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Moving Morally, Educators as Hyphae

7/14/2019

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 Post 58.

Living a rooted life doesn't mean not moving ever. It may mean moving when necessary. The refugee problem is proof enough that staying put (such as in drought-stricken Central America, or drought-stricken Syria) isn't an option for much of the world. When I was young, my parents lived in Maryland. I don't remember all of the houses or neighborhoods I lived in. Before 4th grade, when my family moved to Patton, PA, I had attended three elementary schools in different towns: Lettie Marshall Dent, Marshall Hall, and Mother Catherine Spalding. Living a more rooted life might have meant forming the types of friendships that began in elementary school and continue to adulthood. At lest for our family Maryland was a place of transience, not a place for forming roots. I remember living in Brian's Road, where we lived near cousins (who eventually moved to Frederick) and later Golden Beach, where my aunt and uncle set up their mobile home in our backyard. My parents moved to try to make a living. They tried to help us form roots against the wave of 20th Century work. But it wasn't until my grandfather died and we moved to Pennsylvania, we rooted ourselves in place.

Higher education can be an uprooting profession for many. To exemplify, I applied for many jobs from 2014 until last year. I interviewed in person (as a finalist) at universities in Canada, Ohio, Massachusetts, Maine, Virginia, New York, and Arkansas. The only full-time higher education job I was offered was in Maine. While that would have been a great professional opportunity for me, I was reticent because of my experiences with moving. For instance, we were in Maryland when my grandfather died. I don't remember much about him (he used to sing 'Danny Boy' to me from his death bed where he resided for years). I do, however, have many wonderful memories of my grandmother, formed after we moved home. She loved to ride amusement park rides at Bland's Park. I rode with her on the Tilt-a-Whirl and Ferris Wheel often. She cooked badly, and I avoided her food by telling her I was a vegetarian. She loved the social connections the internet afforded her as she aged. She canned fruits. She was kind. I can remember her smile and her old but joyful eyes.

I want my child to have those types of memories with my and my wife's parents. Living in Central, PA affords a proximity that pursuing my professional goals in higher education wouldn't. I want my son, my primary pedagogical responsibility, to have roots. Because my wife has a fantastic job she loves, we are buying a house in State College, only a couple of blocks away from where we currently rent. My son will be close enough to walk to visit his friends here. To walk to elementary school. It's a Catholic school; we're up-keeping that tradition (I graduated 8th grade from St. Bernard's in Hastings; my mom went to St. Mary's in Patton, my dad attended St. Patrick's in Spangler; and my grandma even attended St. Bernard's, though consistent with her generation she only had a couple of years of schooling). There are many ways to cultivate roots. Remembering old songs, foods, and other traditions. Some of these traditions may seem pointless in the 21st Century, where cosmopolitan, globalist, and capitalist ideologies guide our moral judgment. Everybody goes to Disney and sings 'Dancing with a Stranger.' But, I think there's something to continuing traditions. And when we move, we should make moral choices. My choices aren't the same as everybody else. John Dewey described moral education as being embedded in every other subject. Every subject, for Dewey, is a practice of living life socially, moral action is action as lived practically. Every day. In every various action we take. How we eat, how we travel, where we live, how we teach and learn, and how we musick. All of these are moral actions when we make them so.

It isn't just about moving from house to house. It's about all movement. I choose to move through this world in a moral way. That is, I choose to make the best moral choices I can, every day, in practice. I want to be like hyphae, the "cornerstone of ecosystems" that facilitate trees' conversations. Hyphae move through the soil making connections. Hyphae embody symbiosis, and mutuality. What better metaphor can there be for the life of an educator? Educators as hyphae.

DJS

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Teachers as Home-Comers

7/13/2019

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Post 57.

In 1997 I entered a teaching profession that was already, and continues to be cosmopolitan (κόσμος πολῑ́της, kósmos-polítēs: universe-citizen) and globalist (people and products should cross borders freely and free trade capitalism is good). Universalizable curricula, teaching materials, and philosophies of education have only reinforced our practice's cosmopolitanism and globalism. But cosmopolitanismm and globalism are unsustainable. There have always been people who push back against the supposed forward march of progress, at least to the extent that progress has been in the wrong direction. E.F. Schumacher, in his 1973 book, Small is Beautiful, introduced the idea of home-comers. To conceptualize music teachers as home-comers, lets look at a few quotes:

"On the one side, I see the people who think they can cope with our threefold crisis by the methods current, only more so; I call them the people of the forward stampede. On the other side, there are people in search of a new life-style, who seek to return to certain basic truths about man and his world; I call them home-comers."

