https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1LlurvIUIUzSbBGZKhWQTdROrgUbPNgh9dCogqmxCcco/edit?usp=sharing
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The following reflection was a three part assignment on critical perspectives regarding our personal experiences. Each student was prompted to reflect on a time that they experienced or witness injustice. Two classmates (one of which just so happened to attend my high school in our past), then, read it and made critical reflections on it. Finally, the original writer was encouraged to add to the story incorporating some of the suggestions from their peers. The names of my colleagues were removed to protect their identity.
Jillian’s Story
Part One:
In high school, I went to a big school with a large music program. I used to participate in all manner of choirs: normal choir, vocal jazz, chamber choir, if it involved singing and was offered by my school I was almost guaranteed to be in it. The beautiful thing about music is that it has the potential to carry the weight of a person’s emotions, history and experiences inside of it but it makes it complicated to do well. I remember feeling very conflicted multiple times throughout choir for singing a song that belonged to another person’s culture and history without really exploring why that history was happening. For example, we sang a lot of “ fun African” songs with choreography or Gospel songs that were written during the slave era without really digging into slavery or the fact that Africa is a whole diverse continent with really varied cultures. Additionally, the majority of the choir was made up of Caucasian people and so when the occasional person of colour joined, they were often asked to sing solos for these songs to seem more authentic. It always felt wrong but after three years of the education program, I can finally begin to voice why. This surface level culture was not just applied to peoples of African American descent but with several cultures including Cree (we did one quick Indigenous song called “The Gift” every year at Christmas to meet with curriculum standards without much information about the song’s meaning, the loss of Cree language or the importance of Indigenous cultures in Canada), Indigenous peoples originating from Australia, as well as, songs from Latinx Spanish and Mexican communities. The majority of our songs were “classical” and focused often on the Christian culture (which was fine by me because I am a Christian but it had to have made other students uncomfortable). We did not sing any traditional songs from Muslim, Buddist or Hindu cultures. At the time, I didn’t think anything of it but if they brought some of that repertoire in I’m sure I would have been upset because it doesn’t align with “my” views.
Part Two:
Colleague #1 Feedback:
Hi Jillian! Thank you for sharing your story with us.
I really like your multiple views of the lack of representation of other cultures in the songs – you mention a lack of awareness (in some cases), a discomfort in singing songs from other cultures as well as the highlighting of individuals who are from that culture, and finally an acknowledgement that the inclusion of songs from other religious groups would have upset you due to your own background. Your role as a student gave you little say in what was included, yet it impacted how you felt participating tremendously, which is something to keep in mind as your role switches to that of instructor (assuming your passion for singing will continue on and lead you to becoming a choir teacher) select songs and students to sing the solos.
Your honesty of your own privilege through representation, as well as your discomfort of differences or appropriation allowed readers who would share a similar privilege to relate and understand what you were feeling. This allows the narrative not to be left to those students who were singled out like what you said, while also showing how these experiences impacted your own views and beliefs surrounding “other” cultures. I think it’s important for us to see these narratives, as these experiences and feelings often shape how open we are to deeper discussions about culture later in life.
One thing I would challenge you to consider is how these practices were not only present in extra-curricular activities like choir, but rather how choir reflected the larger values of the school. While our high school said that we were multicultural due to the diversity in the student population, I don’t remember having a single non-white teacher, nor do I remember cultural explorations going beyond the “surface culture” of other groups. Moreover, when they did dive deeper, it was always through a historical lens which gave the idea that the “exotic” (as they were often made to look) was something of the past to be celebrated, but did not exist in our current culture.
Colleague #2 Feedback:
Here’s your feedback! Have a great night!
· What has the author assumed about the incident? What are the limits of these assumptions?
In one aspect, the author has assumed that music “the beautiful thing about music is that it has the potential to carry the weight of a person’s emotions, history, and experiences inside of it”. This is a limiting belief for the author as her love of music clouded her ability to see that by using the musics of other cultures without thorough background and teaching, her choir program was participating in a muddied form of cultural appropriation.
