Music-in-Education National Consortium’s Ten Guiding Principles
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Music-in-Education National Consortium’s Ten Guiding Principles [Journal I, III].
The site directors of the MIENC met in Boston nearly seven years ago in formulate a set of guiding principles for creating and nurturing the Learning Laboratory School Network (LLSN). Since that time, it has often been said that admittance to the network requires a belief and adherence to these principles. Another policy of the LLSN is that the Ten Principles provide an important conceptual portal into the Learning Laboratory School Digital Portfolios. That is, the documentation of Music-in-Education program outcomes in every school program is analyzed in terms of each of the Ten Principles as a sort of conceptual checkpoint for its validity.
With the certificate program, the Ten Principles take on renewed significance as a set of criteria for building an operational model of leadership that can the tied to the guiding tenets of the Consortium.
The usual order of the Principles can be seen in JLTM II and III [referenced]. For the purpose of forming a conceptual framework for Music Learning Leadership we can apply a new frame of reference.
Thus, the annotated list below is a reordering and reinterpreation of the principles as a basis for understanding to context and application to the practices of the Consortium Laboratory school partnerships. The annotations are based on the definitions of Music Learning Leadership mentioned at the beginning of the introduction and are loosely grouped according to Peter Senge’s five disciplines of learning organizations.
The Ten Guiding Principles of the Music-in-Education National Consortium
Reordered according to four areas of Music Learning leadership.
Area 1 Systems analysis of schools (and their collaborating partners) as learning organizations
Principle 1: Re-forming Educational Practice
We believe in the continuous re-formation of educational practices to optimize the capacity of all children to learn, and that crucial to this reform process is the rethinking of the essential role of music in education.
Principle 2: Site-based change
We believe that in order for music-in-education to be effective as part of a larger practice of school change, it must be understood in the context of the particular school’s evolution in its quest for excellence.
Principle 4: School and Its Community
We believe that music-in-education changes the culture of a school, supports it in the invention and articulation of its own change, and invokes the school and its community as agents of this change.
Because the MIENC sees music’s mission in education in terms of school change, we now believe that rethinking music’s role in education requires the formation of Music Learning Leadership teams willing to embrace the principles and practices of effective learning organizations. It is now our view (borrowing from Peter Senge The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of Learning Organizations) that ‘systems thinking’ is the core discipline underlying the ability of Music Learning Leadership teams to understand the context of music as a strategic priority for school change and to develop a shared vision of success through principles and practices of team building that engage deep collaboration among different levels of school leadership that includes representatives form arts organization and higher education partners.
The challenge facing all members of Music Learning Leadership teams is to rethink the assumptions of having to cope with rigid or inflexible compliance with general policy by creating a national ‘learning laboratory school network’ based on building the capacity for collaborative inquiry, documentation, assessment, and reflection on music’s essential role in education from a site-based perspective. As a result, building a network of laboratory schools, the MIENC began to see initiatives that challenged a) hierarchical administrative models of leadership, b) the isolation of musical expertise, and c) the formation a national network of diverse learning organizations who entered into a paradoxical relationship of ”interdependent autonomy” as a way to explore innovative Music-in-Education practices.
Download the MIENC MLL Flow Chart as a PDF
How do we understand the MIENC principles in terms of scale-out dissemination guided by Music Learning Leadership?
Music Learning Leadership Inquiry Questions: How can music learning leadership address the various interconnected aspects of school reform on an ongoing basis? How can music teachers understand better why they cannot succeed by their efforts alone? To what extent can team leadership, layered across parallel dimensions of institutional leadership, sustain the growth and positive impact of music-in-education practices in schools? What leverage for change does music learning leadership provide for the various interconnecting roles of integrated learning? What shifts of mind will allow team participants to see themselves as part of a whole dynamic complexity, to advance from thinking of themselves as helpless reactors to active participants in shaping reality of music’s essential role in education? How can we experience positive results of music leadership as a change agent in schools from the point of view of learning organizations?
Area 2: A transformative view of the personal discipline of musicians as educators
Principle 6: Musicians’ Role as Artist-Teacher-Scholars in Education and Society
We believe that teaching experiences and mentor relationships are an essential part of the developing musician’s growth as an artist, teacher, scholar, and citizen, critical to his/her success as a practitioner, as an agent of change in schools, and as a significant contributor to society.