"The term 'home-comer' has, of course, a religious connotation. For it takes a good deal of courage to say 'no' to the fashions and fascinations of the age and to question the presuppositions of a civilisation which appears destined to conquer the whole world; the requisite strength can be derived only from deep convictions. If it were derived from nothing more than fear of the future, it would be likely to disappear at the decisive moment. The genuine 'homecomer' does not have the best tunes, but he has the most exalted text, nothing less than the Gospels. For him, there could not be a more concise statement of his situation, of our situation, than the parable of the prodigal son."

"The home-comers base themselves upon a different picture of man from that which motivates the people of the forward stampede. It would be very superficial to say that the latter believe in 'growth' while the former do not. In a sense, everybody believes in growth, and rightly so, because growth is an essential feature of life. The whole point, however, is to give to the idea of growth a qualitative determination; for there are always many things that ought to be growing and many things that ought to be diminishing."

"The whole point is to determine what constitutes progress. And the home-comers believe that the direction which modern technology has taken and is continuing to pursue-towards ever-greater size, ever-higher speeds, and ever-increased violence, in defiance of all laws of natural harmony-is the opposite of progress. Hence the call for taking stock and finding a new orientation. The stocktaking indicates that we are destroying our very basis of existence, and the reorientation is based on remembering what human life is really about."

Taking Schumacher's theory seriously for educational philosophy, there are teachers who think the solution to the problems we face is mere increase. They call for more! Students are paralyzed by standardized testing? Lets try more testing, and for younger children! Students are dropping out because they spend more time than ever doing a narrower core of subjects? Lets narrow the core even more, and add hours to the school day to boot! Of course, when we actually discuss the solutions of teachers of the forward stampede it seems like nonsense. Except, this is what most university teacher educators, teachers, administrators, and politicians are suggesting. More, more, more! Except those who ignore the problems (they call themselves conservatives, but very seldom offer up what they'd actually conserve!).

What teachers of the forward stampede fail to do is slow down, take stock, and orient change. Change needs oriented in meaningful directions. Like a bull in a glassware shop, teachers of the forward stampede look at the destruction they've caused, and say, we need stronger, faster, more action! But teachers as home-comers stop, and say enough! We must slow down. Orient toward home and local places. Conserve. Educate. Sustain actual places, people, and cultures, rather than paving them into the ground with the placeless ideal of more. The teacher as home-comer at times doesn't have the newest toys (iPads or computers that fill the earth with e-waste) but does have the oldest religious traditions. And its not just my Christian tradition that calls for slowing down, assessing the situation, and making ethical choices. Home-comer teachers make qualitative judgements on the direction of growth. Home-comers find which growth, which change will actually work. They're not tied to the same old "progressive" practices; more standardization, more testing, more time under florescent lighting. Homecomer teachers are, perhaps, the true progressives, the true liberals, the true radicals; and also the true conservatives working in, through, and at times against, our institutions. We look at that which is destroying the very basis of our existence, and reorient.

On a side note, you can rent my book Eco-Literate Music Pedagogy for under $5 on Amazon. If you haven't read it yet, this is the time!

DJS


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Some Soundscape Resources for Teachers

7/7/2019

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Post 56.

We learn, at a basic level, by sensing (body) the world about us and making sense (mind) of the world. Regardless of subject, of the five senses, the ear may be the one least taken advantage of in school settings. Generally speaking, in the U.S. at least, we're good at teaching for the eye but bad at the ear. And yet, hearing embraces people in a way the eye often doesn't. The eye creates distance. The ear closeness. To hear a shout of joy or of terror demands immediate action in a way seeing a photo doesn't. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but an effective sound changes us at our core. And so, I believe educators, especially music educators, can be more impactful by incorporating soundscape listening.

A soundscape is "the acoustic environment as perceived by humans." In writing about recreating historical soundscapes, Marinna Guzy suggests, "soundscapes help people reconnect with one of their primary senses in a meaningful and focused way. This has critical repercussions for policy development and regulations. As people grow more aware of their sonic environment, they consider the impact of noise on human and environmental health." Studying soundscapes, then, helps us live well and cultivates eco-literacy. How well do we help our students become aware of their soundscapes? How often do we ignore our own?

When my 4-year old and I walk at Millbrook Marsh, multiple times each week, we discuss the various soundscapes throughout our hike. This time of year, various bugs and birds dominate the soundscape. We record these using an app on my cellphone. And we describe the sounds to each other musically. We later try to find out which species make which sounds. At Millbrook, some of our favorites, this week, were the songs of red-winged blackbirds, with their rough, scratchy sounds. Simply, and informal soundscape pedagogy increases knowledge and love, as well as makes use of a local resource, a small area of land that serves the well-being of our community in many ways.

