Literature review of intentional teaching pedagogy in the Arts,specifically in Music.

A major consideration in education is the relationship between teaching and learning: how to strike the most advantageous balance between teacher input or guidance and student self-direction and applied discovery. Intentionality plays an important part in this consideration, in the first place as it refers to the conscious decisions about pedagogy, methodology and curriculum a teacher makes and in the second place as it refers to the Habits of Mind as a set of valued intellectual dispositions (Costa & Kallick 2008, p.42), that a learner may employ in the pursuit of new knowledge or skills.

This paper will describe the understandings of Intentional Teaching found in education literature and go on to analyze perspectives on Intentional Teaching evident in relevant music education literature specifically. Within this area, it will focus on the understandings of this concept as revealed Kodaly music teaching and highlight any evident misapprehensions and confusion. Literature was selected in the following areas: The concept of intention in teaching; which highlighted an interesting dichotomy in that various constructivist and behaviourist texts both lay claim to being intentional; The Madeline Hunter model of intentional instruction, including its basis in learning theory and application to arts education: The more we understand the brain, the better well be able to design instruction to match how it learns. (Wolfe, 200, p 2) The brain is what we have; the mind is what is does. In other words, the mind is not a thing; its a process Its the process of making connections that counts (Jensen, 1998, pp15,30); Criticism of the Madeline Hunter model, specifically as it may apply to arts education; and Arts Teaching pedagogy and methodology texts which reveal varying levels of compatibility with the Madeline Hunter model.

The purpose of this review is to inform an analysis of Intentional Teaching as it occurs in arts subjects at Saint Stephens College (hereafter the College) currently and to look ahead towards the introduction of the National Curriculum in The Arts. For this reason, the conclusion will be situated in the context of the ACARA document for The Arts and current practice at Saint Stephens College.

The concept of intention in teaching

Ian Nance, in his paper Intentional Actions: Explanation and Epistemology (2011) explains peoples actions in terms of their beliefs, desires and intentions. He goes on further to confirm a stable causal connection between mental states and intentional actions (vii). He argues that intentional actions, unlike those performed unintentionally, [are] capable of explaining their parts. (viii) It follows from this that a measure of intentionality in the classroom would be the ability of the teacher to explain its parts. This definition of intentional action can include a variety of guided teaching approaches. This review will focus on Madeline Hunters model which is employed by the College as well a number of other approaches. This definition further excludes various justifications for curriculum and pedagogy based on teachers intuition or on variations of well, it just works for me. This premise also underlies the research questions I will use to shed light on the intentionality of arts teaching at Saint Stephens College.

Observers of the arts tend to hold a myriad of romantic notions: about talent, about the intuitiveness of the creative process, about inspiration, and so on. Teaching, being an art form on one level, is sometimes bundled in this pile. The notion of the talented, gifted teacher is a persistent theme in popular culture: Mark Thackeray (Sidney Potier) in the film To Sir with Love (Clavell, 1966), Sister Mary Clarence (Whoopie Goldberg) in Sister Act (1992) and Glenn Holland (Richard Dreyfuss) in Mr. Holland's Opus(1995) are but three of the more popular examples. Somehow these gifted individuals inspire their students to individual and corporate success intuitively, via their charismatic personality and caring disposition. Not wanting to take away from the importance of caring for our students and developing some classroom charisma, I still agree with Madeline Hunter, who is quoted in Wolfe (2001, p.2) commenting on teaching by intuition only: the problem with teaching intuitively is that intuition is sterile: It cant be passed on.

What is intuitively appealing to us will depend on the worldview we have developed either consciously or culturally, and may or may not, be compatible with the goals we wish to pursue. Sometimes an idea may appear so logical, and/or so deeply related to the values we hold dear, that it becomes an article of faith. A teachers beliefs about who or what a human being is, for example, necessarily shape approach to pedagogy and methodology (Hanisch 1992, p. 15; Gale & Densmore 2002, p. 3, Gardner, 1999, p.72).

This difficulty is not easily avoided. Major problems may arise when quality of education is discussed purely on a philosophical basis and apart from a specific context or desired outcomes. Abrahams (2005, p.63), for example, in contrasting the music teaching approaches advanced by Karl Orff and Zoltan Kodaly with critical pedagogy, cites the fact that no particular body of repertoire (content) or specific teaching procedure is recommended in constructionism, as evidence for inherent flexibility. Peter Hanisch would describe this lack of prescription as a lack of intention (1992, p.13) as he quotes musicologist Wolfgang Stumme who comments to this day, a general absence of method has become pervasive which has nothing at all to do with freedom of methodology. [authors translation] An explicit philosophical basis for teaching is necessary in order to proceed meaningfully. The question therefore is not whether a teacher is explicitly (or implicitly) biased one way or another but which bias is the best way to be biased with anyway (Ham, 1987, p.14) and how to recognize and negotiate this bias when making decisions about teaching.

Getting lost in our art and creating beautiful learning plans that satisfy our own particular view of reality but are only vaguely connected to what students need to learn is a real danger: An example of this type of romanticised thinking comes from Frank Abrahams (2005, p. 64). He describes his lesson plans in the following flowering terms: the model flows like a symphony. It has an exposition, a development section with improvisation, and a concluding recapitulation. This particular lesson will be discussed below. It stands out as a stellar example of how to ensure that no music is taught and student motivation is damaged for the future.

Intentional Teaching, also known as Direct Instruction, Systematic Teaching and Mastery Teaching (Hunter, 1985, p.58) has been described as behaviourist and as such has been criticised as being too didactic, transmissive, narrow, teacher-centred, and prescriptive. The critical alternatives have been described as discovery learning (which Bruner called hypothetical teaching in contrast to expository), inquiry learning (Dewey as cited in Kuhlthau, Maniotes & Caspari, p.14; Suchman as cited in Moore, 2005, p. 304) cooperative learning (Slavin, 1995), constructivism (Vygotsky as cited in Davydov & Radzikhovskii, 1985), and similar (Geelan, 1997; Leonard, 2002) - labels meant to denote an approach to learning which in its pure form, is either unguided or only minimally guided.

