Monthly Archives: June 2020

Tech or Classic teaching methods?

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Music can be a conduit for personal development and social growth enhancing the collaboration within a community as well as providing an experience of deep equality. While learning music people can engage totally in the learning journey, simultaneously encountering active listening and total presence. This applies also when teaching the subject. In order for the experience to be fulfilling, it is crucial to engage the students’ attention for the whole length of the session. A balanced misture between enhanced technology into teaching and a more classic delivery, seems to me the most successful method. As ultimately, a teacher aims to create that kind of “flow” within which students can passionately enjoy their journey through education.

For example, at Liveschool, the world’s first music training center that uses exclusively, Ableton Live, the methodology in use foster the creation of news skills while providing student-centered learning experiences, that are designed around the student’s interests and expectations. The simple idea of beginning the lesson working on a song suggested by the student in that very moment, seems to me pretty extraordinary. At the same time, considering to embed in the course curriculum technologies that allow students to learn music from the perspective of a electronic musician and a DJ, it’s as simple as pretty revolutionary nowadays. A true breath of contemporaneity!

In conclusion, I totally agree with the Australian music educator and composer, Richard Gill, OAM, when he says that ultimately education is about getting to opportunity to expand the horizons of your knowledge, learning things one didn’t even know they existed, and developing skills.

Elena Arzani

Technologies in education

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A brief reflection on the integration of technologies in teaching & learning experiences.

Although the 21st century is largely shaped by the massive use of technologies in people’s daily life, the debate around their steady integration within the school curriculum continues to provoke countless considerations.

It’s my personal opinion, that the ramifications of new and developing technologies may assist the student’s experience through learning, providing an enjoyable continuum with their everyday life, yet working as an educational tool allowing more inclusive teaching deliveries, that people of all ages can easily engage with as well as enhancing, or even transforming, student learning. (ref. video: “Northern Beaches Christian School”)

The question is not whether academic institutes should or should not integrate technologies in their curricula, transforming a approaches to teaching/learning context, rather “when” it is appropriate to make use of new and developing technologies, and when it t is important to stick to a more “classic” model of pedagogy. (ref. video: “Music Class at Northern Beaches Christian School”)

The extent to which technology may be utilized can vary on a continuum from slight enhancement to complete transformation of the learning experience. (Music Learning Today: Digital pedagogy for creating, performing, and responding to music – Bauer, 2014)

Bauer presents in his book  Music Learning Today: Digital Pedagogy for Creating, Performing, and Responding to Music a theoretical yet practical approach mainly designed for educators to utilizing technology in music learning, with the scope of broadening technological understanding to take advantage of its affordances to assist students in developing their skills.

Music educators need to be proficient and knowledgeable concerning technological changes and advancements and be prepared to use all appropriate tools in advancing music study while recognizing the importance of people coming together to make and share music. (Madsen, 2000, pp. 219-220)

The philosophical and theoretical rationales are grounded in best practice literature, that trace a coherent connection among music knowledge and skill outcomes, the research on human cognition and music learning, best practices in music pedagogy, and technology.

Brown extends the inquiry to the role played by mobile technologies, social networks, rich media environments, and other technological advances. In his book, Music Technology and Education: Amplifying Musicality, he discusses the social interaction practices, using the internet and other educational technologies.

In conclusion, I agree with Dewey’s philosophical reflections, subject matter never can be got into the child from without. Learning is active, it involves the reaching out of the mind. It involves organic assimilation starting from within. Literally, we must take our stand with the child and our departure from him. Moreover, I see (ref. video: “Kamaroi Rudolf Steiner’s School”) in the Rudolf Steiner’s theory and the Waldorf approach a sustainable pedagogy, that consider the individual as a whole, balancing the implications deriving from the massive contemporary use of technologies.

Elena Arzani

resources:

Music Learning Today: Digital pedagogy for creating, performing, and responding to music – Bauer, 2014

Music Technology and Education: Amplifying Musicality

What if Dewey met the Pink Floyd?

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As Dewey states in his discussion of Art as Experience, “When an art product once attains classic status, it somehow becomes isolated from the human conditions under which it was brought into being and from the human consequences it engenders in actual life-experience.”

It seems that Dewey’s reflection would consider the “erosion” of time in regards to any art product as an agent that corrodes the subject, taking away any emotions, even the memory of it. If this is the case, I would argue that these conditions do not apply, when taking, for instance, about music. During my childhood, I was unable to speak English, although I nurtured a strong passion for the British band Pink Floyd. I spent hours listening to their songs, pervaded by the emotions triggered off by the sounds. Later on, in my twenties, I learnt the English language and by doing that I also gained the chance to understand the Pink Floyd’s lyrics. Funnily enough, I soon discovered how the words were needless somehow, as the music succeeded in sharing their meanings, to the point in which they became a sort of confirmation of the emotions I felt back then.