The Artist-Teacher-Scholar Framework was originally conceived to guide the transformation of the highly trained performer or composer into a valuable resource for schools. It has since become a hypothetical ‘point of departure’ model for personal discipline to be adapted in various ways by all members of MLL teams. The essence of the ATS Framework is to embrace multiple perspectives on the role of a music educator, guided intern, or collaborating teacher attuned to the need to understand the synthesis of a) acquiring understanding of artistic experience, processes and skills, b) deepening this understanding through facilitating learning experiences for others, and c) deepening this understanding still further through action research processes that engage personal inquiry, investigation, and documentation processes that result in evidence of learning on the part of both the teacher and their students in schools.
Music Learning Leadership Inquiry Questions: To what extent might the transformation of the ‘personal discipline’ or persona of the musician from a music specialist or teaching artist to an Artist-Teacher-Scholar-Change Agent alter the ‘dynamic complexity’ of music’s impact in music programs in schools? How does the ‘personal discipline’ of the music teacher as Artist-Teacher-Scholar empower other MLL team members to contribute to the impact of music in education? To what extent do all MLL team members need to adopt the role and discipline of the ATS for MLL to succeed? How does the understanding of the music ATS shift from a view of isolated expertise and vision toward a catalyst for group vision and understanding of music’s impact on school culture and performance?
Area 3: Conceptual Modeling: Leadership through understanding and application of new frameworks for learning, teaching, and assessment in and through music
Principle 3: Differentiation and Synthesis
We believe that a genuine, comprehensive, and interdisciplinary music program assumes its full power in education through the dynamic tension between music as a distinct, authentic subject area, and as part of a rich curriculum integrated with other subject areas.
Principle 5: Diverse Strategies for Teaching and Learning
We believe in diverse strategies for the implementation of music-in-education practices as a way to improve music and music-integrated teaching and learning throughout the school.
Principle 10: Diverse Assessment Strategies
We make a commitment to develop, document, and disseminate multiple assessment strategies of music-in-education programs, adapting both practitioner action research and formal research methodologies in order to illuminate the complexity and scope of the teaching and learning processes, to refine definitions of program quality, and to address a variety of audiences and purposes through new technologies and innovative publishing strategies.
In order to guide the conception and implementation of music-in-education practices, it has been necessary to develop a culture of conceptual modeling throughout the Consortium. No longer willing to simply adopt favored pedagogies or practices based on proprietary program materials, Music Learning Leadership teams need to challenge themselves to go beyond the limitations of previous conceptual models of music teaching, learning and assessment.
The innovations in music education of the previous century brought new understandings of how the concept of musical talent can be altered through new models of music learning as language acquisition (Suzuki), language literacy (Kodaly), perceptual acuity (Gordon), improvisation (Orff) or kinesthetic development (Dalcroze). In this century, conceptual modeling of musical development has taken on a considerably wider range of consideration and complexity of music learning. Examples of successful innovations in music learning in schools includes: creativity across interdisciplinary arts forms (creating opera in schools), digitally assisted composition, and the implementation of drum circles as part of a social-emotional development curriculum.
Furthermore, the Consortium finds that brokering understanding of music learning and teaching in Music Learning Leadership Seminars necessitates new kinds of conceptual modeling stemming from a much broader viewpoint of music learning and teacher as described in the national standards and from basic and applied research in music cognition.
As suggested by the principles of the MIENC listed above, conceptual modeling emerging from the Music Learning Leadership begins with challenging the ‘false dichotomy’ between music learning ‘for its own sake’ and music learning for the sake of learning in other areas of the school curriculum. The principle of ‘differentiation and synthesis” now functions in the Music Learning Leadership as a guiding principle for understanding the necessity to embrace both the ‘essentialist’ and the ‘instrumental’ view of music teaching and learning. This principle is most clearly articulated in the conception of Music Plus Music Integration [M+MI] program development. The principle is central to the MLL seminars’ and institutes’ purpose to create high-quality Music Plus Music Integration curriculum, teaching, and assessment practices that:
- focus primarily on authentic forms of performance and musical literacy skills, in the context of high quality musical literature from various cultures;
- expand the range and depth of music learning through a comprehensive set of experiences that compel students to listen, interpret, improvise, compose, inquire, discover, and reflect in conjunction with their music studies; and
- integrate music learning with arts, other academic and social-emotional learning processes, concepts, and historical contexts for the benefit of learning in both music and other academic classrooms.
