruction as the “loudest thing around” (p. 2). After teaching this course and attempting to use informal pedagogy, his perceptions of what it meant to be a musician and teacher began to shift toward becoming more student-centered. While scholars have explored the perceptions of both preservice and mid-career teachers who use informal music learning, more research is needed to describe those of beginning teachers.

Music teacher identity

In this study, I am using the following operational definition of identity: “the collection of influences and effects from immediate contexts, prior constructs of self, social positioning, and meaning systems … that become intertwined inside the flow of activity as a teacher simultaneously reacts to and negotiates given contexts and human relationships” (Olsen, 2008, p. 139). Teacher identity is also intertwined with narratives (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009; Connelly & Clandinin, 1999) as teachers use stories and metaphor to express their “professional knowledge landscape” (Connelly & Clandinin, 1999, p. 120). However, while shaping their teacher identities, beginning teachers may experience various tensions, including a “changing role from student to teacher,” differences between “desired and actual support given to students,” and “conflicting conceptions” of teaching due to an incongruence between university and school pedagogies (Pillen, Brok, & Beijaard, 2013, p. 88).

Music teacher identities have been consistently described as having two separate entities of a performer and a teacher (Bouij, 1998; Dolloff, 2007; Isbell, 2008; Roberts, 2004). More recently, Russell (2012) described six roles used by ensemble teachers, including educator, conductor, creative business person, entertainer, external musical identity, and internal musical identity. However, scholars have suggested considering identity in a more holistic way (Dolloff, 2007; Pellegrino, 2009) and using methods like narrative inquiry to better examine identity’s “complexity” (Pellegrino, 2009, p. 50). Dolloff proposed that identity could be considered as both an I-dentity of “how a person sees him- or herself” and an i-dentity for the selves that a person “construct[s] for the variety of contexts” in which s/he interacts (2007, p. 4).

Generally, researchers have focused mostly on music teachers’ identities as a performer, as opposed to an all-around musician (Bouij, 1998) or a composer or arranger (Randles, 2009). Furthermore, performer identities rarely refer to styles outside Classical or Jazz (Roberts, 2004). Randles (2009) conducted a case study of two ensemble directors who composed or arranged music for their students for the first time. He found that their creative musicianship functioned as professional development, promoted a more democratic classroom, and inspired students to compose. Randles and Smith (2012) compared the compositional identity of preservice teachers in the U.K. and the U.S. and found that British students were significantly more likely to identify as composers, which they attributed to the greater value of composition in U.K. music education. These two studies explored the identities of music teachers beyond that of a performer, but more research is needed to explore the identities of teachers who implement informal-, vernacular-, or popular music-based pedagogies.

Purpose of the study

The purpose of this study was to describe the developing teacher identity of one beginning general music teacher in her use of formal and informal music learning processes. More specifically, this study explored these questions: (a) Why and how does a beginning general music teacher use informal and formal processes with her students? and (b) What meanings does this teacher ascribe to her use of these processes? Originally, I had only planned to examine Nicole’s identity as it related to her use of informal music learning processes. However, as data collection progressed, I recognized that formal teaching practices were equally present in her background and current teaching, so I modified my research questions to better reflect the reality of Nicole’s experience.

Methods

Design

This study used a narrative case study design. According to Merriam (2009), case study research is not delineated by “particular methods for data collection,” but rather, the “unit of analysis” (p. 42). Because of this delineation, Merriam stated that “other types of studies can be combined with case study,” and that researchers can blend case study with narrative research in order to “present a person’s ‘story,’” (p. 42). In music education, Conway, Pellegrino, and West (2015) described how a blended design like narrative case study “retains case study’s emphasis on the unit of analysis but incorporates secondary analytical methods” (Blended Designs, para. 1).

In this study, I used case study design in order to provide “an in-depth description and analysis of a bounded system” (Merriam, 2009, p. 40). Specifically, this study was an intrinsic case study of a critical case (Creswell, 2013). Nicole Downing served as the critical case because her story as a beginning teacher using informal music learning processes provided an example that, like other intrinsic case studies, had “unusual interest in and of itself” worthy of being “described and detailed” (Creswell, 2013, p. 98). While Creswell acknowledged that case study and narrative research may sometimes have similar goals, narrative research focuses on “exploring the life of an individual” and case study research on “developing an in-depth description and analysis of a case” (p. 104). Because this case was bounded in time by specifically exploring the identity of a beginning teacher, I determined that an intrinsic case study design was most appropriate.

