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IJCM 6 (3) pp. 281–290 Intellect Limited 2013

International Journal of Community Music Volume 6 Number 3

© 2013 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/ijcm.6.3.281_1

Keywords

music education school creative learning communities of

practice community music children composition

ViViane BeineKe UDESC

Creative learning and

communities of practice:

Perspectives for music

education in the school

aBstraCt

This article discusses processes and practices of creative learning in musical educa- tion in schools, reflecting on the contributions of this approach to the construction of communities of musical practice in the classroom. The discussion is based on a case study carried out in a primary school in Porto Alegre, in southern Brazil. In this study, the creative learning is triggered in group-composition activities, through collective musical presentation and criticism of the students’ productions. The music teacher created the conditions needed to establish an environment of social relations that favours the construction of a community of musical practice in the classroom. Over time, these forms of social participation configure an engaged and committed community of musical practice, sharing ways of making and thinking about music. Detailing this proposition, the role of the composition activities, presentation and critical in the articulating process between the dimensions of creative learning are analysed, considering the children’s perspective and the teacher’s role in this process, reflecting on opportunities for teaching music in schools.

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This article discusses processes and practices of creative learning in musi- cal education in schools, reflecting on the contributions of this approach to the construction of communities of musical practice in the classroom. The discussion is based on a study that investigated how the dimensions of crea- tive learning are articulated in musical composition activities in the context of music classes within a school curriculum (Beineke 2009).

Research on creativity is guided by different perspectives, focusing on different aspects of creativity. This work has been framing and directing studies in the fields of education, music education and more specifically, research on the composi- tions of children and young people in different contexts of teaching and learning throughout history. In this regard, studies on creativity can theoretically support the teaching and learning of music composition within music education. Here composition is understood quite broadly, including arrangements and musical improvisations, small musical ideas spontaneously organized with the intention of communicating thoughts or more elaborate musical pieces, with or without the use of notation, or any other registration of the composition (Swanwick 1994).

The theoretical reference was based on studies about creative learning, an emergent concept in the Education and Music Education areas, which focus on the development of creativity in children during learning situations (Craft 2005; Burnard 2006; Craft et al. 2008; Jeffrey and Woods 2009). The expres- sion creative learning means that the learning occurs within specific areas, involving the acquisition of technical skills, information and technology that empower the development of creativity (Feldman 2008). The teaching of music, in this approach emphasizes the involvement of students in experi- mentation, innovation and invention, and intellectual enquiry, which means, learning music as a field of knowledge (Feldman 2008).

This approach is oriented in a sociocultural perspective, pointing out that: creativity depends on the interaction of cultural and social factors that interact in the formation of children (Burnard 2006); shifts the focus of creative prod- ucts and processes, focusing on the social context in which creativity emerges – the classroom (Barrett 2003); considers the range of cultural practices, quality of interaction and relationships between individuals and their social environ- ments; and takes into consideration beliefs and meanings attributed by chil- dren to musical creativity (Barrett 2003). As stated by R. L. Bitencourt et al. (2008), the development of creative capacity of students through activities of composition can form people able to intervene and transform their society critically and consciously contributing to a more egalitarian development, with less concentration of control and power.

In this approach, a growing movement is perceived; one that seeks to understand the social and interactive dynamics in the classroom and the pros- pects of those who learn through educational practices and scientific research. Reflection about one’s own experiences and the search for shared spaces of making/thinking music, emerge as an alternative to an education committed to the meanings constructed individually and collectively from the experiences of music composition.

Methodology

The study was conducted in community school in central area of Porto Alegre, in southern Brazil, attended by a class of 23 students aged 7–9 years, and Madalena was the music teacher. In this school the students had music classes from first to eighth school year, with a weekly 50-minutes class. The music

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classes were held in a room equipped with various percussion instruments such as xylophones, metallophones, tambourines, triangles, cymbals, drums and recorders, a guitar and a piano. The physical space used was limited, but for the small groups activities of composition the students also used the hall, opposite to the music room.

There were two sets of musical composition activities: the first one, a proposal for a composition arrangement for the song ‘Zabelinha’ (traditional Brazilian song), and a composition elaboration using the pentatonic scale. The central focus of the music classes was on the musical composition activities, which were conducted in small groups and later presented to the class and analysed collectively.