On reviewing the literature around Intentional Teaching, polarization around these two opposing areas is commonly found. The idea that all knowledge is personally and/or socially constructed powerfully supports a relativist worldview and has been described as "secular religion or at least a powerful folktale about the origin of human knowledge." Phillips (1995, p.5), in using these emotive terms, supports the notion of Kirschner, Sweller and Clark (2010): in their paper Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction does not work: An analysis of the failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential and Inquiry-based Teaching, the authors recognize unguided or minimally-guided instructional approaches as intuitively appealing while yet affirming the ineffectiveness of the approach. They cite Handelsman et al. (2004, p 84), who, recognizes ideology as the basis for decision making about teaching style and asks: Why do outstanding scientists who demand rigorous proof for scientific assertions in their research continue to use and, indeed defend, on the bias of intuition alone, teaching methods that are not the most effective? While constructivist theory has inspired reform from the 1990s onwards at all levels of the education system (Cummings & Harlow 2000; Levstik & Barton 1997), more guided approaches have lost some of their appeal in the face of a more relativistic zeitgeist (Solomon 1994,p.5; Prawat 1992, Chrenka, 2001). Constructivism is often presented to teachers as a clearly defined and opposite and superior alternative to transmissive epistemologies and teaching approaches (Geelan, 1997). As might be expected in an ideologically driven debate however, misinterpretations seem to abound on both sides and commonalities of approach exists which highlight the ideological, rather than practical nature of this dialectic.

Both approaches begin from a basis of knowledge: the aim in both cases is to build on what the student already knows and link this to new knowledge. At the risk of using a concept from the black list of educational jargon, beginning with the end in mind is quite securely common sense. Anyone who has baked a cake or build a shed will recognise the wisdom in the approach. Wiggins and McTighe (1998) apply this to education, encouraging "backward design": starting not with textbooks or favourite lesson plans but rather with what students need to learn to take them onwards from where they are to where they want to be in terms of understanding. Making intentional decisions about teaching is not the prerogative of either the progressive or the conservative side of education.

Intentionality, indeed, has been recognized as an important prerequisite to effective teaching in areas across the curriculum. In literacy education, Pearson and Fielding (1991) explained their concept of the gradual release of responsibility in reading, Duffy et al., (1997) wrote on direct explanation, and Barton, Hamilton, & Ivanic (2000) described literacy as social practice, including concepts of intentional instruction.

Siegfried Engelmann and Douglas Carnine developed the Direct Instruction (DI) model, which is described as carefully developed and thoroughly tested by Heward (2012). This approach features very intentional and specific communication. Engelmann and Carnine differ from other approaches to instructional design in that they do not assume the learner will learn regardless of the communication (Lally and Price, 1997). Engelmanns model of Direct Instruction was tested during Project Follow Through [footnoteRef:1] with the outcome that [1: Coombs, M. K. (1998). Honest follow-through needed on this project.The Washington Times, March 24, 1998. Also retrieved December 29, 1998 from the World Wide Web:http://www.mathematicallycorrect.com/honestft.htmWatkins, C. L. (1988). Project Follow Through: A story of the identification and neglect of effective instruction. Youth Policy, 10, 7-11. Has a detailed explanation.]

"The results make a mockery of current reforms, because Follow Through clearly showed that some approaches work well and some flop; however, the ones that flopped the most emphatically are still alive today and still promoted vehemently by teachers' groups like the International Reading Association, the National Council of Teachers of English, and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. The approaches that did well were roughly the opposite of the romantic notions and theories espoused by these groups. The better performing sponsors presented highly structured instruction that had tight teacher-performance requirements and practices that are 'behavioral. (Engelmann, 1992, p. 4-5)

John Hatties meta-analytical research confirms the value of intention in instruction. He concludes that students are best placed to learn at high levels when teachers clarify learning intentions, select the most fitting strategies, and "provide appropriate feedback to reduce the gap between where the student is and where they need to be" (2009, p. 199)

Another analysis of 70 studies on intentional teaching, conducted by Richard Clark, a researcher at the University of Southern California, found several experiments in which lower-aptitude students taught with less-guided or -structured instructional methods actually tested significantlyloweron post-test than pre-test measures. In other words, they experienced a loss of learning while exposed to unguided instruction. Higher-ability students, on the other hand, achieve at higher rates with less-structured instruction, presumably because they have already acquired their own effective learning techniques. Clark (2012, p.6) confirms: Decades of research clearly demonstrate that for novices (comprising virtually all students), direct, explicit instruction is more effective and more efficient than partial guidance.

The Madeline Hunter model

Madeline Hunter set herself the task of creating a research-informed theoretical framework for teachers wanting to take advantage of findings in learning theory and psychology (1994, p. 87-95). She defined teaching as a constant chain of deliberate professional decisions that take place in three realms: content, learning behaviours of students, and teacher behaviours.

She is not the first educator who has emphasised intentional decision-making. Planning for teaching dates back to Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776-1841), who was building on the ideas of Pestalozzi (Rein,1896, p.347; Pollock,2007, p.61) developed an educational method that systemized instruction (Ornstein, et. al, p.106). He proposed five sequential steps for instruction, which gained much popularity particularly in Japan. Herbart developed the doctrine of curriculum correlation, which has become the foundation for much modern thought on curriculum, including a focus on scope and sequence of concepts. The goal of instruction as proposed by Herbart was to guide the student through the process of acquiring knowledge whereby the learner would use the constant flow of ideas presented by the curriculum in order to generate and process new understandings (Pollock, 2008, p. 61). Ironically, his ideas were criticised by John Dewey and other progressives for supposedly turning students into passive receivers of information rather than active learners. (Ornstein, et. al.,p. 107). Ramsay (1990, p.477) traces what he believes be Madeline Hunters adaptation of the Herbartian model.

Madeline Hunter developed a planning model based on teachers professional and informed decision making. The model is called ITIP (Instructional Theory into Practice). The model defines teaching as a series of decisions in three areas (Hunter, 1979, p.63) which in turn inform seven suggested elements of lesson planning:

Content: refers to the specific information, skill, or process that is appropriate for students at a particular time. Teacher decisions about what content is appropriate are based upon students' prior knowledge and how it relates to future instruction; simple understandings must precede more complex understandings;

Student Behaviour: refers to decisions regarding learning behaviours, which will indicate how a student will learn and show evidence of that learning. Decisions about how students will learn must, of necessity, take account of the cognitive structures which students have previously developed as these will affect how they will be interpreting and making sense of, newly presented concepts.

Teacher Behaviour: Teachers must decide which research based teaching principles and strategies will most effectively promote learning for their students (Hunter, 1994, p. 87).

Educational psychologist Robert Slavin asserts that, while there is no formula for good teaching, the one shared attribute of outstanding teachers is intentionality, doing things on purpose (Slavin, 2000, p. 160). He also supports Hunters emphasis on a working knowledge of relevant research for teachers. (Slavin, 1987, p.17) This knowledge will help teachers make analytical and critical decisions about their teaching in order to be intentional. He provides the following questions as guides (1987. p.11):

1. what am I trying to accomplish (purpose)2. what are my students relevant experiences and needs (where are they)3. What approaches and materials do I need to use to challenge every student?4. How will I recognize when I need to change something?5. How will I know when students experience success?

