Performing empathy: Using theatrical traditions in teacher professional learning

The challenge of learning to be a teacher in a pandemic stymied world calls for focus and access to pedagogies of critical empathy to ensure the wellbeing of students is paramount in classrooms K to 12. Additional to facilitating the development of skills and competencies in curriculum disciplines, teachers are required to meet the emotional and social needs of their learners and prepare them to be active citizens in an increasingly complex and chaotic world. Making certain all students in their care are nurtured in environments that establish emotional safety and growth is a central tenet in the practice of all good teaching. Empathy, it seems is at the forefront of our western thinking given its prevalence in common parlance and language. Superficially, this is no bad thing. Kindness, being more humane, thinking of others and reflection, are all arguably positive attributions or ways to behave to better and create a more humane society. However, empathy needs to be activated conceptually in productive and transformational ways, to be defined, problematised and critiqued. Grounding this work in the affordances of drama rich pedagogies (Ewing, 2019) and by drawing on the work of Maxine Greene (1995) and Stanislavski (1936), this article argues that creating a coherent and empathic classroom requires a praxis of critical empathy, facilitated by careful attendance to methods and processes steeped in and informed by theatrical traditions. In addition to a theoretical and contextual positioning of the work, this article will elucidate the method of practice undertaken in a research project, developed to inform the practice of teachers and educators

Enhancing student agency in the primary music classroom through culturally responsive practice

In Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia work is ongoing to upskill teachers in culturally responsive practice as a way of addressing inequalities for Māori and Aboriginal students (Macfarlane, 2004; Morrison et al., 2019). Through supplementary materials to the New Zealand Curriculum, such as Tātaiako and The Hikairo Schema (New Zealand Ministry of Education & New Zealand Teachers Council, 2011; Rātima et al., 2020), cultural competencies and culturally responsive teaching and learning practices have been schematised. Internationally, student agency has been theorised in the context of addressing inequities in learning outcomes (Toshalis & Nakkula, 2012). Many of the teaching practices embedded in active music-making approaches, such as Orff and Kodály, are characteristically agentic. However, for a number of reasons, specialist teachers in primary schools may be isolated from current educational philosophical trends and imperatives. Drawing on the literatures of culturally responsive practice and student agency, this article identifies themes that resonate with and potentially enhance active music-making in the classroom. Based on years of practice as a classroom teacher and my current role as an Orff-trained primary music specialist, I offer examples of ways music teachers can enhance student agency informed by cultural competencies. These include approaches to group and individual tasks, cross-curricular creative projects, sourcing and curating content and integrating digital learning

Manakitia a Papatuanuku: Eco-literate pedagogy and music education

As we enter the third decade of the 21st century, the much-heralded threat of climate change has become a reality whose effects we not only read and hear about daily but also experience in a raft of seen and unseen ways in our local communities. Morton (2012) called unequivocally for a broader vision of music education that includes and embraces a cross-curricular emphasis on ecological and social justice. In particular, she challenges music education (and the arts in general) to participate in the provision of eco-aesthetic experiences and activities, which foster participation in and reflection upon human inter-dependency. In this article, I will reflect on my experience as a music teacher in a West Auckland enviroschool and the lessons I learned from the children that influenced and supported the development of music-making activities connected with their environmental concerns. Then, taking into account the work of relevant contemporary musicians/composers and music educators, I will offer some suggestions for eco-literate pedagogical practices (Shevock, 2018) for music teachers in 21st century Aotearoa New Zealand

Playing in the liminal space: Literacy learning through drama in the adult language classroom

Play is a universal human experience. Often regarded as the unique purview of children, an emerging body of research points to the importance of playfulness in adulthood. This article reports on the research and observations of two teaching artists working in Connected, a Sydney Theatre Company adult-literacy-through-drama programme. This article conceptualises the drama room as a liminal space. Through improvisational responses participants engage in a learning style that promotes playfulness, which subsequently generates a sense of pleasure and joy and, in doing so, has an intrinsic value beyond the specific language learning outcomes. In this article we build on Guitard et al.’s (2005) components of playfulness in adults: creativity, curiosity, pleasure, sense of humour and spontaneity, in order to posit our own ideas about the conditions necessary for encouraging the freedom to play in adult language learning contexts