Additionally, I used narrative research methods as a “secondary analytical method” (Conway et al., 2015). I drew from the analytic lenses underpinning narrative research design (Chase, 2005), including the understanding that narrative is a form of discourse that can represent both “retrospective meaning making” (p. 565) and “verbal action” (p. 567). Chase also explained how narrative research is useful in studying identity, as it allows for descriptions of how individuals “construct selves within specific institutional, organizational, discursive, and local cultural contexts” (p. 658).

Narrative research has multiple approaches, including those in which the researcher (a) co-constructs the findings with the participant, (b) presents the participants’ voice with little interpretation, or (c) separates her voice from the participants’ (Chase, 2005). In this study, I used the latter, in order to provide “an authoritative interpretive voice” to describe how and what the narrative communicated in the context of music education’s larger “cultural, institutional, or organizational discourses” (p. 664). Specifically, I drew from a sociologically-based approach to conducting narrative research, in which emphasis is placed primarily on “intensive interviews about specific aspects of people’s lives,” rather than observations, in order to explore how individuals “make sense of personal experience in relation to culturally and historically specific discourses, and how they draw on, resist, and/or transform those discourses as they narrate their selves, experiences, and realities” (Chase, 2005, p. 659). In my data collection and analysis, I focused primarily on Nicole’s oral and written narrative and used field observations as supplementary data to show confirmations of and/or inconsistencies in her narrative. Thus, by blending intrinsic case study design with analytic lenses and approaches from narrative research, I was able to both acknowledge the time-bounded particularities of this critical case and shed light on the complexities of Nicole’s developing music teacher identity.

Participant selection

The participant, Nicole Downing, was identified through critical case sampling. According to Patton (2002), “Critical cases are those that can make a point quite dramatically or are, for some reason, particularly important in the scheme of things” (p. 236). Critical cases are identified through the “recognition of the key dimensions that make for a critical case” (Patton, 2002, p. 237). Prior to the study, I identified two dimensions necessary to be a critical case in this study: one or two years of teaching experience and an interest in using informal music learning processes in the classroom.

Most music teachers in the U.S. receive little or no preparation in using informal music learning processes or in teaching popular music (Springer, 2013), which may be due to lingering concerns about popular music’s legitimacy and quality (Mantie, 2013). Additionally, most preservice teachers in the U.S. feel unprepared to teach using popular music (Springer, 2013) and view it as unsuitable for school music (Kruse, 2015). As a result, I had to purposefully look for an individual who could provide an “information-rich” case (Patton, 2002, p. 230). Nicole had student taught with a music teacher who used informal music learning processes, and I had previously been acquainted with this teacher through our mutual interest in this topic. I also spoke to Nicole’s former elementary music methods professor, who described how Nicole had been vocal about her interests in informal music learning and popular music, unlike others in her cohort. Thus, Nicole seemed to fulfill both key dimensions necessary to be a critical case for this study, and I invited her to participate in the study.

While Nicole and I knew of each other prior to this study, we had few previous interactions. She was an undergraduate at the university where I completed my doctoral studies. Although I was a graduate teaching assistant at the time she was an undergraduate student, I never took courses with her, nor had any role in teaching or supervising her. Additionally, data collection took place after we had both graduated and moved away from the university.

Data collection and analysis

Data collection occurred January–June 2014 after gaining IRB approval, and included three forms: semi-structured interviews, classroom observations resulting in descriptive field notes, and participant writing (Patton, 2002). For the interviews, I followed Seidman’s (2012) “three interview series” (p. 20). The first interview included questions about Nicole’s background in becoming a musician and music teacher. The second interview focused on her present experiences with teaching in her current context. The third interview drew from Nicole’s responses in the first two interviews to allow her to reflect on her teaching and her identity as a music teacher. The interviews were recorded using GarageBand and later transcribed. In between the interviews, Nicole and I communicated periodically to “check in” with each other through email and phone calls, so that she could inform me about how her school year was going. These informal interactions helped us build rapport and gave me further insights into Nicole’s personality and teaching.