The interest in understanding the perspectives of students and that of the teacher about creativity in music composition at school guided the construction of the methodological design of the research. The method had a qualitative nature and consisted in a case study. The data collection included: observa- tion and recording on video of two sets of musical composition activities in the class; focus groups with the students, in order to know their thoughts and ideas about music, while watching the musical compositions of the class; and semi-structured interviews and reflection interviews using video record- ings with the participant class teacher. In these interviews, while watching the recorded lectures themselves, the teacher was encouraged to reflect on the senses and meanings attributed to creativity, the activities of composi- tion in the classroom and the process of student participation in the observed activities. With these strategies, we seek to contemplate the complexity of the classroom, listening to children and the teacher so as to discuss creativity of the activities of musical composition (Figure 1).

The results reveal that the creative learning, triggered in group composi- tion activities, collective musical presentation and criticism of the students’ productions, favours the constitution of communities of musical practice in the classrooms (Wenger 2008). As a community music practice, the music class is thought of as a space to construct personal and communal expressions of artistic, social, political and cultural concerns (Higgins 2012). From this perspective, this article weaves approximations between musical processes and practices in community music with the idea of communities of practice in the music class, reflecting on opportunities for music education in schools.

Figure 1: Data collection design.

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The results reveal that the creative learning, triggered in group composi- tion activities, collective musical presentation and criticism of the students’ productions, favours the constitution of communities of musical practice in the classrooms (Wenger 2008). As a community music practice, the music class is thought of as a space to construct personal and communal expres- sions of artistic, social, political and cultural concerns (Higgins 2012). From this perspective, this article weaves approximations between musical proc- esses and practices in community with the idea of communities of practice in the music class, reflecting on opportunities for teaching music in schools.

CreatiVe learning in the MusiC ClassrooM

From the perspective of creative learning, the class can be understood as a community of practice that is starting collectively in a specific domain: music. According to E. Wenger (2008: 53), to participate in a community involves negotiating the meanings of their practices, which implies: one active and dynamic process built over time, a world of resistance and flexibility, the ability to mutually affect and be affected, the involvement of a multitude of factors and perspectives, the production of new resolutions so that these factors and perspectives become convergent, the incompleteness of these resolutions, which may be partial, ephemeral and specific to each situation. Thus, the community in the classroom establishes the criteria and participates in the vali- dation and recreating musical ideas in their musical practices, in the process in which ideas of music are updated and incorporated by this community.

In this case study, the dimensions of creative learning are articulated through the cycle established between the activities of composition in groups, presentation of work to the class and musical criticism. Understanding musical criticism widely, including analyses and suggestions of the children and the teacher work presented in class. In this dynamic, Madalena and the children were building a community of musical practice in the classroom. Detailing this proposition, I analyse the role of the composition activities, presentation and criticism in the articulation process within the dimensions of creative learning, considering the children perspective and the teacher role in this process.

The children’s viewpoint

In the study, the activities of group composition represent an experimentation space, exploring and updating the ideas of music with the children, allowing the trade of musical ideas and social roles among children who favoured the collaborative processes in music making. This activity was considered enjoyable by children, engaging them in classes for several reasons: because it serves the interest of playing instruments, it allows for the opportunity to work with colleagues, the challenge of inventing their own music and working autonomously. In the small groups composing process, children also attrib- uted meaning to musical experiences lived within and outside the school, expressing their ideas of music and building their identity inside the group.

In presentation times the compositions claimed the children’s ideas of music built on small groups, reinforcing ideas already developed collectively by the class or introducing new musical ideas. The performance in class also valued the compositions of the children, giving them the responsibility to show colleagues what they produced, knowing that they would be judged by that. Stage–audience relationship established in the classroom also creates the

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opportunity for them to have their work recognized by peers, which, in fact, was a process that, over time, helped to build the relevance of these activities. The stage–audience relationship also added relevance to music class, connecting children to musical practices socially legitimized, providing them with the experience to place themselves in the position of an artist who performs in public. This experience seems to have approached the children to a ‘musicians world’, creating parallels between what musicians do in ‘real life’ and what they did in school. The relevance of learning was enhanced by the challenge and expectation generated by this activity, putting them in a position to take risks. The presentations also configured as a space of awareness of the field, when they realized how the audience was reacting to their compositions.