Mātauranga Māori, inquiry and creative music-making in the primary music classroom: A Pākehā teacher’s journey

This article draws on a master’s study into programme decisions and processes of a Pākehā primary music teacher who sought to include mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge), tikanga Māori (Māori practices) and te ao Māori (a Māori way of seeing the world) in their teaching practice. The study investigated how children are enabled to experience mātauranga Māori within an inquiry approach to teaching and learning, through engagement with taonga pūoro (singing treasures) and the whakataukī (proverb) of the whakapapa (genealogy) of Māori music as stimuli for creative music-making. Drawing on action research and self-study, I conducted an intervention of eight music lessons with 28 children from Years 3 and 4. Findings emerged from an analysis of student questionnaires, my teacher journal, student reflections, and scores and audio recordings of students’ creative music-making.In this article I focus specifically on two aspects of my findings:1. The way that the teacher-as-learner position within inquiry pedagogy complements the ethos of ako (reciprocal learning), and the way a holistic, integrated learning approach is supported by the centrality of interconnection within te ao Māori.2. The process by which a teacher might use the whakapapa of Māori music as a conceptual framework for inspiring a sound palette of the natural world in children and for scaffolding creative music-making.As a teacher I found that I could establish whanaungatanga (a family-like connection) in the primary music classroom through a relational pedagogy and valuing the children’s individuality through collaborative processes. This small study reinforced my belief that teachers need to take responsibility for their bicultural practices in the classroom, that a complementary ethos of inquiry and Māori approaches to teaching and learning can be fostered, that inquiry pedagogy can be effective in music education, and that practical approaches for experiencing Māori knowledge, inspired by Māori music, can flourish in the primary music classroom

Sharing our stories in COVID times

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An introduction to the third special issue in our special series: The Arts in the classroom: Advocacy, theory and practice

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Transformation and visual arts: Donn Rātana in conversation with Claire Coleman

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The intellectual whakapapa informing the New Zealand Drama Curriculum

Underpinning drama education in New Zealand is the desire to improve the lives of individuals, communities and societies by catalysing embodied learning in and through the art form of theatre. Learning in drama is intended to foster well-being, social cohesion and active citizenship. Put another way, drama education in New Zealand has always been about more than training actors for the theatre stage. It has been about fostering the development of actors who engage in, on and with the world. This determination has led to the particular pedagogical and curricular response that frames how drama is taught in New Zealand. In drama education in New Zealand we have focused for a generation on working practically to explore the nature of drama as a meaning making tool. Students not only study theatre by passively watching, they actively partake in framed fictional worlds and reflect on these embodied experiences. By engaging students in dramatic encounters, we argue drama education bears the potential to engage in critical and creative engagement with pivotal social issues in the real world (Anderson & O’Connor, 2015). The nature of the meaning making has seen a deliberate privileging of non-naturalistic forms of drama presentation and representation. Progression is understood in the curriculum as moving from exploration of narrative through imagined and social play at junior primary to understanding how to use conventions as dramatic structuring devices (Ministry of Education, 2007). This can be understood as a conventions approach (CA) to drama education. In this article we consider the pedagogical and theatre traditions that informed the New Zealand curriculum to contextualise the planned curriculum refresh in 2023

Rethinking music technology pedagogy: A New Zealand focus

In the creative sector, "music technology" refers to a wide range of musical practices, tools and devices enabled or facilitated by computers. Yet the music technology curriculum in New Zealand, as in other parts of the world, is dominated by two specific tools: commercial Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) and notation software. In this chapter, I problematise this limitation by showing the pedagogical issues deriving from this exclusive model and by unpacking the ideological substrate of these tools, which is firmly grounded on neoliberal practices and principles. My analysis covers the ontology of these tools—what they are, what they do—and their business model. I then compare these tools against alternative approaches to music technology based on free-to-use, open-source software and programming languages based on principles of inclusion, collaboration and creative exploration