Classroom observations took place in both the intermediate-level school and the high school where Nicole taught. During observations, I took handwritten notes that described events of Nicole’s music classes, her interactions with students, and my own impressions. Afterward, I typed my notes into descriptive field notes (Patton, 2002). Finally, I asked Nicole to journal throughout the data collection period to describe the informal music learning projects she implemented, which she completed occasionally throughout the year. In her writings, Nicole summarized some of her informal music learning projects, answered journal prompts like, “Briefly describe a popular music activity,” and responded to questions I had following our interviews.

Analysis began during data collection and continued after it ended. I coded the data by hand using both emic and etic codes drawn from my knowledge of related literature and reflexivity as a general music teacher educator interested in informal music learning (Patton, 2002). After the initial coding, I reread and, in some cases, recoded the data. Then I looked for patterns and relationships in the codes to discover emerging themes. In order to ensure trustworthiness, I used methods triangulation (Patton, 2002) by collecting data through multiple forms, and then analyzing first the narrative texts and then comparing them with the field notes. I also used analyst triangulation (Patton, 2002) by having multiple individuals review my findings, including experienced music education researchers and Nicole herself. During my analysis, I shared emerging themes with Nicole to get her feedback. However, the early themes that emerged did not account for some of the difficulties in Nicole’s teaching and inconsistencies in the data. After analyzing the data a second time, I revised the findings, and then sent Nicole a final version of the paper; she agreed with and approved of the findings. Since this is a narrative case study, findings from this study are not generalizable. However, music teachers and music teacher educators may resonate with these findings and find applications to their own teaching.

The participant: Nicole Downing

Nicole Downing’s musical background began, like many music educators in the U.S., in school music. She attended a private Catholic elementary school and recalled how her music classes included mostly “hymns or nothing” (interview, January 29, 2014). She went to public middle and high schools, where she participated mostly in concert and marching bands, and she took clarinet lessons. Later, Nicole majored in music education at a large midwestern university that included methods in both formal and informal processes. She continued playing clarinet as her primary instrument, and she played in concert band for several semesters. She grew tired of band, though, and began singing in choir and taking voice lessons. As she explained, “Now I consider myself a rogue voice major” (interview, January 29, 2014). As a part of her degree, Nicole took courses in elementary and secondary general and choral methods and a semester of guitar. Also, she student taught with an elementary general music teacher who included both informal music learning activities and popular music.

Nicole taught in a small, rural school district in the midwestern U.S. She taught two sections each of fourth- and fifth-grade general music at an intermediate school and a songwriting class at an alternative high school for students who struggled in traditional schools. Originally the principal at the alternative high school asked if she would teach choir, but Nicole asked if she could teach songwriting instead because she thought that these students “who have constantly been told no” would not “want to sit and listen” to a new teacher “tell [them] how to do music” (interview, January 29, 2014). Nicole believed that these students could benefit from a general music class that allowed for individual expression. Overall, Nicole had a bohemian, free-spirit vibe. She was not overly concerned with others’ opinions of her and expressed statements that she was not always in agreement with her community’s conservative worldview. She was passionate about making a difference in her students’ lives, and she spoke with pride about some of the innovative teaching she provided.

Findings

Three themes emerged from the data: (a) Healing Bruises: Nicole’s Questioning and Acceptance of Her Music Teacher Identity, (b) Formal and Informal Teaching Duality, and (c) Broadening Definitions of School Music.

Healing bruises: Nicole’s questioning and acceptance of her music teacher identity

Throughout high school and college, Nicole questioned various aspects of her identity, including the limitations of her primary instrument, the difference between performing and creating music, and styles of music suitable for study. During this time, Nicole also analyzed the type of teacher she wanted to become. Nicole initially felt tension in her identity as a musician as she compared her formal instruction and her personal love for rock music:

Through high school I was just starting to get into the whole angst-y teenage rock scene and … the competitive marching band scene, and I had these two kinds of worlds colliding. But I remember thinking to myself, “Where am I going with this?” “Why am I playing the clarinet?” and “What’s the point?” (interview, January 29, 2014)

She further described the limitations of the clarinet as a “single-line instrument.” For her, playing the clarinet meant, “You can’t make music without other people.” “I mean, you can, but unaccompanied clarinet is not something that’s Top 40.” Nicole also began to show interest in musicianship beyond performing. “It’s not to say that being in band is a bad thing, but at the same time, being in band is one musical skill. It’s performance in the ensemble; it’s performing. I didn’t know anything about composition and improvisation” (interview, January 29, 2014). Nicole’s questioning led her to a reconceptualization of herself as a musician, and she wanted that to include composition and improvisation.

