Movement, Music and Musicality

The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown: – John Keats

Isn’t it . . .

interesting that bird-song has charmed the hearts of explorers the world over?

sensational how people are stirred to dance when they hear lively music?

touching how music can arouse memories of past events otherwise long forgotten?

profound that some melodies, still popular today, were played so long ago their origins have been forgotten?

curious how some forms of music can affect the function of the brain?

remarkable that nations burst into song as a symbol of solidarity in moments of triumph or disaster?

intriguing that all over the globe, mothers murmur, coo and sing to their newborn children who, at only a few days old, will invariably respond by listening or vocalising?

An ancient practice

Archaeological remains of flute-like instruments suggest that music must have been known and practiced as far back as 10,000 BC.

The fragmentary physical remains of musicianship represent a mere trace of the significance that music may have played in the lives of the people of those Palaeolithic times. One can only surmise that singing would also have been a component of that music. Perhaps it may well have been customary thousands of years before that era.

Music has an amazing power to bring people together. Legend tells us that Apollo initiated the earliest festivals of music and poetry around 6^th century BC. Cultural elements of these arts became part of the festivity of the Pythian Games.

Musicality

Dancing and music have been major components of cultures from time immemorial. Yet only in recent years has musicality been considered to be of key importance to communication and to human development.

We live in an environment that’s steeped in rhythm and movement. If all musical devices including radio, TV, CD and DVD drives, and the Internet were mysteriously to cease to function, the rhythmical component of our day-to-day lives would still make a significant contribution to the musicality of the environment we are in.

Just take a walk to the corner shop and listen to the rhythm and timbre of the sound of your footstep. Or lie still in a quiet room and sense the dull throb of your heartbeat. You become aware of the leisurely tempo of your own sibilant breathing.

It may be you overhear a conversation between neighbours in the street outside, voices too faint for you to make out the words. The patterns in their speech are familiar. You may even recognise a voice from its rhythm and pitch. A bird utters its warbling chronicle from a distant perch. You recognise the call of a songthrush.

New Zealand Emeritus Professor

In today's Radio NZ interview by Gordon Harcourt, New Zealander Colwyn Trevarthen, child psychologist and Emeritus Professor at Edinburgh University, explains the recent and not so recent researches on the mother and child relationship.

He tells of the major contribution brought to that relationship through the musicality of vocal interaction. The endearing conversation of parent and baby is a musical symphony. Babies are very attentive to the ritual of these interactions and take part by actively contributing through their own movement and vocalisation. He talks of recent studies that show an exact similarity of mother and baby communication to jazz music, in terms of the structural dynamics of rhythm and pitch.

Bridging the communication gap, well known in the study of autistic conditions, is made possible through music. Trevarthen introduces, through example, how communication with an autistic child can be initiated through the skilled use of rhythm.

Complexity in motion

Trevarthen describes the motion of the human body as polyrhythmic.
It is complex owing to the ability to stand on two feet with independent movement of legs, arms and hands.

He likens the complexity of the extravagant gestures of the human body to the structure of human thought.

People are as individual in the way they move as they are in the way they use speech patterns to communicate. Movement and dance, speech and speech patterns all contribute to a musicality that’s unique to the human form.

His idea on the origin of language, through the musicality of human interaction, is one that challenges traditional theories of the origin of speech.

The 34 minute interview was broadcast today, Saturday, 11 July 2009.



A Green Pen Society contribution

Curiosity and Learning

“We are all born with an innate need to learn so as to make sense of, and learn from, our experiences. The question is why do so many students lose this natural disposition?" – Bruce Hammonds

Bruce Hammonds’ opening statement and question in his recent post What do we all need to be lifelong learners? made me wonder why the mechanism for learning is there in the first place.

While I don’t entirely disagree with his supposition about the innateness of learning, I question the innateness of a need to make sense of experiences the way he suggests.

One way of rationalising the existence of the learning mechanism is that it evolved for survival. Learning what's good to eat and what's not so good would certainly assist with this. Learning to recognise dangerous situations as well as environments that are safe for settling for the night, or for raising offspring, would likewise tend towards a continued existence.

These abilities to learn are innate, and it is understandable how they may have arisen through evolution. But learning from experience, as an innate tendency, is less of a drive to want to learn. It is more a mechanism for survival. To have a drive to learn needs more than just instinct. It needs curiosity – a compelling urge to want to find out.


Curiosity killed the cat


That ‘curiosity killed the cat’ is well known. In order to seek a learning experience, one needs the drive of the explorer, a curiosity that might be associated with a bohemian tendency to stray away from the safety of the pack.

Curiosity is not always good for survival, however, and it could well be why this trait is not so prominent in some as in others. Part of the curiosity that humans display at an early age can get discouraged by parental action, justified by the idea that curiosity may incur danger.

But, curiosity coupled with a keen tendency to learn is what all teachers look for in their students. At first sight, the characteristics of curiosity and learning appear to oppose one another when it comes to survival.