· How has the author’s position as a student/colleague/bystander/teacher been a factor in this incident?
As a lover of music and obviously passionate person, the author’s ability to see what was so wrong with her choir teachers lack of informative teaching prior to utilizing and claiming the music of other cultures – she was simply a student, there to participate in something that she loved.
· How has the author’s social location (positioning and intersectionality) been a factor in the way this story is told by the author? As a Christian, the author was previously unable how singing many Christian hymns while excluding those of Buddhist, Hindu, of Muslim cultures could be pushing the dominant Christian religion as this was the norm for them and they had no reason to question why that may be harmful to others.
· What does it mean to hold students/friends/family/strangers/oneself accountable to culturally responsive ways rather than oppressive ways?
It means to step away from the normative thinking of society and to recognize our own privileges (the ability to sing music from our religion during our religious holidays, etc). In doing this, we become able to recognize the dominant discourses that we have steeped ourselves in and can work to inform our own actions and can work to inform those around us as well.
· What has been made possible by this telling? And/or what has been made impossible in this telling?
Recognition of privilege has been made hugely possible by this telling. Taking back the past, and our own misunderstandings in the past, is not possible – but what is most important is recognizing our privilege and moving forward.
· Any other questions/feedback for the author that would encourage further reflection and growth? I really appreciate you sharing this story! I am so glad that you have such a wonderful love of music, and I hope my commentary does not come off negatively. I can only imagine the discomfort you must have felt coming to these realizations and I want to say I am proud of you FOR going on this personal journey!
Part Three:
In high school, I went to a big school with a large music program. I used to participate in all manner of choirs: normal choir, vocal jazz, chamber choir, if it involved singing and was offered by my school I was almost guaranteed to be in it. The beautiful thing about music is that it has the potential to carry the weight of a person’s emotions, history and experiences inside of it but that weight makes it complicated to do as well. Over the years, I remember feeling very conflicted multiple times for singing a song that belonged to another person’s culture and history without really exploring why that history was happening. For example, we sang a lot of “ fun African” songs in another language with choreography. We would encourage the crowd to participate and join us with everyone trying to join in and sing a language that was no one’s native tongue in the group. For us, people’s race, culture and history was performative. Not only did we do songs from various regions of Africa but the majority of our music were gospel songs that were written during the slave era without really digging into the psychological effects of slavery or the fact that Africa is a whole diverse continent with really varied cultures or that racism is still incredibly prevalent today. Additionally, the majority of the choir was made up of Caucasian people and so when the occasional person of colour joined, they were often asked to sing solos for these songs to seem more authentic. Also, for any song done traditionally by black voices (again, mainly Gospel) we were encouraged to change our voices to sound less white to fit the tone of the song.
There were times as a student that I felt that what we were doing was wrong or at the very least extremely shallow, but I did not have the language to put my finger on it. Now, in my fourth year of the ed program, I can finally begin to voice why. We were appropriating cultures. We were also limiting our cultural knowledge to dance, language and song and rarely stopping to dig any deeper. We could not be considered advocates despite my teacher’s proclamations that music was healing and progressive and that we were spreading important messages.
This surface level culture was not just applied to peoples of African-American descent but with several cultures including Cree (we did one quick Indigenous song called “The Gift” every year at Christmas to meet with curriculum standards without any information about the song’s meaning, the loss of Cree language or the importance of Indigenous cultures in Canada), Indigenous peoples originating from Australia, as well as, songs from Latinx Spanish and Mexican communities. The majority of our songs were “classical” and focused often on the Christian culture (which was fine by me because I am a Christian but it had to have made other students uncomfortable). We did not sing any traditional songs from Muslim, Buddist or Hindu cultures although we had students that practiced those religions in our choir. They, too, were forced to sing songs that worshipped the Christian God. At the time, I didn’t think anything of it but if they brought some of that repertoire in I’m sure I would have been upset because it doesn’t align with “my” views. Even now, I feel acute discomfort at the thought of singing worship to someone else’s God so I can only begin to imagine what those highschoolers and the parents that were forced to listen must have felt. I would like to believe that I would speak up and advocate for more inclusive music in that sense but it would mean some MAJOR stepping out of my comfort zone. But who am I to be comfortable when others or not. The right to choose if I speak up is my privilege showing right there.