Dewey’s pointed out that the the aesthetic experience is the interaction of the human being with the environment, a relationship between participants. I would therefore consider the act of listening to the Pink Floyd’s music as a perfect example of aesthetic experience in which more than one person interacts, creating a unity that is essential for the consumption of intellectual, emotional, and somehow “physical” event.

 Nowadays those songs are considered “classics” of the ‘70s, but no one would ever imagine describing them as “isolated from the human conditions under which – they – were brought into being”. On the contrary, the very human experience that suggested their composition has achieved a form of “universal status”, as many people can emotionally rely to their contents and feelings. Therefore, I would conclude that perhaps an art form becoming a classic, might look like a mosquito trapped in amber, in terms that it is indeed isolated from the creator’s feelings, but that is only a consequence of a “magnifying lens” that brings those emotions into a higher status of aesthetic and “universal life-experience”.

Elena Arzani

Kamaroi Rudolf Steiner School and The Waldorf method of teaching

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Waldorf education, also known as Steiner education, is based on the educational philosophy of Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Anthroposophy. Its pedagogy strives to develop pupils’ intellectual, artistic, and practical skills in an integrated and holistic manner. The Waldorf method of teaching is a unique educational strategy which aims to create well-rounded students through a broad curriculum, including academics, art and music education, physical education, and emotional and social education. There are no grades given in a Waldorf elementary school. The aim of Waldorf schooling is to educate the whole child, “head, heart and hands”. The curriculum is as broad as time will allow, and balances academics subjects with artistic and practical activities. The Steiner Education Approach developed a spiritual movement that he called anthroposophy, which is based on the idea that a child’s moral, spiritual and creative sides need as much attention as their intellect. As far as education goes, he strongly believed in the idea of developing the whole person.

At Kamaroi school, The arts are integrated into all learning in the Steiner philosophy and learning is fundamentally student-centered and experiential. One is reminded of the philosopher John Dewey’s thinking, also from the first half of the 20th century. As early as 1902, Dewey wrote, subject matter never can be got into the child from without. Learning is active, it involves the reaching out of the mind. It involves organic assimilation starting from within. Literally, we must take our stand with the child and our departure from him.

Kamaroi uses music in every lesson and has a totally different approach toward the use of technology.

The curriculum itself is a flexible set of pedagogical guidelines, founded on Steiner’s principles that take account of the whole child. It gives equal attention to the physical, emotional, intellectual, cultural and spiritual needs of each pupil and is designed to work in harmony with the different phases of the child’s development. The core subjects of the curriculum are taught in thematic blocks and all lessons include a balance of artistic, practical and intellectual content. Whole class, mixed ability teaching is the norm.

A modern reinterpretation of Steiner pedagogy really fitting into the 21st Century, focus in that the skills of the 21st Century are all about empathy, inventiveness, connection, storytelling. These are the skills that can’t be automated or outsourced easily. So, for children going into this unknown future, to possess those skills enable flexibility in options, and really the ability to contribute in a meaningful way to the future society.

Steiner education has proved itself adaptable. More than 80 years after the first Steiner school was started in central Europe, this education continues to inspire people from all walks of life and in all parts of the world. Steiner schools have a reputation for producing well-rounded and balanced human beings who are able to cope with the demands of a fast-changing and uncertain world. Steiner graduates are highly sought-after in further education and work place for their unjaded interest in the world and their resourcefulness.

The Benefits of Waldorf Education

  • Children enjoy an unhurried childhood. … 
  • Learning is hands-on and age-appropriate. … 
  • In-depth study enriches learning experiences. … 
  • Students learn how to take an active role in their own education. … 
  • Waldorf schools produce well-rounded individuals.

Rudolf Steiner (1861 – 1925) was an innovative academic born in Austria whose ideas founded the basis of Anthroposophy. He applied his ideas to education as well as agriculture, medicine, architecture and social reform. There are relevant analogies between the pedagogical approach of Friedrich Froebel, Maria Montessori, and Rudolf Steiner. These continue to influence the way in which contemporary pedagogy is shaped.

While both Montessori and Waldorf schools believe children need a connection to the environment, they are different in that Montessori focuses on real-life experiences and Waldorf emphasizes the child’s imagination and fantasy. Waldorf schools were founded by Rudolf Steiner, an Austrian scientist and philosopher. But the two philosophies interpret it in quite different ways: the Montessori classroom emphasizes reality, to free a child from his fantasies. The Steiner classroom enhances the child’s world of fantasy and imagination to stimulate the child’s play.

Principals of Steiner education…

  • Works for all children irrespective of academic ability, class, ethnicity or religion;
  • Takes account of the needs of the whole child – academic, physical, emotional and spiritual;
  • Is based on an understanding of the relevance of the different phases of child development;
  • Develops a love of learning and an enthusiasm for school;
  • Sees artistic activity and the development of the imagination as integral to learning;
  • Is tried and tested and is part of state funded, mainstream provision in most European countries;
  • Is respected worldwide for its ability to produce very able young people who have a strong sense of self and diverse capacities that enable them to become socially and economically responsible citizens.