Nicole continued to question her identity in college. In particular, she described how “a bruise” was a metaphor for her musical identity during this time. She explained how she went to a “dark, sweaty, and smelly” rock concert the weekend before an important clarinet jury. While there, a person crowd-surfing over the audience was accidentally dropped on her. As Nicole explained, “So I had to play my sophomore barrier jury with a huge bruise on my chin,” and she had to cover up the bruise with makeup to hide it from her teacher:

That’s kind of a metaphor for my whole college experience, the thought that I very much enjoy being a classical musician … I value that a lot—but at the same time, there’s this whole other side of me … In a lot of ways, being in a classical conservatory-type of setting, I almost feel like I have to apologize for that sometimes. And I had to put concealer on my bruise so that my [clarinet] professor didn’t know that I was doing naughty things! [We laugh.] So it’s interesting that I have two different personas in about essentially the same thing. (interview, January 29, 2014)

Nicole included rock music as a part of her identity, but she believed that faculty at her university, particularly her clarinet professor, would see this as a blemish on her musicianship. Thus, just as she had to conceal her bruise, she also believed she had to hide her passion for popular music.

Also during college, Nicole began to consider the type of music teacher she wanted to become. Although she was a clarinetist, she did not want to be a band director. “I am not built to be a band director! Most definitely not!” (interview, January 29, 2014). Instead, she passively made the decision to be a general music teacher. “Kind of by process of elimination, I became a general music teacher … because I had no other place that I really, really wanted to be.” As she began taking her music education courses, Nicole began embracing the idea of becoming a general music teacher who included popular music in her teaching. In her elementary methods course, she recognized that her interest in popular music made her different from her peers. She described an assignment in which she had to select recorded pieces that were both appropriate for school music instruction and personally meaningful. Nicole’s list included mostly popular music:

I compared with other people in the class, and other people had a ton of classical, and a lot of people had a bunch of world music. And I started kind of toying with that idea of my being pretty well suited to teaching popular music. (interview, January 29, 2014)

While Nicole chose to teach general music through a “process of elimination,” here, she made a more intentional decision: she had identified her “suitability” for teaching popular music.

In her student teaching, Nicole further began to accept her developing identity. Nicole appreciated working with her mentor teacher, because she was “doing a lot with popular music,” including informal music learning activities. This was another critical time for Nicole, and she began to feel validated in using this pedagogy as she experienced it with students for the first time. “For me, it was like I don’t have to apologize for my popular music anymore” (interview, January 29, 2014).

As a beginning teacher, Nicole shared that she was continuing to grow musically, as she learned new repertoire and challenged herself to use creative, “higher-level musicianship skills” (interview, June 23, 2014). She believed that her use of informal music learning pedagogy made her “feel much more fulfilled as a musician.” Also, she shyly admitted that students viewed her as “the cool teacher” in her building (interview, June 23, 2014), and she believed her inclusion of informal music learning processes encouraged strong connections with students: “I think I have a very different relationship with my students than maybe someone who teaches in a more traditional way” (interview, June 23, 2014).

Formal and informal teaching duality

Although Nicole seemed to have embraced her identity as a general music teacher who used popular music and informal music learning processes, in her first year of teaching she exhibited a duality in her teaching through her use of both traditional pedagogical strategies and informal music learning with students. With her fourth grade students, she taught primarily using a formal pedagogy characterized by direct instruction, teacher-selected repertoire, whole-class singing and instrument playing, and individual pattern responses. Her teaching in these classes was playful, but structured. For example, in order to reinforce students’ learning of a new solfege pitch, she brought out a monster puppet. She sang about how the puppet could only sing La, so every time it opened its mouth during the song, the students had to sing that pitch. In another activity, students read and played the folk song “Sailor, Sailor” on the recorder.