A complement to learning?

Could it be that curiosity evolved as a feature complementary to the development of the learning mechanism? Curiosity certainly seems to stimulate learning in the young child. Several education principles encourage curiosity at an early age, advocating that it permits the unimpeded development of the child.

Though curiosity may be thought of as being instinctive, it has an almost random aspect to it that makes it different from many other mammalian characteristics. This complex quality of curiosity prevents it from being categorised as a true instinct. It is not innate in the traditional sense, for it is neither a behaviour that’s learnt, nor is it necessarily influenced by the environment.

A strategy for finding out?

What can trigger curiosity, however, is a stimulus that suggests the existence of something unknown. Just watch a cat when it senses movement in a clump of long grass. In situations like this, the creature becomes engaged in a series of actions that appear to be strategies for finding out.

The curiosity that’s experienced by scientists, explorers and the like, and that drives them to search into the unknown, is often stimulated through chance observation. Yet the conscious act of being curious when these situations arise does not occur in these people by chance.

Curiosity and creativity

The importance of curiosity to creativity is implicit. Creativity is a curiosity to explore innovative thought. Curiosity is also important to those who are lifelong learners. It is what drives them to continue learning.

Might it be that the ability to be curious or creative cannot be imparted to everyone? Or are these abilities that should be encouraged at all ages, so that their occurrence in each individual, however scant, can be best put to use in learning throughout life?

Could it be that it’s not ability to learn that’s lost in the young as they progress through school, but the curiosity that drives them to learn that is suppressed?

I affirm Ken Robinson’s opinion that schools can kill creativity.

eTeaching? eLearning? What’s the Difference?

Last term I overheard a teacher conversation on pedagogy:

“It’s all about learning. You don’t talk about teaching anymore.”

I wondered about this. I thought, ‘what am I doing if I’m not teaching?’

It didn’t take me long to sort out the conundrum. It was to do with the perception of a teacher ‘filling jugs’ with learning. I’d never accepted this metaphor. I’d always believed that teaching was closer to learning than the metaphor suggested.

The conversation progressed and centred on the teacher:

courtesy Make Beliefs Comix

There was an involved discussion before some resolution was found on the difference between knowing when something was taught, and recognising if something had been learnt.

Learning is explicitly to do with the learner. Isn’t teaching to do with the learner? Is there a difference between what’s taught and what’s learnt?

This post is about these two related spheres: teaching and learning.

How do you find out what’s already been learnt?

A good teacher asks questions. In introducing a new topic, searching questions are put to the learner to see what resident knowledge and skills abound. In doing this, the teacher may well find out what, if anything, is required to be taught.

It could be that parts have already been learnt. In which case, this exploratory conversation can serve as useful revision. It may also serve as an appropriate introduction to the next part of a lesson.

So it is (and should be) with elearning. By embracing the function of asking questions during an introductory part of a topic, the learner is permitted to establish where competency lies. Opportunity to tackle any associated learning deficiencies can be offered at this stage. Once a compatible group of competencies has been recognised, a learner should then be able to progress swiftly to the next sphere of learning.

How do you know when something's been taught?

The direct presentation of raw information in text or other visual data is so often confused with teaching. Coloured pictures, animations or videos, however well designed and accompanied by notes or other instruction, do not constitute teaching when displayed on their own.

So much more is needed to engage the learner, and to satisfy a learning objective through this engagement. The key to engagement is to ask questions or otherwise provide opportunities for the learner to participate.

There should be a pedagogical progression, interposed by strategic and appropriate occasions for the learner to take part in dialogue about what’s gone before. Exemplary answers are given if and when they’re needed. This so-called formative assessment achieves a number of things relevant to learning:

1. assists the learner to think about the topic in context
   
   
2. provides additional teaching for a learner who may not yet have grasped all of an idea or concept
   
   
3. can confirm, and give the learner confidence, that learning is happening
   

So often in an elearning environment, less confident learners can be on track, yet be unaware of their own capabilities. Formative assessment can assist the able learner by providing assurance that what they have assimilated is aligned with the learning objective.

• Through questions and associated dialogue a teacher can affirm that something has been taught; it must not be confused with what is learnt.

How do you know what’s taught has been learnt?

In the classroom, a series of questions making up a summative test, together with associated perfunctory aural questioning, can be used to establish the extent of knowledge and skill uptake.

Assessing some skills may require the learner to visibly demonstrate the extent of their expertise. This may not be easily achieved in a written test. Practical skills require the learner to manipulate equipment or make observations from these or to do both.

In elearning, summative assessment can be just as involved. The use of videos, so that the learner can demonstrate a skill, such as playing a musical instrument or speaking a language, can be part of summative assessment. Where appropriate, these are incorporated into NCEA assessments of distance learners in New Zealand.

There is an art in designing elearning resources, as there is in teaching.
Learning and good teaching are in balance with one another.

