Music-ITE

The resource consists of 15 slides from a presentation on different approaches to cross-curricular thinking and learning. Five contrasting methods of combining subject responses to a stimulus are introduced:

• Hierarchical
• Multi-disciplinary
• Inter-disciplinary
• Opportunistic
• Double Focus

Each category of cross-curricular teaching and learning places a different emphasis on music. All the approaches I have used suggest the combination of only TWO subjects. Cross-curricular approaches have been shown in research (e.g.Roth, in Wineburg and Grossman, 2000) often to sacrifice progression and deep, subject understanding. Progression is difficult to achieve even when only two subjects are involved; it is almost impossible where there are three or more. The difficulty in addressing specific objectives in two specific subjects at the same time means that the planning of those objectives is central.

If we want to avoid the ‘bland broth’ of subjects Roth (2000) speaks of, subject planning is essential. Planning progressive objectives in knowledge and skills requires secure understanding on the part of the teacher. Children equally need to be aware of progress in themselves. The Rose Review of the primary curriculum (Rose, 2009), reminds us that cross-curricular learning mirrors the way children’s minds work, but though frequently highly motivating and enjoyable, these aspects are not enough to secure subject development (see Ofsted, 2009, HC, 2007).

Another linking assumption throughout this resource is that cross-curricular learning is a response to experience which has been genuinely entered into by the child. In three of the accompanying diagrams, the words, ‘ powerful, personal experience’ have been used to communicate the suggestion that deep learning only happens when the child perceives some emotionally significant reason for becoming involved. ‘We feel therefore we learn’, as neuroscientists Immordino Yang and Damasio (2007) suggest. An emotionally powerful experience does not have to be dramatic - it can be a well-read story, a visit to the playground pond or a visit by the school lollypop lady. The experience does not have to happen at the beginning of a course of cross-curricular study, it can come in the middle or can be the summation of the work done in a unit of work – but it does have to be there to engage and motivate the children and the teacher.

I dwell on experiences rather than ‘themes’ or ‘topics’ as are common in many schools, because themes and topics are frequently chosen by the teacher or a committee of teachers. Even when the children have chosen the theme it can be difficult to engender emotional engagement in that theme if an individual does not feel it represents her interests. However if experience (often of course related to a theme) is the driving force then it is much more likely that each child will enter into the learning at their own level and with their own individual interests and enthusiasms. The teacher’s role here is making sure that the experience is fully, physically and personally entered into by each child.

HIERARCHICAL cross curricular learning occurs when a subject like music has a subservient position to another one. One subject is used simply to enhance learning in another. For example, a teacher may plan to help children learn a grammar or mathematical pattern by using a chant or a simple song.
 

Here, in a south Indian classroom, children are learning English language by singing a song. English is the dominant subject, music takes a subservient role.

MULTI-DISCIPLINARY cross-curricular learning occurs when two subjects are used to throw light on a single stimulus. Subject learning is hopefully enhanced by being applied to a real-world context. The subjects though focussed upon and arising from the same stimulus, do not necessarily meet or affect thinking in each other – subject-based interpretations are kept separate. The children in the photo are making a musical journey down their local street by collecting sounds and reproducing them back in the classroom with classroom and found instruments. On the same trip they also collected information about five different historical building styles represented in the street. Two subjects ONLY are combined because it is very difficult to ensure adequate depth and subject progression when more than two are involved at one time. However English is likely to be a key aspect of all cross curricular learning because of the speaking, listening and often writing commonly generated.
 

In INTER-DISCIPLINARY cross-curricular learning a similar stimulus may be used to generate thinking and learning but the intention is to combine the subjects in understanding the experience. Two subjects intertwine usually in some kind of ‘performance of understanding’ where each subject complements and supports the other. Teachers should plan integration of the two subjects - planned objectives for both subjects and planned linkages. The children in the photograph made a complex map of their journey through a nature reserve marking on five stopping places and at each stopping place they made records of the different sounds they could hear. Later they presented their journey as a musical composition which used their maps as graphic scores and as visual backing for their soundscapes. The result of the combining of these two subjects was measurable progression in both geography skills of mapping and symbol use and musical skills of composition, in particular extended musical structures and sensitive timbre choices.
 