Here are some resources teachers might use to begin incorporating soundscape lessons: 
  • The Global Soundscapes webpage includes an app to "Record the Earth," including resources to listen to soundscapes around America. Of interest to me are the Scientists Favorites, which links to Soundcloud recordings such as the Miombo Woodlands and and a Penguin Party.
  • The Center for Global Soundscapes has a pedagogical aim and teaching resources for informal learning.
  • Purdue University's Center for the Environment includes resources and pedagogical suggestions.
  • Xeno-Canto houses recordings of thousands of birdsongs. It is also a community to help identify hard-to-identify sounds.
  • The German-language website Museum fur Naturkunde includes many soundscape and animal recordings.
  • The One-Square-Inch project contains resources for perhaps America's most silent place, located in Olympia Park. It provides videos and sounds as well.
  • The U.S. National Parks has long identified soundscape conservation as part of their mission. On their website, many recordings of various National Parks can be found.

By exploring these websites, and others you find, many pedagogical ideas emerge. We can record and describe soundscapes musically. We can compose music using soundscape resources. We can study the music of composers who have used non-human musics as inspiration. And we can learn about our changing soundscapes in our time of climate change. Each of these helps to educate active, caring, knowledgeable citizens--that is eco-literate people.

DJS


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Climate Displacement and the US "Border Crisis"

7/2/2019

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Post 55.

Its impossible to ignore. U.S. House members with Latinx ancestry visit short-term facilities, and find long-term holding, where women are dehumanized and in dog kennel like conditions. Here U.S. agents are conducting psychological warfare, on the one hand, and denigrating Latinx people, including Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, on social media. On the front page of the New York Times, Oscar Ramirez and his daughter Valeria lay dead for all to see. U.S. officials have chosen not to process refugee claims. People suffer, and we in the U.S. fortify our wall (see image). We have failed politically, socially, and morally.

It is increasingly understood that a major driver of the current increase in refugees from Central America is an unprecedented drought. As John Sutter and Adam Wernick report: "Many people who live in the dry corridor of Central America are subsistence farmers, completely reliant on what they grow for their survival. Unlike in the US and parts of Europe, there is no crop insurance or other programs to tide farmers over in bad years. Often, there are no irrigation systems, either. So, if the rains don’t fall, crops simply don’t grow." The UN Food and Agriculture Organization points out that 2 million people are in danger of hunger due to the drought. In El Salvador, 90% of the surface water is contaminated. The truth is, violence is driving people out of their homes. Poverty is driving people out of their homes. But, if its not an initiator, climate change is a major multiplier to the current border crisis.

In response to the human suffering around the globe, caused by climate change, The U.S. President has released a number of potent executive orders. Here is a list I found from 2017 alone.
2017: Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements.
  1. Directs DHS to obtain control of are to extend the border wall, this adds 5,000 Border Patrol agents
  2. Increase the number of detention facilities, which limits access to due process
  3. Limits access to assylum
2017: Executive Order on Interior Enforcement.
  1. Eliminates "sanctuary cities" and requires local police cooperation
  2. Expands priority list for deportations
  3. Adds 10,000 additional ICE agents
2017: Executive Order on Refugees.
  1.  Suspends visas from certain countries
  2. Suspends US refugee program, and bans Syrian refugees

In comparison, in Laudato Si' Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church, wrote: “There has been a tragic rise in the number of migrants seeking to flee from the growing poverty caused by environmental degradation. They are not recognized by international conventions as refugees; they bear the loss of the lives they have left behind, without enjoying any legal protection whatsoever. Sadly, there is widespread indifference to such suffering… Our lack of response to these tragedies involving our brothers and sisters points to the loss of that sense of responsibility for our fellow men and women upon which all civil society is founded.” The pope urges Catholics to overcome indifference, and to rather embody solidarity and encounter.

As a teacher with two decades of experience, I eye America's vitriolic discourse, and I feel we have failed far too many of our students. The government officials dehumanizing immigrants at the border were once our students. The protesters, shouting xenophobic hate at Latinx House members in front of of the detention center were also our students. Even Donald Trump was once under our in loco parentis care. We certainly have to teach for eco-literacy, so we don't continue to blindly destroy the lives of poor people around the world. And, when the results of our ecological yahooism emerge, we need solidarity and encounter. What might it mean to teach for these? In 2005, Carrie Kilman recommended a number of teaching practices, including: overcoming bias, listening deeply, ask questions, and create safe spaces. These seem like a good place to start.

DJS

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    Eco-Literate Pedagogy Blog

    Daniel J. Shevock

    I am a musician and music education philosopher. My scholarship blends creativity, ecology, and critique. I authored the monograph Eco-Literate Music Pedagogy, published by Routledge, and a blog at eco-literate.com where I wrestle with ideas such as sustainability, place, culture, race, gender, and class; and recommend teaching ideas for music education professionals and others who want to teach music for ecoliteracy. I currently serve as a substitute music teacher with the State College Area School District.

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