Abstract
The narrative of music education is both real and imaginary. Real, in that events happen and are recorded. These events, though, are filled with coexisting and contradictory possibilities, presenting conflicting versions. Consequently, in the process of choosing what to tell and how to tell our story, a moralising authority imposes an ordering, separating real from imaginary which tends to frame a solution and resolution. In this chapter the author investigates “narration sickness” in music education as one that presumes legitimacy to be that of the narrating subject of method and efficiency (functional literacy), of sequential layering, linear development (step-by-step repetition of events) and suggests that this discourse has not only tied music education to particular social functions, but has locked us into a fairy tale story that has a mythical origin, a middle, and, someday, a vague, and unarticulated, happy ending.
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Notes
- 1.
For more details see the U.S. National Standards documents in the following disciplines which can be found online: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, National Council of Teachers of English, National Science Education Standards, National Standards for History.
- 2.
A quick web search for lessons that integrate music and literacy, music and mathematics, music and language arts/phonics produce around 5,960,000 examples.
- 3.
The Arizona Department of Corrections website (www.adc.state.az.us) provides many links to educational programs.
- 4.
- 5.
Indeed, the University of North Texas (http://unt.edu/) Mariachi program has been in existence since 2003, and has succeeded in improving reciprocal relations between the community and the university by valuing the cultures students bring rather than imposing university values and culture. See also (among others) the University of Washington and University of Idaho.
- 6.
One need only search the terms “music advocacy,” or “benefits of music” to discover several websites that include lists of reasons (founded or not) in praise of an education in music.
- 7.
For example, as this book goes to press, several websites can be found that circulate the Petition for Equal Access to Music Education.
- 8.
Jorgensen made this comment during her presentation at the 2008 Second International Conference on Narrative Inquiry in Music Education.
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Benedict, C. (2012). Refusing Narratives: Functional Literacy and Determinism. In: Barrett, M., Stauffer, S. (eds) Narrative Soundings: An Anthology of Narrative Inquiry in Music Education. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0699-6_16
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