Extract
In this paper I explore the musical general knowledge of 46 applicants for places on a secondary Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) music course. The applicants took a 35-question quiz designed to indicate something of their subject knowledge in connection with aspects of the Western art music tradition, knowledge of Western musical instruments and world musics. I will discuss methodological problems related to the use of the quiz results, then analyse the results. The analysis reveals patterns of strength and weakness in the subject knowledge of the applicants that are related to their educational and other musical experiences. Significant absences in areas of knowledge needed to teach the National Curriculum are detected. I then move on to consider the findings in the light of the new Benchmark Statement (QAA, 2002) for music degrees in the UK. Noting that no given body of knowledge is prescribed in the Benchmark Statement that both describes and governs the content of music first degrees, I raise questions about the difficulties this creates for all concerned.
Introduction
Between 1992 and 2001 I worked in two university schools of education, for the greater part of my time teaching and administering PGCE courses. It was crucial to try to select applicants for the PGCE who would become good teachers, who would be effective in the classroom and, I hoped, obtain satisfaction and enjoyment from the job.
Inevitably such questions were at the forefront of my mind when assessing students at interview. I attempted various methods to try to get an insight into each applicant’s potential for making a success of the challenging job of secondary music teaching. For example, I included a practical element in the interview process, inviting students to join me in typical classroom activities, singing, accompanying and improvising. I tried to put applicants at their ease but perhaps inevitably this process frightened some of them. Although music graduates (or soon to be graduates) had been studying their subject for a number of years, many of them found the activities of singing, playing and improvising in a fairly informal way very challenging. Neither their degree in music nor their previous musical experience had equipped them for such things.
Working on the PGCE course I became quite concerned at the level of subject knowledge of some of the people I recruited. Things that I thought were common currency of musical knowledge were sometimes met with puzzlement and even incredulity. Obviously the students came from different backgrounds and had studied on different courses, but where the individual had studied did not seem to correlate with the subject knowledge displayed. Music teachers need a reserve of subject knowledge to put in context what they are teaching and to respond to pupils’ interests and enquiries. I decided that I ought to address the question of subject knowledge in the interview process.
End of extract
