STATEMENT OF TEACHING PHILOSOPHY

My pedagogical goals are...

My main goal as a teacher is to teach my students how to learn; thus, rather than teach my students the answers to questions, I try to teach them how to determine what the questions actually are.  More often than not, I ask students to "do" something as an initial step towards learning about it.  For example, if we are studying the blues, my students each write their own blues compositions, perform them for each other, provide each other feedback, and then evaluate their efforts in light of both the masterpieces of blues composition and the important theoretical treatments of the blues.  I teach this way not only because requiring a creative response to a problem brings the material to life in a powerful way, but also because the questions my students ask themselves as they evaluate their own creative work are usually close to the questions they should ask as they think about the work of others. 

Of course, since knowledge is deeply affected and even partially created by the efforts of the student doing herself, mastery of written and oral expression are essential.  I firmly believe that poverty of expressive technique leads to poverty of thought.  It is impossible to analyze an article or a sonata if your thinking is hampered by poor expression. 

The effectiveness of any analysis - be it of music or text - hinges also upon the interpretive skills of the student.  A student's command of the English language is matched in the musical realm by her musicianship skills.  Thus, I firmly believe that any course in music - even a history course for non-majors - must encourage the development of some of these skills. 

"With great privilege comes great responsibility".  The opportunity to attend college is beyond the wildest dreams of most human beings, and I need to remind myself every day of the great ethical responsibility concomitant with my own educational opportunities. I try to inculcate this attitude in my students by building  into my curriculum not just ethical questions about the material we are studying, but also real, practical opportunities to use what students learn to serve our community.  In muscial ensembles this is relatively easy: the benefit concert, the service project, the outreach tour.  But with a little creativity it is also possible in academic courses.  For example, in my course on the history of popular music I require my students to develop and implement a service project to counter some of the evils that have plagued the popular music industry for more than a century, issues like racism, sexism, economic exploitation, and cultural intolerance. 

Real knowledge is applied knowledge, and the kind of knowledge I want my students to learn must include an understanding of the ways they can apply their knowledge in order to meet the responsibilities incumbent upon them as educated humans.

I think the verb "to teach" should always be used with an indirect object; that is, I don't just teach music, I teach music to students.  By the word "holisitic" I am referring to the importance I place upon considering the whole personhood of my students: their personalities, strengths, weaknesses, goals, and even biases. Real knowledge only occurs as the response of real “individuals” -  not abstracted “subjects” - to intellectual and creative challenges.  As a teacher, my job is to provide the types of challenges that best fit the needs of each of my students.  My student's job is to bring those his or her full personhood to the task of responding to those challenges.  I want my student to ask not just "why is that the answer?", but also "how do I respond to  that answer?", "who decided that was the answer?", and, "how does that answer affect my own life?".  Rather than being signs of self-obsession, I think these types of questions are crucial parts of the process by which knowledge becomes are part of a student's person. These questions require students to come to personal decisions about what they have learned, why they have learned it as opposed to something else, and how they have learned it.  And the importance and relevance of anything increases dramatically once a student - or anyone, for that matter – makes a personal decisions about it. 

Teaching and learning are lifetime processes.  I am acutely aware of my own weaknesses as a thinker and a teacher, and I hope that every day I become even more aware of them.  If that doesn't happen, I will ossify intellectually and pedagogically. This is the attitude I hope my students will adopt.  If my students become acutely self-aware of their strengths and weaknesses as thinkers, writers, and musicians, then they will develop habits of mind crucial for lifelong growth and adaptability as scholars, community members, and human beings.