Education has always been something that truly fascinated me. I remember being 6 years old, sitting my 3 year old sister in front of my chalkboard and pretending to teach her how to do addition. For as long as I can remember, my goal has always been "to become a teacher". Needless to say, walking in and sitting down into a course called "Introduction to Music Education" which put together two of my favourite things (music and teaching), I was absolutely bursting with excitement. I remember leaving the class with the biggest smile on my face. I was so excited! We were talking about all these different aspects that go into teaching, I was ecstatic to share my ideas and learn so many different facets of teaching.
Though, as the course has gone along, I have found myself getting stuck on certain aspects of the class that have been difficult for me to work through. The first of which would definitely be how I am allowed to speak in the class. More often than not, I feel like I can't say anything. I understand the idea of a "supportive language" which fosters deeper discussion, and conversation that isn't self centred. However, I find that in the classroom, I am inhibited from saying anything at all. Over the past few weeks, more and more things have been barred from us that we aren't allowed to say. Some that bother me the most is the idea that we can't agree or disagree with what people are saying.
We learned in class that we aren't supposed to say "I agree" to a fellow classmate because it invalidates how they feel or what their ideas are by taking their thought and turning it into your own by agreeing with it. However, in my opinion, I would much rather have someone agree with me than not say anything at all. I feel like by taking the statement "I agree" away from our vocabulary, we've all been left to simply say "okay". Personally, it feels like no one understands what I'm talking about or how I feel, which is extremely discouraging; especially when I'm talking about things I'm very passionate about.
Similarly, I don't really understand why we're not allowed to disagree with each other. I remember one time we were having a class discussion, and I disagreed with something someone else said and I was told that we shouldn't disagree with each other's opinions. However, this doesn't make sense to me. If we're asked to think deeply and profoundly, how else do we do that besides challenging what other people say? I don't mean to disagree to hurt the other person, but rather challenge their ideology in order to discuss and understand ideas I don't necessarily understand or agree with. Isn't this idea similar to the "problematizing" we talked about in class?
Lastly, one other thing that's been inhibiting my understanding of the course so far this semester is I feel like anything I say doesn't really have meaning. We discuss as a class, and I feel like whenever somebody throws out an idea to the class, it completely gets derailed. We end up talking about things completely different than what my peers were talking about, and I don't understand how we get there. It's as though there's already a structure to what we are learning for the day, and anything that isn't part of that plan gets ignored, which is really sad for me, because I know a lot of my peers have great, interesting ideas, but I feel like we never get to talk about them.
Overall, there are some great things happening in the class. I like being asked to think more deeply, because it challenges everything I thought I knew, helps me realize I don't really know as much as I thought I did, and then allows me to learn more about education, which is something the course is supposed to do. For me, we've hit a few bumps in the road that I don't really understand, as I've laid out above. I'm hoping as the semester goes on and I become more familiar with the framework of the class it will make more sense to me, but until then, there's still a learning curve that I feel separates me, my peers, and true, profound learning.