For all the similarities between Slavins approach and the Hunter model, Slavin was vehemently opposed to what he termed the hunterization of Americas schools (Slavin, 1987, p.1). His main contention was with the large scale of implementation of a stripped down shallow formula version of Hunters principles. Mishra (xxx) also refers to the misuse of Hunters principles via school administrators.

While the Madeline Hunter Model employs specific behavioural objectives for each learning sequence (1994, p.90), it is apparent that teachers are encouraged to work with, not against, their students current understandings and ways of thinking. Taking this into account then, behavioural or outcome objectives are formulated before the lesson. These clearly indicate what the student should be able to do when the lesson is accomplished.

An engaging opening to each lesson, termed the anticipatory set, begins the sequence of acts of input, modelling, and checking for understanding. Input involves providing basic information in an organized way and in a variety of formats, including lecture, videos, or pictures. Modelling is used to exemplify critical attributes of the topic of study, and various techniques are used to determine if students understand the material before proceeding. The teacher then assists students through each step of the material with guided practice and gives appropriate feedback. Closure reviews and organizes the critical aspects of the lesson to help students incorporate information into their knowledge base. Independent practice, accomplished at various intervals, helps students retain information after initial instruction. (Hunter, 1994, pp. 90-95)

Criticisms of the Hunter model

Gibbony, Garmin and Slavin are the main critics of ITIP, according to Madeline Hunter (interview in Zupan,1991, p.103): its a shame, but controversy sells stuff and it is a very threatening programyoull find the people who are fussing are the university people

Based on their perception of behavioural psychological theory, some educators (Gibbony, 1987;Mishra, 2009; Garman & Hazi, 1988) have concluded that the Hunter model is mechanistic and simplistic and is only usefulif at allto teach the acquisition of information or basic skill mastery at the cost of stifling teacher and student creativity and independent thinking. (Ramsay, 1990, p.482). Others, including Rosenschein & Stevens (1986, p. 377) have described the Hunter Method as a lockstep approach to instructional design. Hunter herself asserts that there is no such thing as a Madeline Hunter lesson.Claiming to base her method on research, Hunter may have succumbed to the very mistake she would aim to prevent in the teachers she wishes to mentor: providing advice (knowledge) based on intuition rather than evidence. Gibboney (1987, p.47) claims that Hunter has not produced the research evidence to support her claims and that her major works lack research citations and bibliographies. It is, of course, rather ironic that this should bother a writer who himself is advocating a more intuitive approach to teaching. Ramsay (1990, p.477) and Gibboney (1987, p.49) both suggests that the Hunter model consists primarily of technique. Both assert that this technique was uprooted without much modification from the ideas of theorists such as Bandura (1977), Bloom (1976) and Skinner (1968). Hunters first trilogy of teacher-training books was published in 1967 (Reinforcement/Motivation/Retention Theory for Teachers) and her defining Teaching for Transfer in 1971. These dates so suggest that her writings likely do contain some originality particularly in the application of theory, or technique which the critics seem to dismiss as unnecessary. Gobboney is most uncomfortable with the epistemological basis, which he suspects underlies Hunters ideas. Any prescribed or suggested technique or application seems to be suspiciously modernist to him. Finally, he has only two requests for improvement, the first being that she needs to state the fundamental values that direct the model (p.50) and secondly that more time be made available for discussion within the learning model. Both of these concerns clearly reflect a clash of epistemological worldviews more than any particular practical problem with classroom application. Unlike Kodaly, who, as a theorist, inspired Choksy (1974), Dobszay (1972), Tacka & Houlahan (1971) and others, to work out the techniques for delivering education in his spirit, and who himself never codified an instructional method, Hunter is often presented as focussing on specific steps and sequences. This is despite the fact that she has repeatedly drawn attention to the fact that she does not believe there is such a thing as a Hunter lesson and that techniques of teaching have limitations, principles of learning are not absolute and real life teaching has a way of blurring the neat distinctions of laboratory theory (Hunter, 1985, p.60). Daniel Gursky quotes her in the Education Week Teacher (1991, online)I have come out loud and clear that anybody who uses a checklist in observing a lesson does not understand teaching,'' she says. "There is nothing you should expect to see in every lesson. If somebody told me I had to do all these things in every lesson, I'd say, 'I do not; I know better.' There is no such thing as a 'Madeline Hunter' lesson. There's an effective lesson or an ineffective lesson, but not a Madeline Hunter lesson.

In her interview with Mary Ann Zupan (1991,p.97), Hunter further responds to these concerns:

When the critics start talking about rigidity they start talking about lesson design. People have talked about the seven steps.those seven elements were like a lifeboat that people clutched..and thats where the rigidity came in. They were never steps, thats something somebody else publicized. There was no rigidity. In fact one teacher went back to her principal and said Madeline Hunter says these dont all have to be in every lesson and the principal replied I dont care what Madeline Hunter says, theyve all got to be there!

According to Marilyn Heathss publication in the Gale Encyclopedia of Education, Hunter is regarded by many as a "teacher's teacher" for her ability to translate educational and psychological theory into practical, easy-to-understand pedagogy, and her influence on classroom teaching techniques is still evident in the twenty-first century. This assertion may be interpreted as somewhat condescending and may be quite the opposite of Hunters intention. She believed that teaching [is] one of the last professions to emerge.from witch doctoring to become a profession based on a science of human learning, a science that becomes the launching pad for the art of teaching. (1984, p.46) This seems to suggest that she understands findings from psychology and related disciplines to have the function of informing teaching rather than prescribing to them.

Noleen Garman has taken issue with the way the Hunter Model has been used to supervise teachers in many school districts in the USA (Garman and Hazi, 1988) as well as what she has termed the use and abuse of research, questioning the power position in education which Madeline Hunter (and others) give to educational psychology and cognition research (Nicholson-Goodman and Garman, 2007). She agrees with Gibbony (1987, 1994) that this approach positions classroom teachers as technicians who are required to apply research done not by themselves or their peers but delivered to them from another discipline. Gibbony cites Dewey as he criticises teachers using the Hunter model for separating mind from activity (1987, p.49) and handing out models and recipes (Gibbony, 1987,p.49) leading to mechanical woodenness. He also emphasize that Hunters model is often misinterpreted in practice, however, and quotes her as having expressed horror (Gibbony, 1987,p.49) at what some people have done to her decision making model (Gibbony, 1987,p.49).

Gibbony asks whether the Hunter model is the best method to help students understand a complex text. This is a worthwhile and important question. Part of the answer is that the skills to analyse a complex text (or re-write Mozarts Queen of the Night aria as suggested by Abahams, 2005) need to be learned before independent (and not slavish) analysis or composition can occur. An emphasis on skill development is often lacking in my experience whether the text is a work of art or a work of literature, or even an educational theory.