When the student is ready, the master appears – Zen proverb

New Strategies? New Skills? A Big Question

Tony Karrer’s Big Question for July has a syntax that’s almost rhetorical: New Skills and Knowledge for Learning Professionals?

Does he suggest that, perhaps, there is nothing new in that field?
Or is he genuinely asking for innovative ideas on what skills learning professionals should have?

I couldn’t help thinking how taken aback I was at Tony’s reaction to one of my last month’s posts. I’d rattled it off almost like an email reply. When he said he had to walk through it and take notes, he got me thinking about what I’d written. I went back and read it through to check that he was talking about the same post. The first bullet in the closing list on attaining proficiency read:

• identify the required base-knowledge/skills, foster strategies for these to be recognised as key, and provide avenues for their appropriate acquisition and practice

That’s all very simply put in a bullet. It’s the unpacking of what’s bulletised that I think Tony’s after when he asks his Big Question.
In thinking of the complexity of what is embraced in that bullet, a plethora of other lists, schemes and recent and not-so-recent ideas came to mind.

I often take a backward look at Bloom’s Taxonomy, for instance.


New skills?

If the above heirarchy of thinking skills is of any use to the young learner, it must surely be useful in some form to a professional who is still learning. Aren’t we all supposed to be lifelong learners? Isn’t that what our glorious learning journeys are all meant to be about?

Just because the so-called lower-order-thinking-skills are fundamental to the others in the list does not mean that they’re to be neglected once the higher skills are attained. You may as well forget about tyre maintenance and just see to the fine tuning of a car engine before setting off on a long drive. When it comes to traction and treads, there are always new developments in the marketplace. So it is with knowledge in the professional arena.

The fundamentals of learning, understanding and application of knowledge don’t mutate simply because someone has learnt a lot. Why relegate Bloom’s Taxonomy to the classroom? There’s a deal of wisdom there that can be applied to everyday learning in the workplace.

Timely reminders

Often the skilled and knowledgeable person needs to be reminded of some of the strategies that are at their disposal. Knowing what to do, and having the skills to be able to do it, are only part of what a professional needs in order to exercise initiative. The other and most important element is recognising where and when these knowledge and skills can be and should be applied. This takes practice and there’s seldom much time to do this in day-to-day routines.

How people think, and what that thinking is associated with, varies widely from person to person. It’s the context that’s often so important for specific thinking to occur if it's to happen at all. Innovators and naturally creative people rarely need tuition in the elements of how to be innovative or creative. Others new to these skills need relevant and appropriate contexts in order to flex their creativity and innovation.

Whether it is learning to touch-type, finding out how to embed a YouTube video in an announcements page of an LMS, or constructing a new strategy from peer feedback on a project, there needs to be a focus that includes:

• the learner,
  
  
• the relevant application of what’s to be learnt,
  
  
• the available resources for use by the learner, and
  
  
• the time allocated specifically for that up-skilling to happen.

Follow through is essential: that the learner has immediate, relevant and appropriate opportunity to practice what’s been learnt.


Relevant references:

Andrew Churches - Bloom’s (Digital) Taxonomy

http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/file/view/bloom%27s+Digital+taxonomy+v3.01.pdf

UNESCO - Task Force on Education for the Twenty-first Century

http://www.unesco.org/delors/index.html
http://www.unesco.org/delors/fourpil.htm
http://www.unesco.org/delors/delors_e.pdf

Taupo

photo courtesy Jack Allan

Paul C's GPS theme for July is simple: "reflect upon a time when nature provided you with comfort, beauty, or inspiration."

In the centre of North Island, New Zealand, rests one of the world’s largest extinct volcanoes. About 26,500 years ago, the volcano erupted, ejecting over 1,170 cubic kilometres of material.

Over time, a series of smaller eruptions occurred, including the Hatepe eruption in the year 180. It was the most violent eruption of any volcano in recorded history. What remained after that cataclysm was a caldera that filled with water to become what we now know as Lake Taupo.

I visited Lake Taupo with my family in April 2004. We were privileged to stay at my wife’s aunt’s cottage on the northern shore of the lake, literally a stone’s throw from the waterside.

One afternoon, while returning from a walk along the lake shore,
I scribbled a dozen or so lines of verse. Here, after some minor tinkering, is the essence of what I wrote:

Taupo

The land was green once more before the lake
Was deep, its contours filled too well to mark
A place by: layer upon layer of ash-cake.
No bird looped near the waves that scoured the dark
And sintered shore-line. Fire had signed its will
And held its peace. And but for some release
At vents and fumaroles, the land was still,
With Earth and Sky well set to take their ease.
A crystal lake in a crystalline setting;
A billion waves; a billion inheritors.
No way is it a seeing and forgetting;
Truly, it’s a beauty fit for royalty.
Its enriched and well privileged visitors
Stand in awe of Taupo, and bow in fealty!

video and photos courtesy Jack Allan

A Green Pen Society contribution