<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div>On 26 Mar 2009, at 9:51 PM, TIMOTHY SULLIVAN wrote:</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div><br>I will make some blunt statements regarding both teaching and creating art:<div><br></div><div>1. There is no reason to believe that an accomplished artist, regardless of discipline,</div><div>has the ability to teach;</div><div>2. There is no reason to believe that an accomplished teacher, regardless of discipline,</div><div>has the ability to create art;</div><div>3. There is reason to believe that an accomplished artist, who is also a trained teacher,</div><div>or an accomplished teacher, who is also a trained artist, will have the ability to both</div><div>teach and create art.</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I am a composer, and had good teachers and bad teachers. I also studied with accomplished artists and people of modest accomplishment. </div><div><br></div><div>I can say, unreservedly, that studying with a poor teacher of modest accomplishment is a waste of time. </div><div><br></div><div>I can say, unreservedly, that a poor teacher who is an accomplished artist is someone from whom one can learn a great deal -- if nothing else, to have contact with and the opportunity to ask questions of someone of stature.</div><div><br></div><div>Of course, the best are the good teachers who also are accomplished artists.</div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><div>Pedagogy is the craft of teaching. It is, I believe, a craft that should be learned/practised</div><div>by any/all those who would present themselves professionally as teachers, whether of piano, composition, music theory, music education or any other discipline.</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div>Perhaps the argument is with the way that pedagogy curricula are currently formed (at least, for me, in the US, as my knowledge of pedagogy curricula in other countries is non-existent).<br><blockquote type="cite"><div><div><br></div><div>Composition is both craft and art. The Craft involves much more than melody writing, counterpoint or orchestration, and the Art involves much more than analysis, imitation and experiment. Above all, the TEACHING of composition requires someone who is both artist and teacher, who can organise, integrate and elucidate a course of instructional</div><div>experience for the student that systematically develops craft whilst scaffolding artistic</div><div>expression. This is indeed rare. For most students this is very much a "hit and miss" process,</div><div>with many of the gaps that remain after the "Bachelor" or "Masters" degree, having to be filled in (or not) through self-study and through fortuitous discovery once they begin to "teach"</div><div>others themselves.</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Is it possible that courses in pedagogy will not help someone become a good teacher, no matter how well organized their course of instruction?</div><div><br></div><div>I recommend a New Yorker article (Dec 15, 2008) by Malcolm Gladwell, "Most Likely to Succeed"</div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/12/15/081215fa_fact_gladwell">http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/12/15/081215fa_fact_gladwell</a></div><div><br></div><div>Here is a key paragraph:</div><div><br></div><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000">A group of researchers—Thomas J. Kane, an economist at Harvard’s school of education; Douglas Staiger, an economist at Dartmouth; and Robert Gordon, a policy analyst at the Center for American Progress—have investigated whether it helps to have a teacher who has earned a teaching certification or a master’s degree. Both are expensive, time-consuming credentials that almost every district expects teachers to acquire; neither makes a difference in the classroom. Test scores, graduate degrees, and certifications—as much as they appear related to teaching prowess—turn out to be about as useful in predicting success as having a quarterback throw footballs into a bunch of garbage cans.</font></blockquote><br></div><div>Good teachers have an ability to communicate well, understand students needs, respond effectively to those needs, keep students engaged and excited. These thing might be able to be taught -- but sadly, for the most part, it seems they are not.</div><div><br></div><div>For me, teaching was learned by using my best teachers as models. </div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: -1; ">Do not denigrate "pedagogy". Do not relegate it to "music education" or "music educators",</span></div><div>lest you expose your own ignorance. Those who can teach, do, those who cannot, should</div><div>not.</div></div></blockquote><br></div><div>My experience is that good teachers become good through some combination of background and "natural" ability. They typically are quite good from the very beginning of their teaching careers. None of the best teachers in my past were instructed in pedagogy -- and some of the worst teachers I've seen (colleagues at various institutions) were Education professors. (There were some Education professors who were terrific teachers.) </div><div><br></div><div>My experience is that some kinds of instruction and guidance can improve bad teachers (most typically one-on-one mentoring). That improvement, it seems to me, moves them to the level of being adequate, but never great. And I have heard repeatedly from students of mine who have gone through pedagogy or certification programs that they learned little if anything about teaching from those courses.</div><div><br></div><div>David Froom</div><div>Composer and teacher</div><div>Professor and Chair</div><div>St. Mary's College of Maryland</div></body></html>