The critical ingredient is a focus on developing students understanding (of complex structures which it is the aim to analyse and evaluate). Understanding of complex texts however, is impossible without the ability to deconstruct said text. In order to deconstruct, a student has to have experienced and practiced the use of the relevant devices, which shape the text. Reporting on inquiry based science and mathematics education, Roblyer, Edwards, and Havriluk (1997) state that teachers have found that discovery learning is successful only when students have prerequisite knowledge and undergo some prior structured experiences (cited in Kirschner, et al., 2006)

The following statement taken from a collection of resources aimed at pre-service mathematics teachers currently attending State Universities in the US illustrates the level of feeling which underlies both sides of the constructivist/un-guided, direct/guided debate:[footnoteRef:2] [2: (http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2203/Mathematics-Learning-MYTHS-MYSTERIES-REALITIES.html)]

Scientific research and professional standards recommend inquiry-based instruction because such instruction elicits classroom cultures that support students' genuine sense-making, and because such classrooms focus on the development of students' reasoning, not the disconnected rote acquisition of formal, ready-made ideas contained in textbooks. However, the critical ingredient in research-based teaching is the focus on fostering students' construction of personal mathematical meaning. This focus suggests that inquiry-based teaching that does not focus on students' construction of personally meaningful ideas is not completely consistent with research-based suggestions for teaching. It also suggests that demonstrations, and even lectures, might create meaningful learning if students are capable of, and intentionally focus on, personal sense-making and understanding.

Berg and Clough (1991) in Hunter Lesson Design: the Wrong One for Science Teaching propose that Madeline Hunters model is too narrow and relies heavily on teacher directed behaviour(p.77) but go on to complain that the model is not directive enough as it aims to inform teachers:

too many propositions in the Hunter scheme are NOT translated into procedures. The propositions described are often general and vague they fail to delineate appropriate teaching behaviors and strategies. (p.73)

It again becomes apparent that the polemic in the literature about the need for maximum or minimum expert input or guidance in the learning process is ideologically driven and polarizing. Madeline Hunters model of Intentional Teaching is easily, and at times it seems intentionally, misunderstood and regaled into the behaviourist box.

The dispute, which has preoccupied educational theory and particularly teacher training, is traced from the pro-guidance side by Kirschner et. al. (2006,p.75). The authors contend, citing many specific studies, that:

[T]he past half-century of empirical research on this issue has provided overwhelming and unambiguous evidence that minimal guidance during instruction is significantly less effective and efficient than guidance specifically designed to support the cognitive processing necessary for learning.

Richard Slavin sensibly suggests that an intentional teacher should be familiar with both constructivist and direct instruction models:Constructivist approaches to teaching typically make extensive use of cooperative learning the emphasis on the social nature of learning and the use of groups of peers[and] discovery learning, in which students are encouraged to learn largely on their own through active involvement with concepts and principles" (Slavin, 2000, p. 259). In direct instruction, on the other hand, "the teacher transmits information directly to the students; lessons are goal-oriented and structured by the teacher" (Slavin, 2000, p. 220).

Davidson and OLeary (1990,p.32) in speaking of cooperative learning and the Madeline Hunter model state that the two models address different aspects of the teaching-learning process. They propose that maximum and minimum guidance are at opposite ends of a sliding scale, which begins with the acquisition of basic skills and ends with the critical analysis of complex texts. A more didactic guided approach is beneficial at the outset, when novices need to learn concepts and skills: If we are going to teach a language, is would be abusive to try and let children discover it without prescriptive guidance. Similarly if a chord progression is to serve as the basis for innovative and original composition, the proper use of it has to be taught first. This requires precise input and leaves almost no room for variation. When the concept is mastered, however, critical analysis and creative application, can, and should, follow. Abuses occur both ends of the scale if these approaches are not used in harmony. In an apt musical analogy, Davidson and OLeary (1990., p.33) suggest that mastery teaching provides the basic scales and traditional melodies in the repertoire of teaching strategies, while cooperative learning brings in the harmonies, tonal colours, rhythms, variations and counterpoint.

Kirschner et al (2006, p.75) concur, showing that the advantage of guidance begins to recede only when learners have sufficiently high prior knowledge to provide internal guidance. Hungarian-American psychologist Csikszentmihalyi and several colleagues undertook a longitudinal survey of over 200 talented teenagers to discover why some are able to develop their talents while others give up. In the publication of their findings in 1993 (cited in Dietz, 2004,online), the authors suggest three promising steps for promoting optimal experience in the classroom, one of which pertains to the point under discussion:

Teachers mustread the shifting needs of learners. The flow state is not a static one: once a skill has been mastered it is necessary to add more complexity if the student is not to become bored there must always be a close fit between challenges and skills. The teachers sense of timing and pace, of when to intervene and when to hold back, is therefore crucial. There must be freedom wherever possible for the student to control the process, but teachers must also draw on their experience to channel students attention.

In conclusion, we find what Jack Corbin (cited in Garman&Hazi, 1988, p.670) has referred to as the love-hate relationship which educators have towards Madeline Hunter and her teaching model.Madeline Hunters main idea was to observe what good teachers did, synthezise this with what emerging research in cognition provided and translate (Zupan,1991, p.98, Goldberg, 1990, p.43) these observations and findings into a format that could be applied to class room practice. In What is wrong with Madeline Hunter (Hunter, 1995, Educational Leadership), she lists what she perceives as myths which have been created around her intentions and the problems which she admits have been caused by compulsory and shallow implementation of scaled down versions of her model. The is emphatic about the fact that her model is not suitable for teacher evaluation (p. 58). She also reiterates the research connection which formed the basis of her model: Every proposition of this model was derived from research in human learning. (p. 57).

Even one of her fiercest critics, Slavin, writes that one of the first requirements of effective teaching is that the teacher understand how students think and how they view the world. (Slavin 2000, p.29) and that intentional teachers have a clear sense of how they want students to behave. They consider behavioural learning theory as one set of tools that can help to support positive change in students behaviour and [] their learning.(p.160)

In this spirit, the Hunter model is a guide to pratice rather than a seven steps to success short cut. It should also encourage educators to read into research on cognition and brain-sciences. Working with this model far from absolves teachers from thinking for themselves: it encourages reflective decision-making for every step of the learning process. Without reflection, teachers must either implement every single innovation and idea which administrators at school or state level throw their way, implement a hodge-podge random selection of the same or jadedly decide not to implement any new ideas or proposals. Evaluating what the Madeline Hunter model might contribute to classroom practice could provide an authentic opportunity for a teacher to model critical and engaged thinking rather than cynicism. Clear and rigorous inquiry into ideas should be particularly applicable to the Arts subjects.