Finally, this tradition of stealing other people’s cultural music for gain (in competitions, in music programs, to performatively look like an activist education program), is so commonplace none of the educators involved questioned it. We performed in so many competitions and in so many places in Canada (and the States) and as far as I know, everyone did something similar. None of the judges asked us why we chose that song, or whether we should have sung that song. They focussed on tone, pronunciation of language or accurate facial expressions so we could pretend to understand the pain, history or significance of the songs. This superficial box of cultural awareness and impact is not just regulated to the choral program either. It is a reflection of a school where being involved in multiculturalism looked like some Indigenous Art in the halls, a day of food and dance to celebrate cultures and a veneer of pride in the mixed pot of people we called high school without dealing with any of the class divides our school had because of race, keeping talk of Indigenous peoples and their place on the land we stole in a “Treaty Ed” history class and boxing everything up nicely in a bow. No one has challenged it to change and so it won’t. None of it will.
This flipbook is a professional development based off of the book Joyful by Ingrid Fetell Lee. It was a group project created by myself, Meghan Hamilton and Roshni Raj. The PowerPoint was the presentation we created and is a companion to the flip book.
https://www.flipsnack.com/sparkingjoy/sparking-joy-a-book-on-creating-a-welcoming-classroom-for-all.html (FlipBook Link)
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1pA7Kt6S4tioutT0Zp6M8S5gpMK1M9Ws1xYZ32YploXo/edit?usp=sharing (PowerPoint Link)
As an educator:
I believe that the focus of assessment is to help students grow.
I believe that assignments/assessment should help to establish trust between the educator and the student.
- Assessment has the ability to make or break a student’s will to learn in your classroom. It is an opportunity to tell students that you care, that you pay attention and that you are there to work with them.
I believe that feedback needs to be quick, honest, have a positive overall tone and it needs to be concise.
- If feedback is too late and the students have moved on, it takes away from the effectiveness of the feedback.
- The assessment should keep a positive tone that focuses on only a few areas of improvement. This is so that the student does not get overwhelmed with what needs to be done.
- Ambiguous words like “good job” are not helpful to build up a student. I would work to give specific, constructive feedback in assignments.
- Feedback also needs to be honest to maintain trust between student and teacher.
I believe that students have the right to work for the grade that they want.
- If assessment is meant for improvement, students should be allowed to revise their work including the feedback and put in the work to achieve the grade they believe they deserve. It also gives them room to fail, which can help form synapses in the brain and cause learning. Jo Boaler talks about this research in her book Mathematical Mindsets (p. 12).
I believe in the importance of written and oral feedback.
- Numerical standard gives a common language to communicate the student’s progress, but written and oral feedback are ways to create a relationship with the student and help them begin understanding learning on their own.
I believe assignments should be creative, guide to deeper thinking and should be adaptable to differing learning needs.
I believe a good educator is calm and responsive to difficult situations and not immediately reactive.
During my Pre-Internship in the Jr. Supportive Education Classroom at Henry Braun Elementary School, I planned a lesson for Science about “Rainbows and Light Refraction”. This lesson was originally supposed to be paired with a experiment on light refracting through water to create rainbows but it was too sunny so we had to improvise! Instead, we made paper rainbows to remind us of refraction.
We furthered our exploration of colour and rainbows by doing a crayon melting art piece during arts education and was made into a show and tell board for the hallway! Each student got to choose their own crayons and manage their own hairdryer to watch and control how the crayons melted. Each piece has the student’s special flair to it!