In the activities of music criticism children were encouraged to reflect on the musical practices performed in class, playing the role of hearing criticism of the compositions prepared by the class. In this moment the class also aggre- gated value and relevance to the activities of musical composition, allowing them to attribute meanings to their productions. The moment of musical criticism allowed another form of social participation in class: the commu- nity, favouring the construction of collective knowledge. In this activity the children judging the colleagues work and building intersubjectively common criteria to the community of musical practice in the classroom. Reflecting on their experiences, the children’s ideas for music were revised in processes of reiteration, acceptation or rejection, negotiating meanings of musical prac- tices. According C. J. Martinazzo (2005), in the intersubjectively learning process understanding does not mean blind adherence to someone else’s ideas or submission to legitimizing a hegemonic discourse, but a central tenet in establishing solidarity, interaction and socialization.

The role of the teacher

Madalena’s role in the group composition activities was to keep the organiza- tion in the groups, ensuring the focus on the activity and fostering relation- ship of respect among children. In order to make an effective collaboration in the composing process, it was important to know the students well and how they related to each other, considering the children’s individual characteristics, leadership relations and status in the classroom, with the aim of maximizing participation in work. The dynamic formation of the groups established by Madalena provided opportunities to work in new partnerships, to swap tasks with groups formed by children themselves and groups formed by her. All this helped to diversify the forms of social participation in class. The way the teacher led these issues favoured the building of positive social relationships in the classroom, providing condition for students to feel confident in their ability to perform the activities in class and to expose their ideas to the group. It was also up to the teacher to select topics and relevant contents of interest as well as to propose the composition activities.

The role of the teacher in the presentations was to secure the space so that all children could participate in presentations and establish affective condi- tions that enable them to take the risk of performing in the relationship stage– audience established in class. Again, the quality of the shares in the group was fundamental. The teacher managed relationships among students so that they establish a joint participation in the work produced by the class, building with them an environment that favours participation and collaboration. Madalena pointed out the importance of the presentations on the learning process of

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the group, stressing the role of children as critical listeners and their ability to make judgments of the work of colleagues who had performed. Offering attentive listening to the students’ compositions, asking them to play once more, improving the performance of the work or highlighting musical ideas brought about by children, Madalena valued activities in the classroom. She also increased the relevance of these activities when she talked to the children about their responsibility to the public that attended them, relating experi- ences in the classroom with the practices of musicians. The recognition of the teacher as an artist, acknowledged by the children, increased her reliability and the legitimacy of her speech.

The role of the teacher in critical musical activities was to mediate discus- sions between the children in the construction of learning in the classroom. Madalena played the role of managing this moment, developing a friendly atmosphere for students to interact as well as an environment of social engagement, commitment and mutual respect in the classroom so that chil- dren feel safe to express their ideas.

The teacher participated in field activities, in the construction analysis and musical critique. Thus, she was able to expand the ideas of music to the children. She also emphasized musical features to the composition process submitted by students, drawing attention to the musical ideas introduced by them. At certain times, the musical ideas initially rejected by the group were questioned by the teacher. Then, based on their knowledge and musical experiences, she explained the musical context proposing the appreciation of a varied reper- toire and new forms of musical listening. This happened, for example, when working on a student’s composition the teacher established relationships with songs that somehow resembled what the children had done.

As P. Burnard and B. A. Younker (2004) point out, the students’ experi- ences of talking and thinking about the action reveal how processes differ in children’s composition, but this process needs to be promoted and under- stood by the teacher. In this sense, children’s compositions and their musical criticism also allowed the teacher to acquire knowledge about how children thought their musical experiences and how they engaged in the classroom proposals, providing important information for planning future activities and monitoring students’ learning processes.

It is also important to consider that the events in classroom are always natural and circumstantial, subject to unforeseen situations or deter- mined by the context (e.g., class time, which often does not correspond to the time required to compose, perform or analyse the work). The way each work reflected in the group is related to multiple factors such as: manage- ment of class time, the availability of the teacher to listen to children; the way Madalena understood the production of children, the meanings that children assigned to the compositions produced or group relationships and leadership status among students.

Thus, children’s compositions reflect the encounters, influences but also the tensions arisen in the negotiation of musical ideas among students and in the forms of social participation in class during the process of teaching and learning.