Conversely, Nicole used more informal practices with her fifth grade and high school students. Students recreated popular songs by ear and created their own cover song arrangements. In fifth grade, small groups sang a self-selected popular song and created their own rhythmic ostinato played on plastic drinking cups (interview, February 19, 2014). In another activity she called “Uke Be the Teacher,” groups played a popular or folk song with two or three ukulele chords and then taught it to the class. “[T]heir task is to learn their song, perform the song, … and then teach us the chords” (interview, February 19, 2014). In her songwriting class, students composed song lyrics, learned about various song forms, played garage band instruments, and arranged their own pieces. She had students watch instructional YouTube videos and use sequencing programs to layer pre-composed tracks to create hip-hop songs (interview, February 19, 2014). Students worked all around the room, even finding places to work in adjacent classrooms, and Nicole would travel around to check on each group’s progress, provide feedback or a musical model, and encourage students to continue working.

Nicole believed there was a distinct difference between her role as a teacher providing direct instruction to help students build musical skills and her role as a facilitator when students applied that knowledge using informal music learning processes:

When I’m teaching during [an informal music learning] class, I’m not a teacher, I’m a facilitator. Once I’ve built students’ aural and executive skills and set up the project, my job is practically done. After that, it’s all on the students to work together and use their musical knowledge to complete the project. (journal, June 23, 2014)

She further defined her facilitator role through several metaphors, including a “sage guide,” a “spirit guide,” and a provider of “wisdom” (interview, June 23, 2014).

While Nicole had a clear vision for her role as a teacher, I observed several practical challenges in her teaching practice. In one instance, a high school boy and girl composing a hip-hop song asked for direction on the chorus they were writing. Nicole simply suggested that they should “start playing” with ideas. While Nicole tried to offer helpful advice, at times she did not always provide specific feedback, which could have given her students clearer direction and advice (fieldnotes, February 20, 2014). She also underestimated the length of time that it would take students to progress, particularly during informal music learning projects.

Although I had observed her difficulties in providing clear directions and feedback and estimating project timelines, Nicole, herself, identified a different challenge in her teaching: the low musical skills of her students. She stated that her students were “low tonally, low rhythmically. Low just in general” (interview, June 23, 2014). Students’ low skill levels caused many issues in their informal music learning projects, particularly in figuring out how to begin: “There are some kids where their skills are just so low that they can’t even get themselves started” (interview, February 19, 2014). By the end of the year, Nicole was already looking ahead to her second year of teaching, saying “[T]here are so many things I want to do differently” (interview, February 19, 2014). She explained how she wanted to include more opportunities for skill-building so that students could be more successful in their informal music learning projects:

Skill-building is building the audiation, it’s building all of the skills the kids need in their toolbox to be successful at their musicianship projects. I think if we look at vernacular musicianship outside of the music classroom, this happens naturally and organically. … I’m creating the conditions so that it happens for everyone. (interview, June 23, 2014)

Because she recognized the importance of building students’ musical skills, Nicole explained that she wanted to create a “more definitive map” of her informal music learning projects across the school year in order to “backwards plan” the skills students would need including beat competency, singing voice accuracy, and ukulele technique (interview, June 23, 2014).

Despite these challenges, Nicole believed that informal music learning resulted in increased engagement and opportunities for students to find relevance to their outside musical lives:

Using popular music increases my [students’] level of engagement. … It increases their willingness to participate and [make] connections to things in their lives in the outside world. It gets them thinking about music in a way that’s applicable to them. … All of a sudden it kind of taps into their soundscape. (interview, February 19, 2014)

Nicole found that many students were “inspired” by informal music learning projects and sought additional mentoring from her: “I have several intermediate school students that have asked me for guitar lessons, or to look at lyrics that they wrote on their own” (journal, June 23, 2014).

Broadening definitions of school music

Nicole’s identity as a music teacher and her beliefs about music education led her to have a unique approach to teaching music, as compared with traditional music classes in the U.S. The theme of broadening definitions emerged as a way to describe how Nicole had an expanded view of teaching general music in terms of the curricular experiences she provided and the music she viewed acceptable for teaching. Her use of informal music learning processes led to some affirmations in her school, but also some criticism from other area music teachers.