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Arts Education: Music, Drama, Art

What sets the Arts apart? the notion of talent

Intentionality in teaching and learning is an important tool in combatting the unhelpful notion of talent, which pervades popular perception of the arts. The scope of this paper does not allow a detailed survey of the different understandings attached to concepts such as aptitude and talent, but it will take a look at the concept of talent in arts education as discussed by David Elliott (1995). He believes that effective arts education can be severely hampered by popular notions of talent, which assume that ability in a creative field is more innate than it is taught: Although musicianship is a form of knowledge that is applicable to and achievable by the majority of children, some teachers and administrators base their decisions about music curricula on the false assumption that music making is possible and appropriate only for special students; namely, the so-called talented. (Elliott,p.235)

He goes on to explain that this irrational tendency to label music a talent instead of a form of knowledge (1995, p236) becomes the justification for political and financial decisions both in the classroom and at an administration level, causing music (and by implication other art forms) to be deemed inaccessible and unnecessary for the majority of school children. If only some children will benefit from music education, goes the thinking, it may not be necessary to hire qualified specialist teachers in the field or provide enough curriculum time to make sure skills are learnt effectively. Intentional teaching supports the learning of all students, no matter what their aptitude, because it takes stock of where students are and charts a course to the desired outcome. Careful decisions about repertoire to be used, concepts to be introduced, presented and practiced and skills to be honed are made by an intentional music teacher.

The notion of aesthetic subjectivityAnother difficulty intentional arts teachers have to overcome, is the perception of arts education as aesthetic education and the notion of individual taste. There has been a persistent emphasis on music/arts education as aesthetic education, such as expressed by philosopher Susan K Langer. She defines art as the creation of forms symbolic of human feeling and concludes that if the arts objectify subjective reality, then art education is the education of feeling (cited in Smith and Simpson, 1991, p. 94). Other and more recent writers, quoted at length in Elliott (1995), have recognized this historical perspective as reductionist and diminishing the meaning of artistic product. Arthur Danto (cited in Elliott, p.29) suggests that this aesthetic concept segregates the arts from real life, implying that aesthetic pre-occupation relegates the arts to a pedestal which is too lofty to have an impact on anything real. The insidious nature of this philosophical position becomes clear when we examine Bennett Reimers claim (2003) that music educations traditional emphasis on excellent performing ensembles is askew and should be remedied. Reimer urges educators not to be sucked into this professional whirlpool of setting high expectations in the classroom (2003, p.104). This concern that music education has too much of an emphasis on excellence in performance reveals the underlying belief that said excellence can not be aspired to by the majority; that for this majority, music (and other arts) are not about participating, actively making and negotiating meanings, but about passively experiencing. To Reimer, creativity is a matter of exploring and discovering expressiveness in relationship to feelingful qualities (2003,p.46). Writers like Reimer have very low expectations of arts education and substitute romantic notion of feelingfulness for realistic goals and guidelines. Arts educators face the challenge to actively involve students in performing, arranging, improvising, conducting, analysing and related activities, which are clearly multidimensional forms of thinking and behaving and which therefore, require facility in a large array of individual cognitive and practical skills all of which must be taught.

Teaching for skill how participation in the Arts becomes equitable.Arts education is not art appreciation: the teaching about art. Arts education is not, in the first instance, self-expression or therapeutic experimentation. These are legitimate goals in their own right and may sometimes overlap with arts education at the fringes. An analogy to sport will clarify the concept: learning to play tennis (or golf, or soccer) and hitting a ball around in the back yard are two different pursuits which may overlap at times but can not do so continually or progress will not occur. Focussed training, consisting of instruction, example and practice, is necessary if skills are to be developed. If teachers understand that arts education is based on skill development in the areas of devising/composing/producing, performing/executing, and deconstruction/evaluation/critical analysis, they will focus on helping students to develop in these areas and not become side tracked by topics that could be more fruitfully explored in the SOSE or English classroom.

Further to the intrinsic benefits of participating in music making, there is agreement in the literature that music aids cognition, language acquisition (both native and second), social competency, creativity, special awareness, mathematical ability (Curtis, 2007; Pearson, 1998; Sacks,2007; Alluri et.al., 2012; Brandt et.al, 2012;Corrigall & Trainor, 2011; Rauscher et.al, 1997; Cuskelly, 2011). These benefits are qualified by the above considerations about passive consumption and active participation however. Transfer of cognitive benefits is only documented where young musicians were actively involved in prolonged periods of music making, i.e. in programmes which take the time to foster competency, even mastery, under the guidance of expert teachers.

Learning about music does not have these benefits: based upon hard-core research data, meaningful learning occurs through personal encounters with music, rather than through verbal substitutes. (Shehan 1985, p.43)

Teaching for skill development requires expert teachers. Bula and Szymanowsky (1987) conjecture that arts teachers (specifically music teachers in this paper) are not sufficiently well informed about learning theory as it applies to their subject, many times basing decision making in the class room on intuition rather than on any professional knowledge. While it has to be acknowledged that this assertion is somewhat of a generalization, it may well be true where arts subjects are taught by a generalist teacher who is perceived to be musical or arty, and is placed there by administrators who have bought into the myth that the Arts are about passive experience or personal experimentation and that talented kids will do well no matter what they experience in the classroom.

The need for expert knowledge of both the subject to be taught and the process of learning is recognized in the most widely used arts education methodologies. In preparation for an analysis of arts teaching at Saint Stephens College, this paper will look at the music teaching philosophy of Kodaly, although many others, including Karl Orff and Emile Jaques-Dalcroze have much to offer in terms of adding to a purposeful philosophy of music education. Music teaching at Saint Stephens College is based on Kodaly principles, while the College as a whole has adopted Madeline Hunters model of instruction.

Zoltan Kodaly (1882-1967), the composer and philosopher whose thoughts inspired the Kodaly Method of music teaching, used newly emerging understandings of the psychology of learning as a basis for his pedagogical considerations (Sinor, 1986). The question from here then is how to best translate expert knowledge on learning theory into arts teaching practice: in the words of Dr Max Kaplan in what way does the Kodaly phenomenon constitute a significant component between the technical and the humanistic?(in Vikar 1985, p.9)

Zoltan Kodaly was a composer, ethnomusicologist, linguist and philosopher (Choksy, 1981) who throughout his career turned his attention to music for younger and younger children. He was convinced that any real appreciation for and skill in the arts must stem from earliest beginnings. In 1941, in an article titled Music for the Nursery School, he likened school to a total cultural wilderness (Russel-Smith 1976). This controversial message has perhaps set the tone for his work from then forwards.

