Chris Dalladay is Senior Lecturer for Secondary Music ITE at the University of East London. Previously, he taught as a music specialist in primary, middle and secondary schools before becoming Head of Performing Arts in Great Missenden in Bucks. He has also led CPD courses and taught for the local Music Service.

Sounding Off:

"Subject Knowledge For Teaching: The Role Of Enhancement Courses"

The level of subject knowledge that potential trainees in any subject area have continues to exercise the thoughts of the TDA. Their concerns are evidenced by the recent re-structuring of enhancement funding and the impending (perhaps that should be ‘looming’?) move to create a workforce educated to Masters level.

There are ITE providers who are reticent to consider applications from potential trainees if they do not possess a strongly music-related degree and, surely, the move to a ‘Masters-level’ minimum requirement will only serve to acerbate this. There are though a few issues with this approach:

• There is a danger of ‘passing over’ exceptional potential teachers who have been working tirelessly in the community and education and who clearly have the skill to communicate their knowledge, skill and passion to the younger generation because they do not possess the appropriate academic qualifications.
• Having excellent subject knowledge (whatever this may mean) does not necessarily make someone a natural teacher.
• In relation to the above point, perhaps it would be far preferable for an applicant to come into the profession with some gaps in musical knowledge and experience but who has the initiative to carry out the necessary research and practice when required, and who can inspire children in the way that they teach and guide them in their own musical experiences.

This is not to say, of course, that trainee applicants shouldn’t possess a range of knowledge and skills – if one is to be expected to guide children in composing, for example, it is, surely, necessary for the teacher to have proficient skills in this area themselves; gained either through previous experience or whilst on their training programme.

In addition, there are a couple of associated issues which can make the actual assessment of a trainee’s subject knowledge rather a challenge:

Firstly, there are so many music-related degree courses out there that there are bound to be areas of considerable strength and areas of considerable weakness in any teacher. By music-related, this might include degrees in Music Technology, Popular Music Studies, Performing Arts, Jazz and specialist instrumental performance.

It is very possible that a potential trainee who has undertaken a degree in Popular Music Studies may have limited knowledge or skill in using traditional staff notation or of the major landmarks in the history of Western Music or of Indonesian Gamelan. Does this, therefore, make this applicant liable to rejection from a place on a PGCE course even though he/she may be extremely knowledgeable, skillful and with the necessary talent for guiding young people in an area of music in which they will be especially motivated; thus, providing a spring-board to further musical experiences, possibly led by a different teacher in any school the trainee might apply to teach in?

Secondly, knowledge ‘about’ a subject does not necessarily imply the appropriate knowledge ‘of’ it. To get personal for a moment: I would consider that I know quite a bit about minimalism – its techniques, practitioners, influences, etc. – but, whenever I have tried to perform or compose music in a minimalist style I always end up producing a musical ‘mess’ (of, course, the problem may lie in my ability to compose). My attempts at fugue will suggest to any observer that I know little at all about music! In an article by Gary Spruce available for download from this very web-site, he says that in making a distinction between ‘knowledge of’ and ‘knowledge about’ music, “it gives credence to the belief that musical knowledge can exist separately from musical experience. Such an idea is rooted in the notion of knowledge as existing apart from behaviour or activity.” (Spruce, 2003: 318)

This brings us to the subject of enhancement programmes. To date, the most common, for music, have been Subject Knowledge Booster Courses. These are courses which some HEIs and others, funded by the TDA, provide to those who have been offered places on ITT programmes as either a condition of acceptance or a recommendation, in order to boost areas of subject knowledge identified by the training provider and trainee together. These have, until now, been of 10 days duration. They have, traditionally, be offered to take place at some point before the PGCE/GTP programme commences though some also take place (at least in part) concurrently. With the new funding arrangements available from September 2008, some subjects, music included, can now offer significantly longer subject enhancement courses in preparation for a subsequent teacher training programme. The focus in these courses should normally be on developing personal knowledge and skill and not on teaching pedagogy, though it can be difficult to avoid this completely.

In a short enhancement course, even if it is a few weeks in duration, it is impossible to compensate for a lack of significant experience in areas that have not been the focus of degree or other studies which trainees may have undertaken. Another issue may be that different trainees will have different ‘gaps’ and it is, therefore, difficult to address the needs of every trainee at the same time.

In developing music enhancement courses and seeking to mitigate for the problems just outlined, the following principles can be suggested:

• Areas of strength and weakness need to be identified at the outset on an individual basis. Often this takes place through some form of subject audit though this does have its limitations. Any focus on knowledge ‘about’ should, perhaps, be replaced by a focus on knowledge ‘of’. Thus, an audit which asks the teacher to assess their knowledge of (say) what a riff is might, instead, ask him/her to identify a piece of music they know of in which a riff is a feature or to identify a riff in a piece of music being listened to.
• Sessions within the enhancement course need to be characterised by experiential learning rather than by the more straight-forward lecture-style. Instead of learning the ‘facts’ of 32-bar song form in popular music, participants should sing songs in this form and attempt to compose music using it. Rousseau in his treatise on education, ‘Emilius’, wrote that students should “learn to compose, or we shall never be masters of this science” (he is adding this to the importance of performing and singing – the experience of making music, not the gathering of facts about it) (in Rainbow, 2006: 116).
• It can be useful to take aspects of music (eg. Indian raga) and provide a ‘starter’ workshop and then follow this with tasks and activities the participants can work on if this is an area indentified as requiring development in their audit. In this way, the workshop can both serve as revision for those reasonably secure in this aspect and a spring-board for further practical experience and study for those who are less secure. The targeted activities and tasks can then be continued in sessions set aside for individual project work where additional support is at-hand or at home or, maybe, in other rooms during ‘starter’ sessions where even revision is not required.

Further advantages to developing the role of subject enhancement courses in music can be:
- a head-start on subject knowledge development has been made before the main teacher training gets going and the pressures of the training become as intense as they often do,
- less time needs to be devoted to the development of subject knowledge in the PGCE itself which would otherwise be necessary,
- trainees have longer time to develop their areas of weakness when the enhancement precedes the training programme – particularly invaluable when the area of weakness requires a lengthy time component such as the development of keyboard or singing skills,
- there is more time to incorporate the experiential, and
- the main training programme (PGCE/GTP) can be designed to focus more energy in building on this learning by exploring pedagogy and methodology related to teaching the subject.

Whilst some may find themselves not completely convinced by the apparent paranoia of the TDA and DCFS over raising the level of subject knowledge in ITT applicants and trainees, the proliferation of music-related degrees that trainees may have undertaken, the vast range of music experience that training teachers may be required to have at least some working knowledge of, and the fact that there are potentially excellent music teachers out there who have no music-related degree at all, would suggest that there is a real need for music enhancement courses. The real issue though, perhaps, is not the content of such courses or even when they should take place but, how to dovetail them into the year – timetabling, resourcing, staffing.

References:
Spruce, G (2003) “The subject knowledge of secondary music PGCE applicants: a response”; BJME 20:3
Rainbow, B with Cox, G. (2006) “Music in Educational Thought and Practice” (new edition); Woodbridge: The Boydell Press