Curricular experiences

Nicole shared that her district did not have a written music curriculum, but she believed that her use of informal music learning processes was beyond the scope of many traditional curricula, even though her learning objectives were aligned with those described in the new National Core Arts Standards, particularly the “creating” and “responding” strands (National Coalition for Core Arts Standards, 2014): “I have a feeling if I had a curriculum that I wouldn’t necessarily fit into what was on paper” (interview, June 23, 2014). She explained that she wanted her students to develop a sense of audiation to help them understand, perform, and create music, and that she provided both formal and informal experiences to support that growth: “That is the fundamental principle—that traditional, more formal sense of my teaching very much informs the way I teach vernacular musicianship and vice-versa” (interview, February 19, 2014).

Nicole often used phrases like “teaching Beethoven” as a trope for traditional general music classes that focus on listening to and identifying Classical composers, which is an oversimplification of listening-based music classes. She still included some experiences with listening to Classical music, but she did this in a more limited way with “a nod to Beethoven [and] a nod to Bach” (interview, January 29, 2014). She believed in developing a broad set of musical skills and understandings: “It’s more important that my students learn how to make music and how to participate in music than it is for me to [have them] regurgitate back facts” (interview, January 29, 2014). Nicole also wanted students to develop higher-level thinking skills:

I think it’s great if they can recognize the 1812 Overture, but is that really a musical skill? At that point, we’re just working at the recall level. We’re not really delving in to greater thinking skills, the problem-solving, and the musicianship skills that I personally think kids need. (interview, June 23, 2014)

Nicole’s philosophy of teaching did not reject traditional general music practices, but expanded upon them because, as she explained, “The majority of my students exist more in this world than in the world of Bach, Beethoven, or Mozart” (interview, January 29, 2014).

Acceptable music for teaching

Nicole had a broadened definition of the types of music that she viewed as acceptable and useful for teaching, including a combination of folk, classical, and popular styles. Nicole did not believe there should be “rules,” or “guidelines,” about “what music should be in the classroom:”

I guess for me, popular music is just repertoire. It’s just another way to get to where we’re going, the end goal being high levels of musicianship, high levels of creativity, and of [students] being able to use music in their own lives outside of the classroom so that they can live full and enriched lives. (interview, June 23, 2014)

Nicole’s musical choices functioned as a tool to teach musical concepts, rather than as the content itself. Because of this perspective, she could be open to using a wider array of styles, and she chose to include popular music to connect with students’ interests: “Justin Bieber, good or bad—we don’t have to go there—but just acknowledging that he’s part of your soundscape changes that way that music is viewed at my building” (interview, January 29, 2014).

Affirmations and criticism

Nicole found that her informal teaching was met with approval from her principal and parents, but disapproval from other music teachers. She explained, “My principal is happy because he knows that the kids are learning things, and maybe I take a different path than would be a traditional way of doing things, but they’re still learning, and they’re really, really engaged” (interview, February 19, 2014). Nicole also received some affirmations from parents. She described an instance in which a parent and their child discussed an informal music learning activity, and she recalled the parent saying, “‘Oh, that is so cool! That is way cooler than anything we did when we were in school’” (interview, February 19, 2014).

Conversely, Nicole received negative responses from other music teachers about her use of informal music learning: “[S]ometimes among other music teachers, until they see this work in action, until they see products, I lose a little bit of my legitimacy” (interview, June 23, 2014). She believed other general music teachers in her district viewed her use of informal music learning and popular music as “a cop-out.” “[B]ecause I’m using popular music, and I don’t focus so much on using classical music and classical music techniques, [they think] that I am less of a music teacher” (interview, June 23, 2014). Nicole viewed the negative perceptions from other music teachers was a “weakness” of using informal music learning.

Discussion and implications

Nicole was a first-year music teacher in the U.S. who taught general music at the fourth- and fifth-grade level and high school songwriting using both formal and informal music learning processes. Nicole’s teaching differs from other American music teachers who tend to implement teacher-directed instruction in large ensemble classes that focus on reproducing Western art music. In this study, I sought to describe the development of Nicole’s music teacher identity, as well as her use of and reasons for using informal music learning. Findings revealed that Nicole (a) questioned and eventually found acceptance in her unique identity as a music teacher, (b) exhibited a dualism in her formal and informal approaches, and (c) broadened the definition of school music for her students and school community. Based on the findings and Olsen’s (2008) definition of identity, I offer the following discussion points and suggestions for future research.