Kodalys approach to music education featured an emphasis on audiation, the development of music in the inner ear, or being able to think in music. He also considered musical literacy, specifically the ability to sing music at sight without the aid of an instrument, the basis of all music making. He considered music education a fundamental right of all children and believed that the rhythms and sounds of the native language should be the first repertoire children learn to sing. Kodaly himself was motivated to think about childrens musical education by the sorry state of general education and in particular the state of teacher education he observed. He believed that only the best repertoire and the best teachers were good enough for young childrens music education.

Kodaly did not involve himself greatly in developing these philosophical concepts into a method or pedagogy, a task he left to his colleagues and students. Most prominent among these are perhaps Jeno Adam (1896-1982) and later others, including Erzsebet Szonyi (1973) Lois Choksy (1981,1986,1999,2001) and Philip Tacka and Micheal Houlahan (1995). According to Choksy (1986, p.8), what makes Kodalys ideas so significant in the world of music education is that they are ideas: the embodiment of something much larger than a bag of tricks by which to teach. If one were to take away rhythm duration syllables, and hand signs, if one removed all the visual aids that have become appendages of the method - if one removed even the solfa, the ideas would remain: that music literacy is something everyone can and should enjoy that singing is the foundation of all music education that music education must begin with the very young that the folk songs of a childs own culture is in his musical mother-tongue and should be the vehicle for early instruction that only music of the highest artistic value should be used in teaching children

Choksy (1986, p.8) goes on to point out that any pedagogical technique may be misused in the hands of a poor teacher, but that a philosophy cannot be. This harkens back to the problems that some have described with the implementation of Madeline Hunters teaching model.

Misinterpretation of Kodaly as a method is quite frequent, however. Patricia Shehan identifies Kodaly correctly as a deductive method of learning music and lauds this, but , then goes on to extol the effectiveness of a creative-comprehensive approach versus a more traditional folk song method. (1985, p.43)Peter deVries (2001, p.26) is another writer who takes issue with the Kodaly method, stating that one of the most limiting aspects of this approach is

its emphasis on specific musical skills, namely sol-fa, time-names, notation and in-tune singing. Developing reading and singing skills is often emphasized to the detriment of helping children behave as performers, composers and listeners of great music.(deVries, 2001, p.26)

Aside from the fact that behaving as a performer of great music (deVries, 2001, p.25) is something which will come naturally to a well-trained young musician but will never happen without the audiation and literacy skills discussed above, we have seen that Kodaly did not intend for these skill development activities to stand in the way of great music. He saw them correctly, as the keys, which unlock great music to the understanding of children. No authentic artistic or critical engagement with any music (great or otherwise) can occur without these keys (Kodaly 1941, 1957, cited in Kodaly & Bonis, 1974).

Mary Anne Zupan (1991) has traced the similarities of the Kodaly approach to music education and the Madeline Hunter model. She concludes that the methodologies share the following principles of learning:-Active Participation; -Motivation; -Reinforcement; -Whole vs Part Learning; -Retention; -Transfer and -Practice Theory.

Zupan interviewed Hunter (Zupan 1991,pp.90-99) as part of her work on the alignment of Kodaly and Hunter. Speaking about any possible differences that may exist as to the application of the Hunter model to different learning areas, Madeline Hunter recognized The thing that is unique about music or drama or dance is that you can see, or [] hear, whether the kid understands. thats the advantage of anyone working with action performance subjects.(Hunter cited in Zupan, 1991, p.93)

Checking for understanding is indeed easier in a performing art than it is in other curriculum areas. Practising needs to become an activity that is full of purpose and intention if it is to be enjoyable and fruitful. Because outcomes are so public in the performing arts, teachers and students have this special challenge: to create a learning environment which is warm yet demanding, safe yet rigorous, repetition driven but purposeful, supportive yet challenging. In order for this environment to become a reality, very careful planning of all aspects of the learning process, is required by the expert teacher.

Unguided experimentation, as is suggested in the incoming National Curriculum for the Arts, is as counterproductive in this curriculum area as it is in the mathematics and science class rooms discussed above (Berg & Clough,1991). Musical experience moves from more imitation via competence to free. Kodaly educators choose texts (repertoire) which are specifically analysed to present the best possible model (somewhat as in Engelmanns concept of Faultless Communication (1991) discussed above) of each concept to be presented. Having included the concept in question in preceding lessons on a sub-conscious level, it is presented very clearly once using this special piece. In subsequent lessons, the concept (as well as a host of others) is carefully practiced in very many different contexts until competence is achieved. As children approach competence, they will use each concept they have mastered in their own improvisation and composition, sharing their creativity as they perform for their peers. Because this will not occur until the teacher can see that it will be successful, each performance, each improvisation and composition will be a success experience and build confidence and self-efficacy for the success of future learning.

Sadly, Shehan (1985) finds herself in good company, as researchers line up to testify to the effectiveness of active music making, learning by doing, deducing meaning from context and experience, and so forth, but then turn on what they perceive of as a traditional method which looks like it is teacher or subject centred. Kodaly comes in for the same kind of ideology-based and logic-defying criticism that was discussed above in terms of the Madeline Hunter model: ideological bias preventing teachers from getting the most out of either model. Hanley and Montgomery (2005, p. 18) for example, feel this way of thinking about curriculum is based on positivist assumptions They do not believe that a view which is subject centred and hierarchical in its organisation of knowledge meets the needs of a world that is rapidly changing. Why developed skills are not seen as something other than tools specifically appropriate for a changing world is unclear.

They propose a new, reconceptualised curriculum but admit that the idea they are about to promote started to gain momentum among educators in the 1980s a full 25 years before their paper which terms this approach new! Hanley and Montgomery (2005) feel that music education has been slow to engage in the paradigm shift called postmodernism (p.18). They go on to provide a clearly political summary of postmodernism in education and society, allowing us to see from whence their motivation hails. While there is of course nothing wrong with political discourse, in the case of the literature about Madeline Hunter and Kodaly, we find that ideology seems to cloud the issue and cast a shadow of doubt over whether teachers who wish to use intentional, sequential skill development in their classroom can at the same time be encouraging creativity and critical thinking.

Hanley and Montgomery (2005) set up a number of false dichotomies as they contrast what they term a Positivist quest for improvement with the reconceptualised quest for understanding; the process of action and results with the process of inquiry; a focus on how with a focus on why and right and wrong answers with multiple answers. Why, it must be asked, can we not have improvement through understanding? Inquiry action with results? Multiple right and wrong answers? The learning of how so that we can analyse why?

They quote Thomas Regelski who in this call for Action for change in music education (n.d.) writes about the need to steer away from methodolartry and taken-for-granted recipes as he concludes that this will be working towards an endullment of students. He is correct of course, but the context in which he is cited mitigates against a fair reading of his premise and again leads to a clouding of the relationship between the technical and humanistic aspects of teaching in the arts.

