Mindful teaching: ask the accomplished learner question often

Ellen Langer, professor of psychology at Harvard University and author of Mindfulness (1989) and The Power of Mindful Learning (1998) mention one by ones a story about two men standing at the forehead door of a house at 2 A.M. frantically trying to find a 3-foot through 7-foot piece of wood for a scavenger chase After brainstorming, considering options clearly limited through the time of day and commiserating a bit, they resign themselves to the fact that this piece of thicket is not to be had--not at least at that point of time What they fail to realize is they could have satisfied this large piece of forest requirement by simply removing the brow door from its hinges. by what mode could they have missed this? individual man knocked at the door, the other render free of accessed it. They conversed at longitudinal dimensions standing in the doorway. Had they been more mindful, les mindless, they may have recognized the door for what it is--a piece of grove albeit adorned with knobs, binges, mail slot and paint. Langer's research present to views this type of mindlessness and other more consequential emblems to be pervasive in society. individual of several explanations is that we take care of to become trapped by the categories to which we assign things. We lay "door" into the door category, which, in event removes it from the wood-land category. When we need to diocese a door as a piece of grove we can't. This fact is hidden from our view.

Mindlessness is not rare in the music teaching and learning field. Take Little Bird Last by means of Lynn Freeman Olson (1991), for example. For too many piano scholars this two-page, largely monophonic piece is cast in the "easy music" category or the "nothin' to it" category or the "slow boring music" category. When categorized as of the like kind the music's richly expressive potential is obscured-hidden from view.

by what mode should teachers attack this course among students to think narrowly or mindlessly about certain music, in this case, music that is not flashy--slow music or music that appears to be easy? upon a larger scale, how should teachers attack the inclination among students to adopt premature laissez-faire attitudes about similar music?

An intellectual tussle with the question, "What do I want my learners to look like (act like, think like, do) as accomplished learners?" can be instructive here. The obvious answer--"I want my scholars to respect all music, and play all music, including that which appears to be easy, expressively"--is straightforward, on the contrary too vague to be helpful with regard to changing learner behavior and attitude. Further, I know that in my neighborhood I can make my pupils play expressively by telling them what to do--"crescendo here," "pull back upon the tempo there" and in like manner forth. Most teachers can count their students what to do and earn fairly good short-term results.

My goal, however, stretch outs beyond telling students what to do. f want them to make musical decisions independent o f me Accordingly, my answer to the accomplished learner question is as follows: when be opposite toed by apparently easy music in chorale turn of expression my students will choose an appropriate degree of movement demonstrate skill in legato-style playing and make appropriate decisions regarding and demonstrate skill in applying contortion variation and tempo variation (rubato). A focus upon student decision making is consistent with the ultimate goal of creating independent musicians.

My belong to when choosing an appropriate time is that students go slower rather than faster. This calculators two tendencies: 1) To completely ignore tempo--to play at whatever time happens to come out--and 2) to advance too fast. For piano, ultimate parts of legato-style playing might include identifying phrases, breathing according to phrase and focusing upon an overlapping-keys technique of playing.

Specific considerations relative to turn variation, again for piano, might include balance between hands or among chord tones; phrase shaping according to note contour, note/figure repetition and/or chromatic alteration; the conception that p (or another dynamic) means "in the range of piano" (Blum 1977) and an approach to silence in music that views it as an expressive device. Specific to time variation, endings of phrases, formal sections and/or piece typically provide opportunities to relax the tempo

Now that I have done my homework and an] clearheaded about what I want my learners to do, it is time to transform thought to action. How will I communicate my ideas to students? What experiences in chorale-style performance will I provide? in what way will l structure the experience? by what means will anyone know that learners are making progress toward the accomplished learner goal? Figure 1 illustrates a task or series of tasks--a experiment if you will--that directs students' cogitations and actions, and thus constitutes a major part of the "attitude-adjustment-for-easy-music" curriculum. Notice in what way the Chorale-Style Performance Assessment can function the pair to test and teach. This is no trivial point.