Music Education can be full of gimmicks and buzzwords. When we use the terms “decolonization,” “liberation,” “equity,” and anti-racism,” we run the risk of placing them in the realm of metaphor instead of real-life application (Tuck & Yang, 2012). DTMR defines our work as “challenging the established dominance of Western European and White American music, narratives, and practices by disrupting the minimization and erasure of racially and ethnically minoritized cultures and identities (Batislaong & Pace).” Our work requires a necessary look at power structures and systems, and how they play out in every aspect of our practices, from the foundation upward. The frantic shift the community is making to remote learning is no different. As we plan our frameworks and lessons we need to take time to look at where systems of oppression and domination are upheld and what we can do to combat them.

One major problem we see is the de-contextualization of the realities of living during the global pandemic, COVID-19, its effects on the communities we serve, and the lack of acknowledging/showing our feelings in the larger conversation about curricula, tech platforms and [social media] discourse in music education. Rooted in systems of oppression such as colonialism and white supremacy, this discourse (Katz, 1990) re-produces a kind of music education that is empty of connections, feelings, and fails to discuss personal life. We are living through a time that will most definitely become a generative theme; a theme that keeps coming back to a people (Freire,1980) and thus, we artists and educators have a responsibility to teach whatever content we teach through the contexts of our lives. Is what we are choosing to teach, asking our students to do, and turning into administration as assessments reflective and proportionate to the context we find ourselves in at this moment? When we don’t have the answers, let us go back and retrieve from the past the wisdom from our elders. Black American Music Saxophonist Charlie Parker said: “If you don't live it, it won’t come out of your horn”. Black American Music drummer Art “Buhaina” Blakey regularly said when a drum set at a festival was broken or not up to professional level: “I don’t care about the condition of this instrument. I AM THE INSTRUMENT.” 

One way to push back against this way of being/doing/teaching is to use music to not run away from, but to lean into life. Here are two ideas you can use to get students using music to process and synthesize life through art. 

1) Ask students to build and share their “Quarantine Playlist”. Ask students: What tunes are getting you through these times? Dassit. No more prompts, no more directions. If you want to add another layer to this project, ask that kids pick one song for you both to listen to together. Here is a tutorial for teachers on Zoom, a platform for videoconferencing, chatting, and webinars.

2) Songwrite!  Regardless of where your students are at with music skills, everyone can write songs. Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire and American educator and philosopher bell hooks  speak about coming to voice” and developing “critical consciousness” as a way to assert oneself in their community.  What a time to do this. 

Ask students to find an instrumental on YouTube (or you can assign one). 

Here is a playlist of ones I like. 

Ask students to write free write (brainstorm) around the following three prompts:

1. I been wondering if__________

2. Quarantine feels/sounds/looks/tastes like ______

3. One hope & dream you have for your community/the world:

-Ask students to write 4 or 8 line verses (using rhyming or not), repeating words for impact, etc, and to practice saying them in different rhythmic phrasing.

-Ask students to use a scalar up and/or down motion to improvise melodies (you can model how to do this)

-Ask students to record themselves singing/rapping/ freestyling on their devices. If they have the means, they can do a multi layer project using the app Acapella or any app that you know of. *The tech is not that important, the process and content is. 

Another place these structures and systems can show up is in remote learning activities that seek only purely academic transactional interactions from our students. When we do this we miss an opportunity to establish human connection with our students. In designing daily assignments, are we hesitant to share our personal experience and to ask about students’ feelings? Connection to each other is vital in these times. Validating students’ feelings and finding responsive music-making activities to support these points is more important than any music worksheet we assign. The context in which we find ourselves should drive what we teach next, not an obligation to a curriculum. These times are not normal, nor should we proceed as if it’s business as usual. And we must remember that assessment as it once was can longer frame or factor in our online classes because our classes no longer look the same.

In your first lesson, begin with asking students how they are. In your first assignments, ask students to express their feelings, then listen and acknowledge their feelings. And after you ask these things of your students, offer your own feelings in return.

Thinking what was done in our performance classes can simply be transferred over to an online format with a magical app or platform is another important pitfall to avoid.  Social media has been bursting with the sharing of art - of group dance, of music-making, of storytelling. These activities are a source of connection and expression that many have participated in and have enjoyed while in our own spaces. Let’s transfer this to our online design. In music education, there is a rush to problem solve, to make traditional ensemble rehearsals possible. Why? For what purpose? In doing this, we default to Western European classical training and in trying to facilitate rehearsals we uphold old systems, nevermind exposing the inequities and barriers to access and participation that exist amongst our students.The improvisational creation of virtual jam circles and the comfort and connection that comes from that is speaking to something fundamental to many. We should let go of any expectation of making a 60 piece rehearsal work for all of our students (inequity notwithstanding) and focus on why music-making is important right now and how our students have the ability right now to partake. Nothing we do can truly look the same anymore. Because it’s not the same anymore.

Using the same systems because “that is the way things have always been done” as well as urging for perfection in our expectations, are both traits of what Hithcock and Flint refer to as “the experiences of centrality” about in their 2015 article “Decentering Whiteness”.

We are at a crossroads indeed! We are living and lesson planning in the intersection of the Venn diagram of “things will never be the same” and “this is all I know how to do”. We do not need to reinvent the wheel, nor do we need to do the same old things. We can instead use this time to build something that is both innovative and incorporates the familiar; a completely new structure that is responsive to the human elements of our current situation. 

In this regard, we must name that oppressive systems will always find ways to rob the group they marginalize of agency, and account for this as we navigate the tools. For example, using and advocating the “mute all students” as much as possible option on Zoom/Google Meet is still a recreation of Freire’s banking model of education where students are empty canvases that teachers fill in (Freire,1980). Dare I say, the rhetoric around controlling who can speak and when goes a step beyond positioning students as an “empty canvas” and treats them as a “dirty canvas,” unworthy of voice and choice. If we are to center the community in our remote instruction, that might mean that our “E-classrooms” will be messy, with kids talking on top of one another or students sending memes and emojis to one other in the chat boxes- and we must be OK with that. In due time your e-classes will find a groove of how to work with one another and your communities will create collective norms around behavior expectations- so the “messiness” will give birth to a new way of co-creating classroom culture. 

For more philsophy and ideas for specific use in your remote classes, read: 

"Toward Acknowledging the ME in PandeMEc: Teaching Music in #COVID_19 times and why we should focus on the therapeutic aspects of musicking. (including 10+ lessons you can assign today!)"

Tuck E. & Yang, K.W. (2012). Decolonization is Not a Metaphor. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society (1)1.

Freire, P. (2018). Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 50th Anniversary Edition. Bloomsbury Publishing USA.

Hitchcock, J & Flint, C. (2015). Decentering Whiteness. Center for the Study of 

White American Culture, Inc. www.euroamerican.org/public/DecenteringWhiteness.pdf

Katz, J. (1990). Some Aspects and Assumptions of White Culture in the United States. Adapted for Courageous Conversations: Beyond Diversity. https://lfp.learningforward.org/handouts/St.%20Louis2019/9739/PC101A%20Beyond%20Diversity.pdf