Beckmann-Collier (2009) suggests that the why of music should be emphasised along with the how (not instead of) by encouraging the analysis of pieces being performed. In an analysis, the how (deconstruction) has to be abundantly clear before the why can get an intelligent answer, and again, deconstruction is not possible without the correct tools of understanding.

Hanley and Montgomery (2005, p.18) ask should we be trying to improve our students personal musical taste (highly emotive language which is indicative of a certain political position). Taste will undoubtedly be educated as students benefit from a teachers remit to introduce new and exciting possibilities to students. We all like things known better than things unknown in teaching, we begin with the known and link to a new concept. This is the same principle we would use as we expand students musical experiences and in doing so, inevitably, their tastes.

Abrahams (2005, p.66, advocates an approach to music teaching which takes into account students musical tastes and breaks down the barriers that exist between what students enjoy listening to outside the classroom and the music their teachers want them to learn. I have to interject the observation that this is quite an assumption; even if such a barrier should exist (emotive language again), why would we not want to supplement and extend our students with music we want them to learn? If students enjoy reading cartoons, will we give up on Shakespeare because it is associated, in some peoples mind, with Western imperialist ideas? Or will we provide access to these ideas, this cultural capital, on equitable terms in order to empower learners to interact with this type of knowledge?

Abrahams (2005,p.63) dislikes the popular approaches of Orff and Kodaly, contrasting them unfavourably with critical pedagogy. He advocates NOT using a particular body of repertoire or specific teaching procedure. I am guessing this includes any Intentional Instruction. He advocates a flexible pedagogy which he says questions, challenges and empowers students. We have seen from the review so far that intentional methodologies do challenge, and intentionally so. They also empower, via making exclusive knowledge and skills available to all learners through expert guidance and scaffolded learning which result in competency, self-efficacy and motivation to keep learning.

According to Abrahams, flexible pedagogy

places music in a social, political, and cultural context that results in informed opinions and something Freire calls conscientization. When this moment of revelation happens, one may claim that music learning has occurred.(Abrahams, 2005, p.62)

I would contend that learning about music in a social, political and cultural context may have occurred, but that Music learning has not occurred and will not occur until someone sings or picks up an instrument, at the very least.

It is instructive to study the specific example of a lesson which Abrahams provides in the above article (2005, pp.64-67): a Madonna tune (provided by the students) is contrasted with the Queen of the Night aria by Mozart (provided by the teacher). The learning experiences in order are:

Select, share, discuss Madonnas music Introducing Queen of the Night aria listening to or viewing many times discussion on Mozarts life students create a chart comparing and contrasting cultural influences students RECOMPOSE the Queen of the Night aria by changing melody, texture, style, etc. the new arias are performed discussion about their effectiveness students present their arias in public performance attend a performance of The Magic Flute.

In my opinion, no music learning has occurred during this sequence and students have been presented with a task which sets all but the most experienced and gifted up for failure as the composing tasks assumes detailed knowledge about score reading chord analysis (do they have to deduce these aurally?) orchestration melody reading skills arranging skills (notation included?) knowledge of genre understanding of German and ability to translate to English performance skills to sing and perform an aria (even re-written)

Before I can ask a student to rewrite Mozarts Queen of the Night aria for a performance by Madonna, I have to ensure that the group has the background knowledge and skills required. If I simply provide some class-room instruments, software, and stationery, hoping the backwards and forwards process of real thinking (Gibbony, 1987, p.50) will produce a quality rock arrangement of a classical masterwork, I am irresponsibly kidding myself and my students. No amount of collaboration will produce a musical arrangement if learners have been denied access to the acquisition of the skills the task requires. Young people are not insensitive to false praise. Being quite au fait with rock music by experience, they will quickly realize that what they have produced will not be on Madonnas playlist for her next world tour.

A well-known concept of motivational theory states that learners will be motivated to strive if they believe that effort can make a difference to outcome (Dweck 2006). A purely constructivist/experimental approach to such a complex task will condemn those without a relevant skill background to failure and let those who happen to have had the social or financial capital available to provide music lessons, succeed. The success will have nothing at all to do with the teacher or the programme. The success will, however, be unjustly interpreted as innate talent and demotivate all those who were set up to fail by a teacher who could not, or would not, teach the skills necessary before setting such a complex task or amend the task to suit the skill level of high school students.

Abrahams also feels that if students do not have the skills to notate their compositions, thats okay (p.65). No mention is made of the possibility of perhaps teaching them how to notate their ideas. Is it really okay if students leave our programmes illiterate in the discipline they have studied?

Knowledge (in the form of literacy) is power.

If teachers do not teach for subject specific literacy in the Arts, they will not empower students to become intelligent consumers of Art, much less creative producers of the same.

Pulittzer prize winning author Thomas L. Friedman wrote The World is Flat in 2006 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux) and in it highlighted the following future-proofing attitudes which employers had nominated as essential: ability to learn how to learn; possession of passion and curiosity; being able to play well with others; and right-brain qualities such as artistry, empathy, vision, creativity.Music teacher Aimee Beckmann-Collier (2009) wrote a response to Friedman in which she pointed out that

Many students leave high school unable to effectively read pitch and rhythmic notation with sufficient facility to learn how to learn music independently. More likely, they leave high school able only to sing or play their part for whatever number of pieces they learned. They do not possess the fundamental musician- ship skills necessary to learn music on their own. In other words, they have not learned how to learn.(Beckmann-Collier, 2009, p294)Programs in which students learn how to count accurately and read pitch notation in the context of becoming independent musicians are helping them to learn how to learn for a lifetime. Implementation of the Kodly method, emphasis on singing in instrumental ensembles, and use of hand-sign solfge in choral rehearsals, taught in a logical, sequential manner in which students are led to appreciate the struggle and the joy of becoming independent and engaged musicians, are examples of teaching toward the goal of helping students learn how to learn. (Beckmann-Collier, 2009, p294)Specifically her article supports the notion of intentionally teaching for skill development in order to affect the qualities Friedmann suggests:Beckmann-Collier (2009, p.29) cites the Kodaly method as an example of teaching towards the goal of helping students learn how to learn and chamber music, sectionals, and singing inn ensemble as the way toward teaching authentic collaboration (2009, p.28). Students who have the benefit of a teacher who is prepared to plan learning experiences that are sequential and skill-oriented will be able to participate ever more competently in these types of musical activities; as a result, right-brain qualities such as artistry, empathy, vision, creativity develop through successful engagement.