Nicole’s “prior constructs of self and immediate contexts”

Nicole believed that she had “two personas in essentially the same thing,” but her experiences from her formal music education were often in conflict with her interest in popular music and creative musicianship. Unfortunately, these mixed messages in Nicole’s past led to tensions in the formation of her music teacher identity (Pillen, Brok, & Beijaard, 2013), and it caused her to question what it meant to be a musician and a music teacher. She used the metaphor of a bruise to describe her passion for popular music. Nicole’s bruise metaphor stands in contrast to the more positively formed “trumpet metaphor” described by Abramo and Austin (2014). The “trumpet metaphor” shed light on how Austin viewed himself as a band director, including how he viewed his role as giving feedback to students while they remained silent and his emphasis on performances that reproduced the composer’s intent. Austin likely developed and/or had this metaphor reinforced during his undergraduate degree because it fit into the existing organizational structures of most university music schools. Conversely, Nicole developed her bruise metaphor because parts of her identity did not fit into those same structures, and she had to conceal her interest in popular music from some faculty at her university. It is likely that other undergraduates might share feelings like Nicole’s, and music teacher education programs in the U.S. should work to offer broader courses offerings and also advocate for students with backgrounds and interests outside of Classical genres.

Agency has been found to be an important aspect of teacher identity development (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009; Beijaard, Meijer, & Verloop, 2004), and although Nicole faced several tensions in her undergraduate degree, she had considerable agency in her teaching context. This allowed her to continue forming and to openly share more of her true music teacher I-dentity (Dolloff, 2007), resulting in a healing of her “bruise.” Nicole viewed herself as an all-around musician and teacher who performed, created, and facilitated music learning (Bouij, 1998; Randles, 2009; Randles & Smith, 2012; Roberts, 2004). Because her district did not have a written curriculum, she did not feel limited to expectations that might have conflicted with her identity or the learning goals she had for her students.

Music teacher education programs need to recognize the conflicting messages that undergraduates may receive because of the “cultural hegemony” of performance and classical music (Roberts, 2004) and work to support students’ identity formation in broader styles of music and in informal music learning processes (Dolloff, 2007; Randles, 2009; Randles & Smith, 2012; Roberts, 2004). Fortunately, Nicole experienced acceptance for her unique I-dentity in her music education methods courses and student teaching. Music education programs could seek to provide opportunities for students to share personal interests in music, experience non-performance ways of musicking, and work through the “dissonances” that may develop through being introduced to non-traditional epistemologies and methods (Finney & Philpott, 2010, p. 6). While Nicole did not specify the characteristics of these courses that supported her I-dentity, she did describe the positive mentorship and encouragement she received from her music education professors and her cooperating teacher. She not only appreciated the information she received from these individuals about becoming a music teacher, but she also deeply valued the collegial relationships she could form with them in which her unique perspectives were acknowledged and welcomed in her written assignments, lesson plans, and teaching.

Nicole’s “meaning systems”

Cain (2013) suggested that formal pedagogy has an aim of “transmission” and that informal pedagogy has an aim of “authentic reproduction,” while Kastner (2014) suggested that in schools, informal learning has an aim of musical independence. Nicole had the aim of helping students become musically independent to help them “live full and enriched lives” with music outside of the classroom. It could be that informal learning that occurs without a teacher could have an aim of “authentic reproduction,” but that informal learning with a teacher might have an aim of musical independence. Nicole believed in the importance of fostering her students’ musical independence, and this “meaning system” (Olsen, 2008) in her teaching identity shaped both the musical content she included (classical, folk, and popular repertoire) and the learning experiences she provided (performing, arranging, and creating).

This connects with the broadened definition of school music that Nicole began to instill in her students and in her community, similar to beliefs held by other elementary general music teachers (Shouldice, 2013) and by music teachers using informal learning approaches (Abramo & Austin, 2014; Kastner, 2012). Nicole had a reconceptualized view of repertoire. Rather than viewing it as the content, she saw repertoire as a tool to help students learn the skills and concepts they needed, which resembles the “socially constructed procedural knowledge” described by McPhail (2013, p. 14). As shown in the duality between her formal and informal teaching, Nicole did not reject formal and conceptual knowledge, but had deeper goals for her students that included creative musicianship and higher-level thinking.

