The following clip is a scene from Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life. This film follows Serge Gainsbourg, a french music icon, through his upbringing in France, when Nazi’s occupied it, to his rising fame. This scene in particular Serge is found taking on the role as a substitute teacher at a school run by rabbis for orphaned children of murdered victims from the German camps. The animated figure is his alter ego in which his imagination draws from the imagery of anti-Semitism. As a child, Serge was not fond of classical music as he hated learning piano but that did not stop him from heading in a different direction, which happened to be jazz music. Even though Serge grew up in a Jewish family he does not know the music of his culture that well.
What intrigued me about this clip was that despite his lack in knowledge of Yiddish music, he did not force his knowledge on the students. Instead, he tried something that was new to him. Serge also allowed room for creativity with what I assumed was improvisation in their playing. Most importantly, he gave the students control over their own learning material and creativity. I think that it is important to allow the students to have control in their own learning and creativity because it promotes engagement and concentration with the material, which is key to learning music. In my opinion, a lot of music education focuses on the theoretical view of music rather than the expressive view. Students should be able to practice the musicality of their repertoire with little to no help from the teacher so that they can make musical decisions that help develop their own interpretation of the piece. In regards to giving the student more control over the learning material, I think that by allowing the student to choose their own repertoire or choose what or how they learn engages them more in conversations that promotes relationships with their peers.
What intrigued me about this clip was that despite his lack in knowledge of Yiddish music, he did not force his knowledge on the students. Instead, he tried something that was new to him. Serge also allowed room for creativity with what I assumed was improvisation in their playing. Most importantly, he gave the students control over their own learning material and creativity. I think that it is important to allow the students to have control in their own learning and creativity because it promotes engagement and concentration with the material, which is key to learning music. In my opinion, a lot of music education focuses on the theoretical view of music rather than the expressive view. Students should be able to practice the musicality of their repertoire with little to no help from the teacher so that they can make musical decisions that help develop their own interpretation of the piece. In regards to giving the student more control over the learning material, I think that by allowing the student to choose their own repertoire or choose what or how they learn engages them more in conversations that promotes relationships with their peers.
The following clip is a scene from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. In this scene, Dolores Umbridge is hired to teach the Defence Against Dark Arts class. She proceeds to hand out textbooks in which she declares that they will not be using any magic in the classroom due to safety issues. She argues with Harry in a rude manner for he is disagreeing with her teaching methods.
What intrigued me about this clip was that I was in a similar situation in which a teacher argued with me for disagreeing about a fact. I think that it is important to have open communication between the student and teacher. I was taught a certain theoretical element of music and instead of hearing out why or how I had learned that and kindly fixing my mistake, they argued with me about how I was wrong. That lack of communication can destroy the relationship between the student and teacher, which is important to learning and engagement. Music education, in my perspective, is 95% experience and 5% theoretical knowledge. By this I mean that in music you have to experience what you are being taught in order to learn it. When Umbridge declares that they will be using no magic throughout the course, in music education that is equivalent to giving a student a textbook and telling them that they won’t be playing their instrument but rather reading about it in a book.
What intrigued me about this clip was that I was in a similar situation in which a teacher argued with me for disagreeing about a fact. I think that it is important to have open communication between the student and teacher. I was taught a certain theoretical element of music and instead of hearing out why or how I had learned that and kindly fixing my mistake, they argued with me about how I was wrong. That lack of communication can destroy the relationship between the student and teacher, which is important to learning and engagement. Music education, in my perspective, is 95% experience and 5% theoretical knowledge. By this I mean that in music you have to experience what you are being taught in order to learn it. When Umbridge declares that they will be using no magic throughout the course, in music education that is equivalent to giving a student a textbook and telling them that they won’t be playing their instrument but rather reading about it in a book.