I'm considering writing a paper to submit to the International Philosophy of Music Education conference, held in June 2025 in Indiana at Indiana University. Whether I present or not, I will attend the conference, as I am happy to get an opportunity to attend it while it's back in the US, and not an impossible drive for me (maybe 10 hours?). As I am thinking about what I have that I could expand into a paper, I have a lot of started ideas I could flesh out. However, when I think about what our discipline needs at this moment in our scholarly history, and in our world's ecological history, the idea of a mini-dictionary for our field comes to mind. In particular, I am happy that so many people have followed my calling of our field toward more ecologically critical discourse (back in 2015, so a decade now!). However, there is persistently unclear use of terminology. Gladly, I don't see the misuse of the word "ecology" as much as I did 10 years ago (no, ecology isn't the social relationships happening in your classroom). Perhaps, if I'm able to get this done by the Dec 15 cutoff, I can develop it to be presentable by June. Please, let me know if you think this is a reasonable project, what I might need, etc. Thanks!! Here's what I have written this morning.
Groundwork for an Ecological Dictionary of Music Education Keywords
Daniel J. Shevock
Central Mountain Middle School, Mill Hall, PA (USA)
In this paper, I initiate the conception of the ecological dictionary for the professional field of music education, which includes music teaching in public and private schools, by music specialists and other educational professionals who utilize music in their interdisciplinary instruction, at pre-K to university levels, and outside of institutions, such as in community groups, lifelong learning, and homeschools. This dictionary follows subordinate definition of the term, dictionary, referring to “a book or digital resource giving information on a particular subject or on a particular class of words, names, or facts, usually arranged alphabetically: a biographical dictionary; a dictionary of mathematics.”[1] The goal of this dictionary of music education keywords is to provide the field’s professionals, teachers and scholars, a standard on which to analyze terminology used in dialogue, including in journals, magazines, and other professional correspondence, conversation, and debate. By utilizing clear, shared vocabulary, our field’s conversations can progress; while without such vocabulary, conversations can reach dead-ends, be circular, or merely argue over differences that do not exist beyond the level of differing terminology.
The current dictionary is not intended to be comprehensive, or to terminate conversation. Rather, this dictionary can be a groundwork for future revision, adding indispensable terms, and deletion of inapt and detrimental words. Finally, this dictionary is ecological for three reasons. 1. The ecological crises are the greatest existential threats to human and non-human life in the 21st Century. 2. Ecological scholarship recognizes a web of relationships—human to human, human to non-human (animal), and non-human to non-human; and considers non-biological qualities of places, such as geological histories, climates, minerals, and waterways. 3. Because of its inclusivity, ecology ties and does not refuse scholarship and terminology that is narrower, anthropocentric, or disengaged. As such, it is a critical refusal to partake in the centuries-long march of universities toward narrower disconnection, specialization, and teaching of obsolescence.
When possible, I will offer multiple definitions of each term—some definitions appear and/or are in disparity with one another. From an ecological perspective, not all beings living in a specific ecosystem have obvious connections—and the lack of observable connections do not justify the removal of either. To illustrate, on the Balearic Islands, wall lizards inhabit ecosystems alongside arum lilies, taking some of this pitcher plant’s sustenance. At first sight, this relationship seems parasitical. However, the lizards also eat arum lily seeds, and seeds that have passed through the lizard’s digestive system are more likely to germinate.[2] Some relationships are symbiotic, and some are parasitical. But some can be both, even when we don’t at first see how.
Ecology: A scientific discipline studying the relationships and interactions among biological organisms, other organisms, and their environment.[3] The web of life.[4]
Literacy: The ability to read and write (e.g., music).[5] One of four types: functional, cultural, progressive, and critical.[6] Progressive movement from naïveté to a critical attitude.[7] (Ecological) Reflection and action for progressive transformation of humanity in relation to the ecological crises we face.[8]
Music: The intentional experiencing of sound, realized by human and non-human animals.[9] Something people do.[10] An art that offers an alternative reality, symbolic meaning, ecstasy, and that alters ways of being.[11] The activity of the Muses, including all arts involved in sound or motion.[12]
[1] Dictionary.com, italics in original. Link: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/dictionary
[2] Sean Mowbray, 7 Surprising Symbiotic Relationships, And How Species Help Each Other Survive, Discover (October 25, 2023). Link: https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/7-surprising-symbiotic-relationships-and-how-species-help-each-other-survive
[3] Dictionary.com, Link: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/ecology
[4] Rachel Carson. Silent Spring: The Classic that Launched the Environmental Movement (Boston: Mariner Books, 2002), 189.
[5] Dictionary.com, Link: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/literacy
[6] Elizabeth Gould. Music Education Desire(ing): Language, Literacy, and Lieder. Philosophy of Music Education Review 17, no. 1 (2009), 47.
[7] Paulo Freire. Education for Critical Consciousness (New York: Continuum, 2011/1974), 38-9.
[8] “Cultivating 20 Years of Ecoliteracy,” https://www.ecoliteracy.org/sites/default/files/Center-for-Ecoliteracy-20yrs.pdf
[9] Daniel J. Shevock. Eco-literate Music Pedagogy (New York: Routledge, 2017), 41.
[10] Christopher Small. Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1998); David J. Elliott and Marissa Silverman. Music Matters: A Philosophy of Music Education, 2nd edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).
[11] Bennett Reimer. The Experience of Profundity in Music. The Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol 29, no. 4 (1995), 1-21. https://doi.org/10.2307/3333288
[12] Satis N. Coleman. Creative Music for Children, Proceeding of the Music Teachers National Association (College Park, MD: NAfME Archives Collection 0164-SCPA Satis Coleman Collection, 1925), 205.
Link to image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grib_skov.jpg
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