American Idol & Music Education on ABC News online
May 21st, 2006 by etobias
The American Idol and music education story didn’t make it on air tonight but did make it online.
You can see some of my students responding to questions about the contestents’ performances and what the judges were saying. You can also see how 2nd graders in a school in PA use American Idol in their classroom by judging each other. The story also shows how music programs are loosing funding due to No Child Left Behind shifting funding and support in schools to math, and language arts and away from the arts. At the end of the clip you can see my students composing music on computers and also some 5th graders singing an original art song they created with the music they created.
I wish they would have shown more of my students working on their compositions and critiquing each other with specific feedback but it was nice that they were able to show that they can watch American Idol on a deeper level than just passive entertainment.
Here’s what I focused on in my classes.
Congratulations on making music education news worthy. As a music teacher, I would have wanted to story to focus how American Idol can be used to create meaningful learning experiences for my students. However, I think it is great that music education is being discussed and comments are being made about the narrowing of the curriculum in schools due to No Child Left Behind.
Dear Evan,
I am a singer and I simply can’t stand American Idol for several reasons. I could not imagine initially how it might be useful to music education. When I saw the news clip about how you were utilizing it, it made me very curious and gave me several ideas as to how I might implement the use of American Idol when teaching my private students. Interesting NCLB discussion as well…
Tried to go back in and edit, but couldn’t. I wanted to add that from a vocalist standpoint, I might try asking my voice students not only about what they are hearing in the singers (timbre, vibrato, expression, etc.) I would also encourage them to explore what they are hearing from the judges. I would be curious to hear their independance of thought after hearing a performance before the judges make their commentary.
I am thrilled to hear how you’ve turned American Idol into an educational experience for your students, and that it is being recognized by the press. I never got into the show, but my students have. We all know that teaching is most successful when we connect to our students and begin from where they are, with something they know and enjoy and branch out from there. American Idol is now part of our students’ culture, part of our culture, whether we agree or not. For some people, American Idol might be their only musical experience.
Through the American Idol experience you have created, your students will develop an understanding of some musical concepts as well as an appreciation of the music in a deeper sense as they listen actively to the performances and critiques of those performances. Your students will forever watch and listen to American Idol in a very different way. In addition, they will hopefully always listen to music from all genres with a critical ear, while they think about what they are hearing; they won’t be a passive consumer.
As music teachers, we often strive to develop the skills of musicians, the understanding of musical concepts, but we must not forget the importance of educating our audiences. We can assume that many of our students may not be a professional musician, nor work in a music related field. But we can also assume that almost 100% of our students will be in the audience of some kind of musical performance in the future. It’s therefore necessary to teach them how to listen and how to analyze what they’re hearing.
I agree with CMK. Audience education and audience development are very important to the preservation of culture.
I also think that this American Idol lesson illustrates something that we forget too often: We must meet our students where they’re currently at. Offering a lecture on the performance practices of early Baroque vocalists might not seem interesting to a 15-year-old general music student. However, discussing the performance practices of the most recent voted-off cast member of American Idol may be a doorway in for that student. As music teachers we are constantly trying to find activities or issues to make music accessible and exciting to our students. This may be one of them.
Evan, I am very excited to hear how you have incorporated American Idol into your own teaching. Wow! Very impressive stuff! I especially liked what you had to say about peer critique, talking to children about including pop culture in the classroom, and the value of music education in schools.
I must admit that I have mixed emotions about American Idol. Personally, I cannot justify the harshness of the show. Please do not get me wrong! I am certainly not in favor of sheltering children from the all the realities of sharp criticism in this world. At the same time, however, I believe in a more positive nurturing approach to maintain children’s interest in music. Although I admit the entertaining value of the show, American Idol finds most of its audience clamoring for more raucous mockery of contestants on the show. Am I the only one that considers the impact this has on children in the intermediate school age (grades 5 and 6)?
A year ago, I developed an enrichment activity based on the American Idol program. I really liked the idea of tapping into the interests of intermediate school children to motivate them to participate in this music activity. As a teacher of intermediate school-age children, I know how difficult it can be to capture and maintain the interests of children in this age group, especially the older students. By design, I consciously removed the competitive component in the show and replaced it with more positive motivators such as producing their very own music video. Each student in the group chose a piece of music and directed their own music video using the other students in their group. Before and during the production process, I set aside some time to discuss the impact that positive and negative criticism has on individuals. As a class, we defined the phrase “positive peer critique� and agreed that this would be the method in which we would all motivate each other. The end result was great! Each child walked away from the enrichment activity with a digital video recording (DVD) of their performance.
Currently, I am taking a course in New Technologies in Music Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. I am exploring ways to incorporate notation software into my own teaching experience this fall. Instead of students choosing a preexisting song, they could compose a song of their own to perform in the American Idol project. Thanks, Evan, for the great thoughts and ideas!
I am currently pursuing my masters degree and certification in music education, and I found your lesson to be very inspiring. Your lesson provides a concrete example of how to build upon students’ prior knowledge in order to get them excited about learning music. I believe it is lessons such as these that keep music education fresh and relevant in the lives of young students. Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the importance of music students being able to apply what they learn to an authentic setting outside of the music classroom. This American Idol lesson is certainly something that achieves this ideal. Thanks again for the inspiration; it helps to know that there are real music educators out in the field upholding some of the transformative principles I’m studying in school.
Evan,
Just wanted to let you know that I have added a discussion thread on my 6th Grade General Music Wikispace (http://fams-music-wiki.wikispaces.com) about this season of American Idol. The insights from the students so far has been really interesting read. Check it out.
James
I am glad to read this- this is such a great way to take something that students are so interested in and love to keep up with and using it to teach about music. It also does wonders for broadening students’ definitions of music- sometimes, I have seen particularly focused music students get locked into thinking that ’serious’ music is the only kind worth examing at all, and this can teach them that they can apply the same tools they have learned through the study of classical or band music and apply them to the analysis of popular music performance, and thus broaden their musical horizons to some extent.