Utilizing the Tropical Rainforest in Teaching Music and Art - Assignment Example

Utilizing the Tropical Rainforest in Teaching Music and Art Utilizing the Tropical Rainforest in teaching Music and Art is the best method in improving the performance of the young learners (Schoen, 2004). The emphasis on the sustained striving for improvement by expert performers may sound reminiscent of the arguments traditionally associated with motivational speakers advocating self-improvement. Both approaches agree that individuals tend to underestimate their achievement potential and that the first step in initiating change through training and practice requires that individuals are convinced that they are capable of attaining their new goals. Beyond that, the resemblance is superficial. For example, in using Tropical Rainforest, where motivational speakers tend to be rather general about which attributes can be improved, accounts in terms of deliberate practice are limited to domains of expertise with reproducible superior performance (Ericsson, 1996) The complexity of these acquired mechanisms is consistent with the finding that not even the most “talented” can reach an international level of performance in less than a decade of dedicated practice. In music, the Tropical Rainforest is a great topic because, most certainly in absolute music, this problem does not arise, at least not in the same way. Pure music is not a representation of anything; it does not attempt to represent a person, place or thing. It represents only the specific, concrete, particular values it embodies by virtue of its unique nature (Haydon, 2004). The individual's enjoyment of music, therefore, depends upon his capacity to respond adequately to the specifically musical values embodied in the particular musical composition. It depends upon sensitivity to sound, and especially to sound presented in a tonal rhythmic pattern. In the processes of individual, social, and cultural evolution, the sense of hearing has come to provide a channel for a unique type of enjoyment--the enjoyment of music. The physical laws governing the vibratory motions of pulsating bodies resulting in sounds and the physio-psychological laws governing the response of the organism to these physical "disturbances in the air" known as sounds, have given rise to a remarkable and unique form of art--the art of music. But the enjoyment of music involves more than merely auditory sensation; it involves tactile, kinaesthetic, and somatic responses that reach throughout the whole organism, manifested in glandular changes, bodily movements and attendant emotional reactions (Mowrer, 2000). Because music sounds the way moods or emotions feel, because auditory patterns of sound get translated into patterns of feeling, music becomes a deeply moving art. The National Primary Strategy The level 4 Key Stage 2Strategy of the National Primary Strategy, launched in 2001, was less prescriptive and sought to help teachers understand the implications for good practice, rather than telling them how to 'teach by numbers' (Carnie et al, 1996). Since 2002, there is a new emphasis on innovation, networks, and 'value added' data on school performance. According to the Education Department, the objective of the said strategy is to reform the teaching methods for the primary school and this is called the Excellence and Enjoyment. The term enjoyment is defined as significant in highlighting creativity and assessment for learning (rather than assessment of learning). 'Transformation', rather than simply 'reform', had become the keynote of change, which now included an emphasis on structural change in the way schools are organized (Carnie, 2002). The Education Department had focused its attention to teaching and learning along with the need for system-wide reform. There are Core-Principles that set out the learner-centered method to education that most teachers and researchers would support. The emphasis had now moved to engaging pupils in powerful, social learning experiences in schools where the leadership is focused on teaching and learning (Gatto, 1992). In this context it should become possible for targets and to inform and enrich, rather than drive the learning process (Hargreaves, 200 and Hargreaves 2002). The main goal to achieve in this stage is to follow the six areas of the learning curriculum of the students: language and literacy, mathematics and numeracy, Arts, The World Around Us, Personal Development and Mutual Understanding and Physical Education. The Foundation Subjects According to the theory of Howard Gardner, neither seems to adequately encompass the breadth of domains typically considered in discussions of multiple intelligences and neither captures the even broader range of intelligences discussed in this volume (Tooley et al, 2003 and Tooley, 2000). Gardner's theory is highly regarded; neither would adequately address the broad range of multiple intelligences. For instance, most of social, emotional, socio-political, and cultural intelligence would all be subsumed fewer than two of Gardner's categories: interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence (Woodhead, 2002). In the foundation subjects like Humanities and Design and Technology, it is far too early in research on multiple intelligences to expect an integrated framework or theory. In fact, within domains of intelligence there is little agreement among. Another reason that an integrating framework for multiple intelligences may be premature is the fact that a great deal of important work is being done that has direct implications for multiple intelligences research, but it is not recognized as such (Brighouse, 1996 and Brighouse et al, 1999). Gardner’s theory is most familiar with work that may constitute some of the components of emotional