Music in primary education

Greetings bloggers, today I will be looking at music in education and exploring its importance, and place in the curriculum. During my time in primary education I don’t believe my musical intelligence was fully explore, music lessons consisted of merely singing songs and tapping the table; it wasn’t till I went to secondary school where I learnt that music was actually a very strong subject of mine, both the practise, and theory of music.

Although, this is evidently not the case in all primary schools as recently I was working with St Nicholas primary school who came into our university and two 10-year-old boys from that class were teaching me how to use garage band as I have never used it before, and I saw a real passion in these boys as they were layering beats and melodies over each other, a passion I can’t say I experienced during my music experiences in primary education.

I believe my music lessons were bland due to budgeting, we didn’t have drum kits or guitars or even keyboards, so children couldn’t play around and find hidden talents. It would seem that the solution is simple, fund government, more deprived schools more so that they can afford musical equipment which sounds easy, but schools are taking more and more budget cuts and money has been budgeted, so the problem lies not only with money, but we need to prove how important music actually is so that it gets the funding it needs.

Music lessons can be much like PE in that they are an excellent opportunity to get students learning more practically, practical learning not only improves motor and coordination skills, but it can build up practical didactic knowledge that also involve questions as ‘how to’ and ‘what’ to do ( Ehrlin, A. Gustavasson, H. 2016)

A common view amongst some parents is that music is a useless subject, because there aren’t many common jobs that involve music, but what needs to be explained is that there are plenty of jobs that need the skills that music teaches you, coordination is a skill heavily used in construction and design based jobs, and it’s a skill that can easily be improved by practising instruments.

In conclusion whilst I believe funding can be an issue on creating more engaging music lessons, I believe that the real issue is promoting how important music lessons are, and explaining that learning music is all about acquiring skills, and not just playing instruments/singing.

References

Ehrlin, A. Gustavsson, H. (2015) ‘The Importance of Music in Preschool Education’ Australian Journal of Teacher Education 40(7) [Online] Available at: http://ro.ecu.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2598&context=ajte (Accessed 10/12/17)

Technology in the classroom

Technology in the classroom

Greetings bloggers, in today’s post I will be talking about technology and its place in the classroom, as well as giving an insight as to some of the dangers of technology in the classroom.

We cannot escape the fact that technology is becoming more and more common in the classroom, and I’m not talking about ICT lessons, interactive white boards, iPads and laptops are not uncommon to find in almost every primary school classroom. This rise in the popularity of technology in the classroom is not something to be feared, but something to be embraced; change can be a scary thing in the education system, but technology is advancing fast and we need to ensure that we do not let foundation phase pupils get left behind, give them the digital competency they need to have a fighting chance in the world of work

Whilst I was studying my A levels I did work experience in a year 6 class of a primary school I used to go to, when I was in that school there was little to no technology or electronic resource, we had a little computer suite with computers that were way before their time even then. When I went back to that school for work experience I was amazed to how much it had changed in regards how many electronic resources were available, it then got me thinking, the year six class I was teaching would’ve been a class that experience white boards and text books as I did, but they also have experienced how technology changes lessons.

I remember asking pupils around the room if they think using the iPads and interactive white boards were better and of course they all agreed, why wouldn’t they, I believe using iPads in the classroom can be extremely beneficial if executed correctly, I will now list pros of technology in the classroom

Pros

Inclusion- Technology not only comes in the form of iPads and whiteboards, but in things like mobility, you can get pieces of technology that augment people with severe physical disabilities and enable them to write and even talk.

Making learning more fun- It is obvious that a child would choose to have an iPad in front of them over a book, even if the exact same thing is being displayed, I think this is because of a few different reasons. Colours are far more vivid on an electronic device, which really captivates children and makes whatever they are looking at less dull than a book, you can interact with the page and zoom in and out, which can not only be more entertaining, but can be more practically useful for children with visual impairments.

