Musical Futures

After reading the book, “Musical Futures, 2^nd Edition Teacher Resources” by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, I found it very informative to see the case study done at Morpeth Secondary School in Bethnal Green, which is located on page 123 of the book.

Morpeth School is a secondary school that, at the time of the study, served almost 1,200 students in the most prevalent poverty area in the London Borough of Tower Hamelts.  The students were considered highly diverse, with most of the students using English as an additional language, with the majority of students speaking Bengali/Sylheti.  Morpeth School chose to engage in the Musical Futures project in order to help students build team skills and become independent learners.

The project began with increasing the amount of time students were able to work on their music, focusing on outdoor leadership skills, filmmaking, animation, rocket building, and print design to “Rock Factory.”  The students were able to asked to discover how to learn more effectively and transfer those abilities to other areas.  In the beginning, students attended workshops that allowed them to experience a variety of instruments, including drums, guitar, keyboard, singing, and bass guitar with the use of a carousel system.  When the students finished the workshop, they selected their favorite instrument and formed bands.  The bands would then work on a select set of songs,, with set performances to illustrate their progress, and then compete with one another.  By the end of the school year, there were 80 students that had formed 16 rock bands, and developed instrumental and team skills.  Throughout this project, the students were assessed based on how they related to the music, and responded to others.

As a result of this project, the study indicated that students who followed the Musical Futures approach, instead of the regular curriculum, were more engaged, had less behavioral issues, completed work at higher standards, and continued to work at these standards more effectively.  The study also reported that the students’ attendance on project day was greater than normal, and student enrollment into the program increased as well.  As the students claimed in response to why they “Rock Factory” was different than normal programs they said, ‘There’s less written work and it’s more hands on’, ‘You learn more about yourself’, ‘It’s not boring and I want to do it’ and ‘Rock Factory is more interactive.’ 

This entire semester we have been attempting to get to the bottom of why students enjoy non-formal teaching, being able to direct their own learning.  After reading this study, I believe the answer has already been given, the students are stating that they enjoy hands on activities where they can be more involved in their own learning.  I find it hard to believe that other educators out there can’t figure out what makes their students enjoy music.  When we engage in our ability to be creative, we become whole, the music becomes part of ourselves.  As said by Daniel J. Levitin, “Whenever humans come together for any reason, music is there: weddings, funerals, graduation from college, men marching off to war, stadium sporting events, a night on the town, prayer, a romantic dinner, mothers rocking their infants to sleep ... music is a part of the fabric of everyday life.” Our students want to create something, something that stays with a person forever, and I think that the projects in “Musical Futures”, has the right idea.