While Nicole believed that her use of informal music learning processes was meaningful to her students and valued by the school’s principal and parents (Green, 2008; Kastner, 2012, 2014), she believed that it was not accepted by other music teachers in her area. This could lead to isolation and a lack of professional development. Teachers in situations similar to Nicole’s may have to learn to navigate the political systems and stakeholders in their communities to communicate the values of informal music learning and popular music, and they may have to search to find professional development on those topics. In particular, professional development communities may offer a format in which similar teachers can brainstorm and learn collaboratively (Kastner, 2012, 2014). Also, music teacher educators may need to prepare students to develop strategies for communicating how informal music learning processes and popular music can be beneficial for students and meet school and district expectations for students’ music education (Windschitl, 2002). In future research, researchers could compare the experiences of multiple cases, such as those from other backgrounds, with varying levels of teaching experience, and with differing pedagogical approaches. Researchers could also explore the “meaning systems” of teachers’ identities and how they develop and/or plateau over a longer period of time.

Nicole’s “flow of activity as a teacher”

Nicole exhibited a duality in her pedagogical approaches, which resulted in her use of formal instruction with her younger students and informal music learning with her older students. While it is possible that Nicole included informal music learning processes in her formal pedagogy and vice versa, it was not clear in the data. However, at the end of the school year, Nicole implied that she was considering blending elements of informal music learning and formal processes. Nicole made this implication after having a fourth grade class attempt to play a folk song melody they had sung previously onto the recorders by working independently or with a peer. Unfortunately, I did not ask her to further explain her intentions because I did not recognize its significance until after data collection had ended.

Regardless, Nicole’s formal–informal duality seems to be in contradiction with her value of creative musicianship and independence. Perhaps as a first-year teacher, Nicole still needed to develop strategies for implementing informal music learning pedagogy with younger students, representing a “pedagogical dilemma” in her use of this constructivist approach (Windschitl, 2002). While she believed that her formal and informal pedagogies influenced each other, this was not totally true in her practice at that time, but she may have been considering this for her future teaching. More research is needed to understand the gray area in the formal–informal continuum (Folkestad, 2006) and explore pedagogical strategies teachers use in both formal and informal pedagogies (Cain, 2013; Folkestad, 2006; Kastner, 2014).

Nicole demonstrated several other pedagogical struggles in her use of informal music learning, including understanding the amount of time required for projects and providing meaningful feedback. I believe these challenges were due to Nicole’s status as a first-year teacher, and these struggles might be similar to those experienced by other beginning teachers. Music education researchers should further investigate the pedagogical skills needed to facilitate informal music learning experiences, particularly with younger children. Also, music teacher educators could include (or continue to include) these approaches in methods courses and provide opportunities for authentic teaching experiences (Draves, 2014) with informal music learning processes, which, although they are increasing, are still offered in few places in the U.S. (Springer, 2013). Having more methods courses include informal learning processes, particularly in the U.S., could help undergraduates develop appropriate teaching skills for informal music learning and support their music teacher identity in areas other than formal instruction.

Despite these struggles, Nicole provided many valuable experiences for her students to support their musical growth. Her unique voice provides an example of a teacher who uses formal and informal music learning processes not only to reflect her true identity, but to bridge the gap between school music and her students’ musical interests:

[My students] are engaged, and they are making connections to their outside lives. Music is not something that exists within the bubble of music class … because they’re playing and interacting with music in ways that they’ve never ever interacted with music before. It’s really fun for me to see those connections happening, but it’s also really fun for them. (interview, June 23, 2014)

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

*

Pseudonym

Author biography

Julie Derges Kastner, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of music education at the University of Houston in Houston, Texas. Her research focuses on the informal music learning experiences of children, adolescents, and music teachers and music teacher professional development. Kastner has publications in the International Journal of Music Education and the Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, and she has presented her research at a variety of international and U.S. conferences. In addition to teaching undergraduate and graduate courses, Kastner teaches elementary music classes in an after-school outreach program in Houston.

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