The conceptual model of differentiation and synthesis also assumes a dynamic complexity where the in-depth study of a single discipline for its own sake makes possible its appropriate integration with other disciplines. This assumption is supported by a series of conceptual models embedded in the practices of many consortium learning laboratory school sites that explain further the potential of music as a distinctive discipline that can enhance understanding of other disciplines through more diverse teaching and assessment systems:
- Music as cognitive development
- Music as inextricably linked with learning in other disciplines through fundamental concepts shared between music
- Fundamental processes of music learning that are shared will all disciplines of learning
- Teaching, learning, and assessment through multiple representations [see M+MI definition for more detailed descriptions of the principles of Music Plus Music Integration]
Area 4: Shared Vision: Building a Music Learning Leadership model based on common desire to create and share a vision of success
Principle 7: Equity and High Expectations
We believe that the compelling nature of music generates unique opportunities for music and classroom teachers to provide equitable access to learning while invoking and sustaining high expectations for all students.
The need for equity and high expectations in music education is taken as a belief in the MIENC. However, a common vision of how both principles are to be achieved through music is a matter of negotiating music learning leadership priorities through each team member’s personal vision. When personal vision becomes a coherent team vision, each person’s internalized idea of success will represent a microcosm of the shared vision.
In order to pursue a common vision with genuine commitment and a desire for success, MLL teams may have to resist presumptions about music and arts education commonly accepted in the past or required by compliance with policies not emanating from the local site. The belief in equity means, for example, that all children, not just the talented few, deserve to have the opportunity to learn music deeply and to learn it in a way that enhances learning in other areas of the curriculum. But all team members will need to have the freedom of choice as to how commitment to the principle of equity is exercised in the local classroom, always questioning how the local practices fit into the common vision.
The vision for equity, however, means little without a commitment to excellence. Indeed, it is the dynamic tension between these two ideas that creates a more cohesive belief in the simultaneous presence of both equity and high expectations for achievement.
The relationship between equity and high expectations requires careful attention to the dynamic systems in place in schools. Equity and high standards does not mean, for example, that everyone will achieve the same profile or level of musicianship. One-dimensional thinking will doom the quest for equity and high expectations to failure.
A more dynamic, systems thinking approach to this principle of equity and high expectations may instead mean, for example, that everyone can be engaged in music learning and, at the same time, meet high standards of progress in the understanding of musical processes and content, without necessarily everyone achieving the same benchmark or degree of excellence.
The validity of high expectations is ensured by the insistence on aiming for high process and content standards of an authentic, comprehensive music curriculum that addresses curriculum design, teaching, and assessment practices that support the comprehensive standards of excellence. The shared vision of a Music Plus Music Integration program adapted to each school community ensures that the study of music not only meets arts learning standards, but also high expectations for equitable music learning integrated with learning in other areas of the curriculum. For the MIENC, it is the commitment to the inclusive principle of equity and high standards that allows every stakeholder to understand how music plus music integrated programs can contribute to positive, sustainable changes in school culture and performance.
Area 5: Team Building: Creating conditions for playing and work well together
Principle 8: Reflective Practice
We believe that teachers and musicians build their capacity as reflective practitioners through a scholarship of teaching that involves documenting, analyzing, and sharing their own work and evidence of student music and music-integrated learning.
Principle 9: Participation in Professional Community
We believe in the creation and expansion of professional networks to generate discourse, share practices, develop new inquiry, and further research as an ongoing extension of the music-in-education process.
In the MIENC Music Learning Leadership model, we believe that the whole team has to be persuaded that music learning experience and skill development requires everyone’s participation – music teachers, classroom teachers, teaching artists, interns, researchers, curriculum consultants, administrators, and parents included. Although each of these roles is highly specialized, everyone must learn to play together as an ensemble. With a shared vision in place and team members are confident of their personal skills as “artist-teacher-scholars”, MLL team building is needed to bring the program into dynamic alignment through dialogue and discussion. Time must be allotted for action research planning in order for every member of the school professional community to serve program development as ‘reflective practitioners’ in the enterprise of music in education.
IN the MIENC we have found that the tasks of creating web-based process and planning portfolio create a team ethos of inquiry, investigation and discovery. We create ‘learning laboratory school digital portfolios’ to document, evaluate and publish results from the action research based aspects of program development. With these tools in place, Music Learning Leadership is empowered further to deal with the complexities of school change while taking the time and energy to share work with the professional within and outside of the school community. By committing to the principles of reflective practice and participation in professional community, Music Learning Leadership is even more likely to sustain the quality and commitment to music’s essential role in education.