Friedmann cites the instance of the Georgia Institute of Technology, whose president G.Wayne Clough (1994-2008) decided that the best engineers were not those who could solve the calculus equation better than anyone else, but those who were creative, interesting, multi-dimensional thinkers. Clough noticed that a disproportionate number of the most talented students were those who were interested and active in creative endeavours. As a result, Georgia Tech changed its admission policies, specifically recruiting excellent students who in addition to possessing good grades also had ensemble music experiences in high school (cited in Beckman-Collier, p.28). Unfortunately it seems that the literature critiquing Intentional Instruction (as exemplified by Madeline Hunter and specifically Kodaly) believes that creative and multi-dimensional thinkers can be created without the input of people who are experts both of subject matter and pedagogy.

The National Curriculum for the Arts

Madeline Hunter and others who have been discussed promote professional decision making by classroom teachers with respect to 1. What students should know 2. What students should be able to do with the knowledge and 3. How teacher and students are going to go about moving towards that place.

The National Curriculum for The Arts as proposed by ACARA does not specify any of the above. Instead, it relegates the arts to an ill-defined nether region, ostensibly leaving decisions about time allocation to individual schools while ordering that whatever little time is found must be shared among the creative art forms. Giving the increased time demands for mathematics, History, Geography and English, which this curriculum also demands, students are denied any opportunity to build skill in an Arts area. The arts carousel is the best way to kill of the Arts in schools altogether as a cursory, experimental, fleeting visit to each art form will result in disengaged students who believe that they just dont have the talent. Their frustration as they struggle in vain to participate meaningfully and competently in an art form will fail and their conclusion will be that the skill is probably impossible to learn, difficult and boring. Students will not choose to pursue the arts in senior classes and administrators will conclude that The Arts are just not popular anymore and will cut funding accordingly and thus the political purpose of making sure education is securely based on utilitarian outcomes is served. Friedman will have to wait for the curious, passionate and intelligent Lebensknstler [footnoteRef:3] he sees shaping our future for a while yet. [3: Lebensknstler.- a German word which connotes a person who approaches life with the zest and inspiration of an artist, although he or she may not be working recognizably as an artist.]

ACARA sees the five arts curriculum areas - Dance, Drama, Media Arts, Music and Visual Arts- as distinct but related(ACARA The Arts Curriculum Foundation 10, p3). The document does not describe this relationship further. In this literature review we have seen that there are distinct differences between various areas of the arts (Zupan 1991), particularly between performing and visual arts and further between aurally orientated and visually or movement orientated arts. The contention that there is a particular connection between the arts is spurious and can only refer to the aesthetic component they share. This aspect was discussed in detail above and is seen as educationally weak.Combining The Arts and making the curriculum accessible to the generalist teacher will undoubtedly save money. This, however, is a saving which impacts on the equity of arts/music learning opportunity in our State, where, thus far, every child had the opportunity to be taught by a qualified musician (for example) and develop significant practical skills (both aurally and instrumentally) which opened the doors for an authentic lifelong engagement with music as a performer or audience member.

Confusingly, the curriculum recognized the special status of Music later on in the document as not having a direct relationship with the other Arts (p.19). Drama, Visual Arts and Media, make use of our common language (English) for communication. Music however, has its own language, which must first of all be experience and learned before it can be used successfully and authentically in a creative context. The preamble acknowledges this by stating that: Learning the language, skill, techniques, processes and knowledge of each Arts subject is sequential and cumulative. (ACARA 2012, p.3)

The way that this draft curriculum is organized lacks indication as to how levels of achievement are to be arrived at. I am left wondering how a generalist teacher will achieve aims such as:By the end of Year 4, students sing and play music demonstrating pitch and rhythmic accuracy, when the only stated learning activity which may lead to this outcome is in 4.4 Practising music to develop skills in singing and playing by EXPLORING and TRIALLING sound possibilities, working together to sing in tune, keep in time and listen carefully to blend their sound with other[emphasis mine].(ACARA, 2012, p.100)

The pitch and rhythm accuracy do not develop by exploration and/or trial. Like the ability to speak well, it depends on much excellent modelling and/or explicit teaching. Students may have had these in their family or cultural background, but they may not have. This is not an equitable road into musicianship because it relies too heavily on students being lucky enough to come from a certain cultural background. If families do not read at home, reading development will be hampered, if families do not speak well, language skills will be hampered we know this and we address these difficulties carefully in our curricula. We train our teachers well in order to facilitate the equitable teaching of reading and language. We explicitly teach our students how to do these things in our schools. Equally, if families do not sing and/or dance, children will not be able to sing or dance unless we teach them. Is the generalist teacher able (or confident enough) to provide an excellent model?

The content descriptors in this draft curriculum do not offer a sequential pathway for skill development, despite the encouraging mention of sequential development in the preamble of the document. The draft curriculum tests childrens cultural and economic background in terms of what musical knowledge they are able to demonstrate in the classroom. It does not provide a sequential strategy for (particularly the generalist) teacher, which might give all children equitable access to this knowledge. The draft curriculum at present is focused on childrens cultural capital, not teacher skill. This is unacceptable and makes a mockery of recent and legitimate emphases on thorough teacher training. In order to ensure equitable provision of arts education, the curriculum should outline specific skill sequences in every Arts subject, particularly if it is envisioned that these areas be taught by non-specialists. At present, the draft document seems to expect skills to appear due to natural talent or rely on cultural and economic circumstances of a students home environment.

ACARAS rationale for learning Music encouragingly speaks about intention. The rationale refers to the fact that Music enables students to listen with intent. In fact this statement needs to be corrected to read musicianship enables students to listen with intent (ACARA, 2012, p.91). Music itself does no such thing. Developing listening skills enables listening with intent.

Finally, the draft syllabus features a lack of regard for embedded content knowledge and skills, while foregrounding personal emotional responses. While it is important to include the formation of authentic and intelligent personal responses, these will not be possible unless one has first acquired the tools for aural analysis and then listened with intent.

Conclusion

In my literature review I was not able to discover many examples of extended and well-argued examples of professional discourse about either Intentional Teaching or arts pedagogy. Publications tend to address one particular philosophical or theoretical perspective and only rarely give voice to an opposing or contrasting point of view. Careful, respectful and nuanced discussion of important concepts seems to become lost in political and ideological entrenchment. Instead of a jostling for intellectual or philosophical superiority, a desire for a real understanding would support our (surely) shared aim to identify the implications of content, challenges, extensions, redefinitions, and the refocusing of arts education as it is presented to us in the incoming National Curriculum. Each of the teaching approaches I reviewed briefly comes with its own set of problems, yet the analysis of these in the context of classroom experience was shallow at best. If it is the continued standing of arts education, as an academically valuable addition to students education, that we have at heart, our discussion needs to become less partisan, less panicked and more deeply thoughtful.

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