Jake Muir is a teacher at Preston High School in Melbourne, Australia, where he is Head of Performing Arts and Head of Philosophical Thinking. He is a graduate research student at the University of Melbourne, and Jake is passionate about addressing the increasing challenges that young people and teachers face in the education system. In this capacity and as part of his research work at the University of Melbourne, his monograph is a self-study of how student agency can be facilitated by teachers. Jake is heavily involved in the philosophy of education space. In this regard, he is passionate about devising and evaluating the conceptual frameworks used to think and talk about education, teachers, and young people.
Day 3
| Time | Title |
|---|---|
| Session 2: 11.00 | Student Agency: what is it, why is it good, and how does it happen in the music classroom? |
| The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child states that children’s views should be given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child. The research literature refers to this as student agency. In a recent report from the Australian Human Rights Commission, children nationwide stated that “having a say in matters that are important to them” is a right that is “least true” for them. The same report recommended that solutions to this should be investigated as a national priority. However, despite the awareness of student agency as a national human rights issue little change has occurred in recent years beyond the growth of student agency as an educational buzzword.
In this presentation, we will look at how different conceptions of agency play out in a Kodaly-informed music classroom. We will take a critical look at where Kodaly-informed pedagogy is in troubled dialogue with practices that support student agency. As well as gently push back against shallow conceptions that reduce student agency to simply song choice, projects on orchestral instruments, and favourite band posters. This presentation is based on research completed in a Kodaly-informed music classroom in a Victorian government secondary school. |
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