Learning life skills- in the future, almost all jobs are going to require some form of digital competency, and I believe having technology actively used in the classroom in the foundation phase will set the groundwork for that. Technology also has an impact on new topics that can be taught in schools, many schools have welcomed coding and learning computer languages into the classroom which is something that was unheard of when I was primary school. Children and young people cannot just be consumers of technology, it is important to teach them the knowledge and skills required to understand how technology works, in order to be digitally competent in an ever-changing workforce.

As you can see there are some strong pros to having technology in the classroom, I will now explore some of the cons of having technology in the classroom

Cons

Cost- obviously this technology is going to be expensive for schools, iPads can set you back £600 a piece, which means children may need to share, 3 children to an iPad for example, but this has more implications than you think. (Bergen D. 199) Says that teachers may have to rethink their more group orientated approach in order to adopt a more individualized approach to learning, Bergen says this in a negative light, but I see it not as con because you need to rethink your teaching strategy, but as a pro, because if your teaching style is more individualised, you’re ensuring more pupils are learning at the same pace and nobody is getting left behind.

Fake news- Social media as a massive part of any young person’s life and fake news is everywhere. Fake news is not only purposely false news, but its false news made to look as authentic as possible, and without further exploration of a posts sources, young people can easily believe anything they read which can influence their minds, and their research. Sites like Wikipedia which is not strictly a fake news site, but a site of which anybody can edit can be dangerous to a young person’s research and this means that skills like source evaluation will need to be taught at a younger age which I suppose in the long run could have positive implications.

E-Safety- This ties directly in with social media, anyone can find anything out about you if you’re not careful through social media so again, new skills will need to be taught to ensure children are safe online.

A reoccurring theme throughout the cons of technology in the classroom is new skills needing to be learnt and not to contradict myself but the new skills that would need to be learned to be digitally competent are skills that can be used throughout life, source evaluation and keeping myself safe online are skills I use almost every day.

In conclusion, I think it is fair to say that technology is not going anywhere and therefore should be embraced and exploited in the most positive way. Pedagogy needs to be revisited and lessons need to incorporate technology

References

Doris Bergen (1999) ‘Technology in the Classroom’ Childhood Education 76 (2) pp.116-118

Graham Donaldson (2015) ‘Successful Futures’ Available at: file:///D:/Donaldson%20Report%20-%20Successful%20Futures%20-%20Independent%20Review%20of%20Curriculum%20and%20Assessment%20Arrangements%20in%20Wales%20(1).pdf (Accessed 8/12/17)

Creativity in Primary Education

creativity in primary education

Greetings bloggers, today I will be discussing creativity in primary education, I will be discussing the importance of creativity and what it means to be creative. Generally, we associate the term creativity or being creative as doing this like painting and making things, but in reality, creativity can be a very complicated subject, it stems a lot deeper than just arts and crafts. When talking about the definition of creativity many theorists believe that creativity at its core is a process of problem solving, building bridges between pieces of information in order to be more productive; Maslow said that he observes no correlation between psychological health and productive achievement when it comes to creativity. What I take from Maslow’s statement is that creativity (not exclusively within regards children) doesn’t mean there is a problem that needs to be solved, you can be creative just for creativities sake, not everything a child does has to be for a reason, its innate for children to play and be creative without reason to.

In primary school, the main creative subjects are art and music, I will now talk more in depth about these subjects and where they fit in the curriculum

Music

Music can be seen as a controversial subject, it is not uncommon for some arguably close minded people to believe that it is a useless subject and its allocated time should be replaced by the core subjects, although I believe that music teaches you very useful transferrable skills you can use in other subjects, as well as it being a good way to express yourself and therefore, benefit your mental health. Music also plays a massive role in Wales’s rich history and it should be something we are proud of.