In OPPORTUNISTIC cross-curricular learning the experience leads. Planning is done in response to children’s reactions to the experience, there may be only a vague subject expectation. Children share a powerful personal experience, such as a visit, visitor, or powerfully presented ideas and the teacher shares the experience with them, listening carefully to reactions and conversations. Children may be asked what they would like to do to understand/express the experience better. If the experience results in some children wanting to follow a musical path the teacher would support them in developing the specific musical skills most relevant to deepening or expressing the experience.
 

In the photograph children are greeting an infant monster realised by artists listening in to their conversations about a mysterious packing case found in their school playground. Teachers followed the interests of children and helped them generate, homes, food and play-things for the baby creature, but their work culminated in several weeks work on well-being and how to ensure each others happiness. (See Creative Partnerships London North ‘It could Happen here.’ 2008)

DOUBLE FOCUS cross-curricular learning, attempts to establish a balance. Cross-curricular approaches have been shown in research (e.g.Roth, in Wineburg and Grossman, 2001) often to sacrifice progression and deep, subject understanding. Cross-curricular learning is only effective in securing progression when subject knowledge is secure on the part of the teacher and children are aware of ever-deepening subject understanding in themselves . This model suggests an ongoing programme of pure subject studies in every subject on the curriculum throughout the year, BUT with frequent opportunities to put newly-learned skills and knowledge into action in response to a string of powerful experiences in and out of school. Such experiences can be whole school experiences where music is combined with a different subject in each year group (as in the example over) or can be organised as part of a year group termly theme.
 

PHOTO 1. In a nature trail in Tower Hamlets a year 5 class made a sound trail by combining progress in map-making skills with progress in composing using rondo structures.

PHOTO 2 These year 3 three children learning in the same nature reserve, collected small items on journey sticks and used them to construct extemporary poems. They then use their collected and ordered objects as graphic notation and composed music to accompany a recital of their poems to the rest of the school. An example of a poem:
Forget-me- not
A tiny red leaf and
Gravel to crunch under feet
Buttercup
Daisy
Dirty grey soil
Forget-me-not.

PHOTO 3 Here a class of year 4 children worked in a multi-disciplinary way. They made a model of the street their school stands in. They worked with a town planner on how to make it more safe. Musically they made a sound journey from the bird-filled church yard at the top of the street to the ca- choked trunk road at the other end of the street.

PHOTO 4 Year six children looked at the strength of certain structures in Canary Wharf and linked these strong structures with musical structures in their electronic music compositions. Groups constructed slide sequences with a closely linked and composed musical backing.
 

This year nine group made a Haiku from a ting detail of their trip to a cathedral. They then turned the Haiku into two freeze-frame tableaus and devised a slow transition between the two tableaux . Another group took the same Haiku and composed music which used sounds, words and rhythm to communicate the sense of the Haiku in music. The music and coreographed movement were finally placed together in performance for the rest of the year group.
 

This group is composing music for the tableau group.
 

Groups of year five children responding to a visit to the zoo where they each ‘adopted’ an animal for 25 minutes. This group discussed, planned and made music using an image of zebra skin as the starting point, the rest of the year group assessed by asking two questions about the music and picking two details for special praise.

HC, House of Commons Education and Skills Standing Committee, (2007) Creative partnerships and the Curriculum, Eleventh Report of the session 2006 -2007, London: Crown

Immordino-Yang, M. and Damasio, A, (2007) ‘We feel therefore we learn: the relevance of affective and social neuroscience to education’, Brain, Mind and Education, Vol. 1 No. 1 pp3-10

Ofsted, (2009) Making More of Music (website)

Rose, Sir J. (2008) The Independent Review of Primary Education, London: Crown

Wineburg, S. and Grossman, P. (eds) (2000) Interdisciplinary Curriculum; Challenges to implementation, New York: Teachers College Press