CoMMunities of PraCtiCe in the MusiC ClassrooM

Throughout the music lessons, children gave a new meaning to their experi- ences as composers, performers and critical audience. It was also observed that the children adapted the compositions according to the abilities of their

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colleagues to perform them, revising those ideas that the group was not able to play. Thus, the group composition activity enables participation in different levels of difficulty as the instrumental performance. For K. Sawyer (2008: 57), ‘this characteristic of the collaborative music making allows all learners to participate meaningfully regardless of their level; naturally propelling the children towards a growing appropriation, mastery, and central participation in the musical activity’.

As explained B. Jeffrey and P. Woods (2009), in creative learning the acquisition of technical skills is important to students because they develop them while using them to develop their projects. According to the authors, it encourages children experimentation, aiming the perfection and mastery of skills required in their creative projects, in a process that keeps them moti- vated to continue to develop their skills. In collaborative activities, as Sawyer (2008) highlighted, children acquire more than musical mechanisms: they develop abilities for interaction, and learn to listen and respond appropriately, to collaborate and communicate in social contexts.

The movement of the cycle of musical activities can be triggered at any moment in the classroom. That is because the production of every composition, every presentation and every music activity, can renew the crea- tive learning process itself and continue the composing cycle, present and criticize music work, transformed by shared musical experiences in the class- room. As Martinazzo explains (2005), dimension of knowledge of the process of understanding among people about something (the musical ideas of the children), always provisional, is more valued than the product being achieved. According to the author, this shared understanding process underpins the formation of emancipating, democratic, social and pedagogical constructions, where teachers and students can become subjects/actors of learning together.

Furthermore, it is necessary to consider the role of the teacher, because she works on this process, questioning, guiding, expanding the musical ideas to the children and giving them the opportunities to participate and build a musical practice community in the classroom. She created the condi- tions needed to establish an environment of social relations that encourage dialogue, commitment to the group’s learning process, mutual collaboration and the engagement of interests, always valuing the contributions of the chil- dren in the learning process. In this process, as pointed by Jeffrey and Woods (2009), the teacher created the conditions to establish an environment of positive social relationships, commitment to the group learning processes, mutual collaboration, engagement interest and appreciation of the children contributions.

In those lessons, the activities of composition, including the proposition of an activity by the teacher, the time for small group work, presentations, discussions and works critiques seemed to contemplate the idea of learning as social participation. This also included the dimensions that characterized, according to Wenger (2008), a community of practice, i.e. mutual engagement, collaboration and entrepreneurial ideas, routines, actions, vocabulary and stories that have become part of their practices in the classroom. Under this view, as Wenger argues (2008: 9), the educational concept that the knowledge consists of pieces of information that are packaged into learning units designed and placed in the students brains can be overcome, building alternatives to education that primarily involves active participation in social communities.

In this sense, learning in a community of music practice can generate trans- formations in the musical ideas of the group, being these changes sustained by

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the participation dynamics and engagement built in the classroom. According to Wenger (2008: 215), ‘The transformative practice of a learning commu- nity offers an ideal context for developing new understandings because the community sustains changes as part of an identity of participation’.

The process of creative learning is not linear, because each work produced, presented and analysed by children can generate its own dynamic in the rela- tionship between the creativity dimensions. Each of these moments in the composition activities contributing to the dimensions of creative learning were articulated in a process that changes and updates in a cyclic spiral move- ment, i.e., in a repeating cycle that renews, transforms and updates itself in this process.

ConClusions

Participating in the music classes as composers, performers and critical audi- ence, children construct their identity in the group, becoming agents of their own learning, developing knowledge that underpins their ideas of music, being constantly revised, updated and expanded by their own musical expe- riences. In the process of learning together, an intersubjective relationship is established through interaction, exchange, dialogue, socialization and identity construction.

Over time, these forms of social participation shaped a community bound by musical practice, engaged and committed to the negotiation process and significance of these practices, sharing ways to make and think music that sustain creative activity. In this way, we can see the relationships between the approach of creative learning and community music principles. As pointed by L. Higgins (2012: 86), ‘Community music activities do more than focus on individual expressions of music making; they encourage and empower participants to become agents for extending and developing music in their communities’.