I discussed in my last blog about cross curricular learning and how important and beneficial it can be, in summary cross curricular learning is all about incorporating many different subjects and skills into one lesson, and I believe music is the perfect subject for cross curricular learning as it can be combined with any subject, allow me to elaborate:

History- Learning about the history of certain genres of music such as folk music would be a brilliant way to develop music understanding, as well as learning about what living in a certain period of time was like.

Geography- Learning about a musical instruments country of origin would be an excellent way to learn more about specific instruments and about different cultures around the world.

Maths- I think maths is an excellent partner with music, when I got to A level music I used maths all the time, specifically with the way I composed music, any time I composed a piece I would first figure out a time signature and then play around with different note length and I often had to calculate beforehand how many of a certain note I could fit into a bar which may sound simple but was very tedious.

English- English may be the most obvious subject to combine music with, I remember in primary school learning about poetry and we were given a melody that we had to listen to and the sing a poem to that melody, that memory really stands out in my mind as I remember there being no rules other than to create a set of lyrics for a melody.

Science- I did work experience in a primary school when I was doing and on my first day at lunch time the teacher I was shadowing asked me if I would like to give a science lesson and if so what would I do it on, I then had the idea of teaching the class about frequencies and pitch, so I then proposed a lesson where I would get strings of elastic and then have a sort of experiment where the children would pull the elastic and pluck it to simulate a guitar and then add in variables such as pinching the elastic at a certain part and changing the thingness of the elastic, I also taught the science behind putting the ruler on the edge of the table and flicking it. It may seem like I’m going off topic but I just remember that day so well and how engaged the children got with the lesson I think it would be a great addition to the curriculum if cross curricular learning was more common.

ICT- this is a very good subject to combine with music as I remember in my A level days most of the music I composed was on a computer using a program called Sibelius, although a couple weeks ago I attended the workshop with St Nicholas school where I worked with 2 boys who taught me how to use garage band as I have never used it and I remember how engaged and excited they were to be the ones teaching me.

Overall, I’m a strong believer that music is a very good medium to express yourself and should not only be used to exercise creativity, but as an opportunity to really experiment with cross curricular learning.

Art and design

Art and design go hand in hand together, they’re both about combining different shapes, using different mediums and experimenting with different techniques. Art is a perfect way of pushing a child’s creativity to the limit, if you supply a child with the resources they will create something they are passionate about, I remember my little brother used to be obsessed with drawing dinosaurs and that’s all he would do. A work of art is able to have such an effect on people’s social consciousnesses only because it has its own internal logic (Vygotsky L 2004), what I take from Vygotsky’s statement here is that art can resonate with us on deep emotional levels because its art is human creativity in its purest form, art has had a massive influence over science and religion in the past, use the renaissance period as an example.

In conclusion, I believe that creativity is a very powerful thing that we still don’t fully understand. I think that it is important that we, instead of ensuring a balance in the curriculum between creative subjects, and less creative subjects, merge the two and push cross curricular learning to the limit!

References

Vygotsky, Lev (2004) ‘Imagination and Creativity in Childhood’ Journal of Russian and East European Psychology 42 (1) pp.7-97 M.E Sharpe, Inc. [Online] Available at: https://learn.cardiffmet.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/564418/mod_resource/content/1/Imagination%20and%20Creativity%20in%20Childhood.pdf (Accessed:11/12/17)

Psychology Today (2013) Maslow on Creativity Available at: https://learn.cardiffmet.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/564418/mod_resource/content/1/Imagination%20and%20Creativity%20in%20Childhood.pdf (Accessed 11/12/17)

Jyrki Reunamo, Hui-Chun Lee, Li-Chen Wang, Inkeri Ruokonen, Teemu Nikkola & Sanna Malmstrom (2014) Children's creativity in day care, Early Child Development and Care, 184 (4), pp.617-632

What is the purpose of education

What is the purpose of education

Greetings bloggers!

