Summer 2021 Music Education Graduate Courses
9586L – Special Topics in Music Education:
The Teacher
July 5-16, 2021
Instructor: Cathy Benedict - cbenedi3@uwo.ca
Caroline Blumer - cdelazar@uwo.ca
10:00-12:00 synchronous daily (first 2 weeks of July)
You will note this is a synchronous that meets for two hours – the other hours will be made up by movie watching and group work.
Course Description:
There has never been a time in the history of humans where there has not been “a teacher.” Before any formal construction of teaching, teachers have historically manifested in the form of (for instance) Elders, spiritual guides, parents and caregivers. Once teaching became a codified profession becoming a teacher was made manifest in the mandated certification processes. What it means to be a teacher has too often come down to the “methods” one is taught to use in those certification programs. When we consider why one chooses to be a teacher multiple reasons emerge, including issues of socioeconomics, job security, the desire to make a difference, and perhaps more troubling, narratives such as a desire to “save” students. It is these often uninterrogated issues that invite us to attend more carefully to what many of us have been called to be and do in this world.
In this two-week class students will explore narratives, discourses, imageries and representations through theoretical readings, movies, music, and other texts, so as to the wonder through the idea of “teacher.”
Possible questions we will pursue:
What is a teacher?
Why is a teacher?
How does a teacher become constructed as a teacher?
What ideologies are at play in the construction of a teacher?
How can place be a teacher?
Course Objectives:
1. Examine the social, theoretical constructions of “teacher”
2. Come to a more nuanced understanding of what it means to be a teacher through readings, essays, movies, guest lecturers, group interactions and projects.
3. Address a variety of pedagogical approaches that challenge or support constructions of mindful, caring, heedless, colonizing, oppressive teaching models.
4. Identify goals and purposes for the improvement of engaged experiences for all students
The following authors will guide our thinking:
A.S Neill
David Hansen
First Nation’s Elders
Gert Biesta
Gloria Ladson-Billings
Hannah Arendt
James Baldwin (A Talk to Teachers)
John Dewey (My Pedagogical Creed)
Jonathan Kozol
Lisa Delpit
Nel Noddings
Parker Palmer
Randall Allsup
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Vivian Gussin Paley
William Ayers
Deborah Britzman
Paulo Freire
Movies We Watched
Peanut Butter Falcon (fabulous!)
Sound of Metal (fabulous film!)
We Were Children (children in residential schools) (2012)
Half-Nelson (2006)
Dead Poets Society (1989)
Whiplash (2014)
Possible Movies
Rabbit Proof Fence (2002)
The Magdalene Sisters (2002)
We Were Children (children in residential schools) (2012)
Our Spirits Don’t Speak English: Indian Boarding Schools (2008)
Akeelah and the Bee (2006)
Soul (2020)
Teacher (2019)
Teacher of the Year (2015)
Chalk (2006)
October Sky (1999)
Rushmore (1998)
Election (1999)
To Sir, with Love (1967)
Dangerous Minds (1995)
Paper Clips (2004)
Detachment (2012)
Mo
9586L – Special Topics in Music Education:
The Teacher
July 5-16, 2021
Instructor: Cathy Benedict - cbenedi3@uwo.ca
Caroline Blumer - cdelazar@uwo.ca
10:00-12:00 synchronous daily (first 2 weeks of July)
You will note this is a synchronous that meets for two hours – the other hours will be made up by movie watching and group work.
Course Description:
There has never been a time in the history of humans where there has not been “a teacher.” Before any formal construction of teaching, teachers have historically manifested in the form of (for instance) Elders, spiritual guides, parents and caregivers. Once teaching became a codified profession becoming a teacher was made manifest in the mandated certification processes. What it means to be a teacher has too often come down to the “methods” one is taught to use in those certification programs. When we consider why one chooses to be a teacher multiple reasons emerge, including issues of socioeconomics, job security, the desire to make a difference, and perhaps more troubling, narratives such as a desire to “save” students. It is these often uninterrogated issues that invite us to attend more carefully to what many of us have been called to be and do in this world.
In this two-week class students will explore narratives, discourses, imageries and representations through theoretical readings, movies, music, and other texts, so as to the wonder through the idea of “teacher.”
Possible questions we will pursue:
What is a teacher?
Why is a teacher?
How does a teacher become constructed as a teacher?
What ideologies are at play in the construction of a teacher?
How can place be a teacher?
Course Objectives:
1. Examine the social, theoretical constructions of “teacher”
2. Come to a more nuanced understanding of what it means to be a teacher through readings, essays, movies, guest lecturers, group interactions and projects.
3. Address a variety of pedagogical approaches that challenge or support constructions of mindful, caring, heedless, colonizing, oppressive teaching models.
4. Identify goals and purposes for the improvement of engaged experiences for all students
The following authors will guide our thinking:
A.S Neill
David Hansen
First Nation’s Elders
Gert Biesta
Gloria Ladson-Billings
Hannah Arendt
James Baldwin (A Talk to Teachers)
John Dewey (My Pedagogical Creed)
Jonathan Kozol
Lisa Delpit
Nel Noddings
Parker Palmer
Randall Allsup
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Vivian Gussin Paley
William Ayers
Deborah Britzman
Paulo Freire
Movies We Watched
Peanut Butter Falcon (fabulous!)
Sound of Metal (fabulous film!)
We Were Children (children in residential schools) (2012)
Half-Nelson (2006)
Dead Poets Society (1989)
Whiplash (2014)
Possible Movies
Rabbit Proof Fence (2002)
The Magdalene Sisters (2002)
We Were Children (children in residential schools) (2012)
Our Spirits Don’t Speak English: Indian Boarding Schools (2008)
Akeelah and the Bee (2006)
Soul (2020)
Teacher (2019)
Teacher of the Year (2015)
Chalk (2006)
October Sky (1999)
Rushmore (1998)
Election (1999)
To Sir, with Love (1967)
Dangerous Minds (1995)
Paper Clips (2004)
Detachment (2012)
Mo