In this case study we could observe a work built on direct musical expe- riences that configures ways to unleash creative learning. Thus, the creative work goes beyond the objective of creating something new for the students or the application of acquired musical knowledge. That is because beyond the products developed in class, the focus is on the collaborative learning proc- esses and on human beings that relate by making music, which they hear and learn about together.

In this sense, the cycle between the activities of composing, presenting and criticizing musical productions – activities understood within a broader educational process of construction of identity in the context of a commu- nity of musical practice established in the classroom – can indicate a possible alternative to traditional learning. This is achieved when there is a desire to construct musical education in an elementary school that contributes to the education of more sensitive, critical, transformative and solidarity-oriented people, opening the possibility to devise a better world.

referenCes

Beineke, V. (2009), ‘Processos intersubjetivos na composição musical de crianças: um estudo sobre a aprendizagem criativa’/ ‘Intersubjective processes in children’s music composition: a study about creative learning’, Unpublished Ph.D., Porto Alegre, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, http://hdl.handle.net/10183/17775.

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Barrett, M. S. (2003), ‘Freedoms and constraints: Constructing musical worlds through the dialogue of composition’, in M. Hickey (ed.), Why and How to Teach Music Composition: A new Horizon for Music Education, Reston: MENC – The National Association for Music Education, pp. 3–27.

Bitencourt, R. L., Pessôa, P. P. and Silva, J. A. S. (2008), ‘A metodologia de pesqui- sa-ação em práticas de composição no ensino de música’, in 17th Encontro Nacional da ABEM, São Paulo, Brazil, 1–6 October.

Burnard, P. (2006), ‘The individual and social worlds of children’s musical creativity’, in G. McPherson (ed.), The Child as Musician: A Handbook of Musical Development, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 353–74.

Burnard, P. and Younker, B. A. (2004), ‘Problem-solving and creativity: Insights from students’ individual composing pathways’, International Journal of Music Education, 22: 1, pp. 59–76.

Craft, A. (2005), Creativity in Schools: Tensions and Dilemmas, London: Routledge. Craft, A., Cremin, T. and Burnard, P. (2008), Creative Learning 3–11 and How

we Document It, Sterling: Trentham Books. Feldman, D. H. (2008), ‘Foreword: Documenting creative learning, chan-

ging the world’, in A. Craft, T. Cremin and P. Burnard (eds), Creative Learning 3–11: And How to Document It, Sterling: Trentham Books Limited, pp. xiii–xvii.

Higgins, L. (2012), Community Music: In Theory and in Practice, New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Jeffrey, B. and Woods, P. (2009), Creative Learning in the Primary School, London: Routledge.

Martinazzo, C. J. (2005), Pedagogia do entendimento intersubjetivo: razões e pecti- vas para uma racionalidade comunicativa na Pedagogia/Pedagogy of inter- subjective understanding: reasons and perspectives for a communicative rationality in Pedagogy, Ijuí: Unijuí.

Sawyer, K. (2008), ‘Learning music from collaboration’, International Journal of Educational Research, 47: 1, pp. 50–59.

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Wenger, E. (2008), Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity, New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

SuggeSted citation

Beineke, V. (2013), ‘Creative learning and communities of practice: Perspectives for music education in the school’, International Journal of Community Music 6: 3, pp. 281–290, doi: 10.1386/ijcm.6.3.281_1

contributor detailS

Viviane Beineke is Professor in the Music Department and the Undergraduate Music Program of the State University of Santa Catarina (UDESC) in Florianópolis, Brazil. She has a doctoral degree in Music from the Federal University at Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). Viviane Beineke is the author of the collection Canções do mundo para tocar/Songs of the World to Play, with arrange- ments for children’s instrumental groups, and also of the children’s book, CD and CD-ROM Lenga la lenga: jogos de mãos e copos/Lenga la Lenga: Hand and Cup games, which were released in Brazil, Uruguay and Portugal. She has published articles in Brazilian music journals; presented papers and work- shops in Brazilian and international congresses and has conducted workshops

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in many states of Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Portugal, Spain and Uruguay. She conducts research on the construction of pedagogical–musical knowledge in music teacher education, music education in school, children musical compositions and creativity in music education.

Contact: State University of Santa Catarina (UDESC), Centro de Artes, Av. Madre Benvenuta, 1907 Florianópolis CEP 88035-001, Brazil. E-mail: [email protected]

Viviane Beineke has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work in the format that was submitted to Intellect Ltd.

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