In this blog, I will be exploring what the purpose of education is, along with my pedagogical beliefs. To begin I will discuss the definition of pedagogy, the definition of pedagogy is “the method and practise of teaching, especially as an academic subject or theoretical concept” although in his review “successful futures” Donaldson challenges this definition and says that pedagogy is more than just teaching, he says that pedagogy is about an array of methods that can be used to aid a child’s development and meet their individual needs (Donaldson, 2015 p.63) I much prefer Donaldson’s way of thinking about pedagogy, it’s nowhere near as generalised as the actual definition is; I strongly believe that a big problem in today’s education system is that the curriculum is too general and doesn’t take into account that children are individuals and cannot be assessed on things like standardised tests. Although on the other hand, it is extremely difficult to assess children any other way. Without getting too off topic, I understand that assessments need to be carried out in the form of standardised tests, although I don’t agree with it, but I also understand that pedagogy doesn’t need to be standardised, building relationships is a very important part of a child’s holistic development, tailoring how you teach to individual students is an excellent way of making a personal connection that children in the foundation phase need.

My own pedagogical beliefs are that teaching in the classroom should be as inclusive as possible, make every child feel like they are actively contributing to the lesson. The multiple intelligence theory greatly interests me, because I resonate with it given my primary experiences, in primary school I was never very good at history or geography, they were just my weak subjects, and music lessons were purely learning about the origin countries of instruments and things like that, but when I went to secondary school my understanding and passion for music flourished and I don’t think it should’ve taken me that long to determine music was my strong subject. The reason I am talking about this is because it ties directly into cross curricular learning which I along with Donaldson am a strong backer off, cross curricular learning is about incorporating lots of different skills and subjects into the same lesson which not only makes lessons more interesting, but it involves pupils who may not usually be as proficient in the main subject.

I will now delve into what I believe the purpose of education is, along with contrasting opinions.

There is no definitive answer on what the purpose of education is, it’s all down to your opinion; but it is very interesting to see the different views that exist. I personally believe that education has, over time become a term we use for the process of gaining qualifications; it has long lost all meaning of ‘Gaining knowledge’ and ‘learning’, education is no longer a tool but a process. In my view, most people have lost the desire to want to learn and enlighten themselves and just focus on doing what needs to be done to have qualifications under their belt. My gloomy view on what the purpose of education is was heavily contrasted when I asked the same question to my partner who has no background in education studies, her reply was  far more philosophical than mine; her view is that the purpose of education is simple “the purpose of education, is to just educate yourself, to gain knowledge because you want to, and use that gained knowledge to be a better person and in turn, make the world a better place” this answer took me by surprise and prompted me to look up more philosophical views on what the purpose of education is. “Education is the device that allows one generation to pass on to the next generation all that is has learned through experience” (Bass. R 1997) This statement got me thinking about how long education has been essential, and I determined that it has been essential since the dawn of man.

I’ve learned that education isn’t merely a tool used to acquire a good job, it means a lot more than that, education is the thing that allowed man to survive and become the most dominant species.

In the eyes of the education system, the purpose of education is to prepare you for adult life, although I will include below a video detailing how schools are failing to prepare pupils for adult life. I don’t believe schools are doing everything wrong thought, yes there are ways in which schools fail to prepare students for adult life, but in a few ways, they do prepare you for adult life.

A routine is something that all working people have, you get up, go to work, eat and sleep; getting up every morning for school and having lunch and break at a certain time can be seen as a precursor to working life, a strict routine you must follow every day. Caregiving routines and spontaneous exploration can also provide a rich environment for learning (Smith A. B. 1999)

References

Bass, Randall (1997) ‘The Purpose of Education’ The Education Forum 61 pp.128-132 Taylor Francis Online [Online] Available at: http://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.cardiffmet.ac.uk/doi/abs/10.1080/00131729709335242 (Accessed:10/12/2017)

Anne B. Smith (1999) ‘Quality childcare and Joint Attention’ International Journal of Early Years Education 7 (1) pp,85-98 [Online] Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/0966976990070107 (Accessed 10/12/2017)