intelligence. For example, researchers in Humanities have for decades attempted to define, isolate, and measure particular behavior of the people inside a particular society, these behaviors are important components of the “ability model” of emotional intelligence presented in this volume and elsewhere. Likewise, emotion researchers have focused on emotion regulation, also a presumed component of emotional intelligence (Greany and Rodd, 2003). In addition, personality and social psychologists have conducted extensive work on empathic accuracy, which overlaps with both emotional and social intelligence, as does the concept of interpersonal acumen described in this volume. Similarly, Snyder's construct of self-monitoring, the ability to monitor and control one's social behavior seems applicable to the social intelligence-based role-playing skill required of effective leaders (Senge, 2000). It seems productive to incorporate much of this work into definitions and conceptualizations of both social and emotional intelligence if we are to truly understand the complexity of this domain of intelligence (Schoen, 2004). SATs The implementation of the National Primary Strategy, the government’s objective is offer different and necessary opportunities for the many in need students in the city academies sited thoughtfully in deprived urban areas aim to offer new opportunities for deprived children to learn in dynamic settings (Ericsson, 2002). There is, however, a downside to virtual markets in education: they distort learning, exacerbate failure among struggling schools and erode the foundations of local democracy (Haydon, 2004). In regards to SATs, though, originally intended to stimulate learning - are now used chiefly as the external indicators of a school's success. They provide 'price tags' for parents. This approach to testing discourages pupil achievement and provides parents with a potentially misleading picture of the quality of the school. In the presence of the National Primary Strategy, SAT can be abolished, because this may only result to distorted learning. Summary and Analysis The complex integrated structure of expert performance raises many issues about how these structures can be gradually acquired and perfected over time (Mowrer, 2000). It appears that teachers start guiding skill development from a child's initial introduction to training. The teacher knows the appropriate sequencing of skills and can provide training assignments of a challenging, yet attainable, difficulty level (Naidu, 2003). Equally important, the teacher knows the future challenges at the highest levels and can therefore insist on mastery of the fundamentals during development to avoid the need for relearning at advanced levels. However, the best teachers in the world can never successfully train students without their full cooperation and active participation in the learning process (Powys, 2003). At all levels of performance, students who have representations supporting their planning, reasoning, and evaluation of the actual and intended performance will be better able to make appropriate adjustments to their complex skill. This advantage becomes absolutely essential at higher levels of achievement. Given that deliberate practice involves mastering tasks that students could not initially attain, or only attain imperfectly or unreliably, it is likely that more successful students acquire representations to support problem solving and learning through planning and analysis (Whitebread, 2003). Consequently, the faster learning of “talented” students might be explained by individual differences in acquired representations supporting effective learning. Why would so many individuals engage in the strenuous, concentration-demanding activities of deliberate practice regularly over years and decades, when the research shows that the relaxed comfort zone provides the mood-enhancing effects of exercise and the states of high enjoyment associated with “flow” or the “runners' high”? An important part of the answer lies in their instrumentality: They offer the means to attaining superior performance with its many associated rewards and benefits, such as social recognition, relationships with teachers, playful interactions with like-minded peers, travel, scholarships and occupational opportunities, and the other benefits associated with improved performance (Ericsson, 2002). The myth that hard work at the start will enable one to coast into future success is not supported by the evidence, and it most likely reflects confusion between merely maintaining a performance at a high level and continued further improvement of performance. In fact, as an individual's performance level improves, the demand for effort to further improve performance remains high. In support of this claim, the rated level of effort during training is greater, not less, for elite athletes than it is for amateurs. From the perspective of deliberate practice, the rarity of excellence is primarily attributable to the environmental conditions necessary for its slow emergence, and to the years required to develop the complex mediating mechanisms that support expertise. Even individuals considered to have natural gifts gradually attain their elite performance by engaging in extended amounts of designed deliberate practice over many years. Until ordinary individuals recognize that sustained effort is required to reach expert performance, they will continue to misattribute lesser achievement to lack of natural gifts, and thus will fail to reach their own potential. 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(Ed.), 2003, Teaching and Learning in the Early Years, New York, Routledge, Falmer. Woodhead, Chris, 2002, Class War: The State of British Education, Little, Brown, London. Read More