Currently, the V&A plans to transform the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green in London into a world leading museum of design and creativity for children, families and young people.

Distance Learning from Waldorf perspectives at times of Covid19

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https://www.steinerwaldorf.org/roots-and-renewal-national-conference-review/

Among the resources on Rudolf Steiner’s theory and the Waldorf method, I found particularly interesting the article dealing with the present implications of the Covid19 spread, written by Martyn Rawson. The article clearly shows how Steiner’s education can still be relevant in the 21th Century.

Beginning with an analysis of the meaning of learning, that the writer describes as a process in which both the physical body and the spiritual one are engaged in the process of establishing relationship to self, others, and the world,  Rawson considers the implication of a learning journey from the Waldorf perspective. Major points underline the emotional aspects of the student’s wellbeing when attending and participating in a lesson, those also involve a fruitful collaboration among the group of peers. At times of Covid19 the daily routine is forced to be adapted to online tuitions, where empathy and a sense of unity can be strongly affected. Therefore, the Waldorf method suggests a rhythmic approach, that involves a multitude of online activities between student and teacher, as well as between the classroom of alumni. Physical exercise is recommended together with artistic activities such as singing, reciting a poem, and so on. The timetable follows a daily schedule.
Teachers should structure the lesson in a flexible way, giving the student a chance to align with the learning offer, following both an authentic interest in the subject, and a good level of physical energy. Clear information on marking criteria, guidelines, a list of useful and not expensive materials, should be provided.

Rawson concludes: “Obviously online learning and homeschooling are missing key elements such as learning from someone – the teachers, learning through being in a learning group, rich direct experience and being attuned to learning. Nevertheless, it will support the learning under these special conditions if teachers remember the basic principles of Waldorf learning.”

Elena Arzani

Link to video: https://youtu.be/Bw4Rt9gU5tg

Resources:

https://www.waldorf-resources.org/articles/display/archive/2020/05/04/article/distance-learning-from…

Music. Technology & the old ways at NBCS in Sydney

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The Place of Music in 21st Century Education –Northern Beaches Christian School, Sidney, Australia

The Northern Beaches Christian School, Sydney, Australia, seems to have found the perfect combination of teaching & learning experience, embedding technologies into a sustainable learning environment, that is designed to optimized the students’ experience.

The Director of Innovation, Steve Collis, underlines that learning is profoundly social, yet the students experience outside the school environments is deeply shaped by a massive use of technologies, among which mobile phone devices. This factor must be taken under consideration when designing and providing learning experiences, as one cannot underestimate the impacts of the flattened world the students live in.

With anthropologists arguing human intelligence has become wider and collective, as a consequence to the daily opportunity of media interaction and exposure through the social-media networks connectivity, it is imperative to consider how the technological revolution can best be harnessed to improve teaching and learning.

But what does it truly mean to foster innovation, while providing cultural landscapes in teaching? To some extent, I believe gaining a better understanding of technologies, and their use, can help the students achieving a higher control of their lives. Yet, the learning offer should be designed around the person, having an holistic approach, fostering the stimulation of the wide scope of perceptions. As the Director Steve Collins describes, you design physical space along the principles I’ve spoken about, then technological space, and actually finally you shape cultural space as well.

Moreover, as mentioned by the music teachers Brad Fuller, and Peter Orenstein, the students experience an inspirational space. Students are divided into music bands, which is, in my opinion, one of the strongest elements to consider. This methodology enhance the opportunity of collaboration between members, it flattens hierarchical matters, thus enables students to take control of they journey through learning. While they can access technologies in exciting ways, they experience the old ways of making music, performing on stage, and interact between peers.

I believe this philosophy and methodology might be applied to several academic courses with successful outcomes. To some extent the NBCS embodies, in my view, every student’s dream to be protagonist in their journey into school, while collecting one of those memorable experiences, that may last a life time… just like in the movie: School of Rock! And isn’t this the best gift of education?

Elena Arzani

School of Rock, 2003, starring Jack Black. here is a Video clip

Northern Beaches Christian School is an independent non-denominational Christian co-educational primary and secondary day school, located in Terrey Hills, New South Wales, Australia

“Every something is an echo of nothing” – John Cage

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The Place of Music in 21st Century Education (University of Sidney)

While continuing my professional training and research in the world of Music, I am presently reflecting on John Cage’s quote:

“I believe that the use of noise to make music will continue and increase until we reach a music produced through the use of electrical instruments which will make available for musical purposes any and all sounds that can be heard.” – John Cage (1961), “The Future of Music: Credo”, in SILENCE 3-4.

Was John Cage right? If not, do you think he will be right? Are “electrical instruments” as valid and important music-making instruments as acoustic instruments such as a violin, a piano, a guitar, or a trombone?

Pondering on John Cage’s quote, Vygotsky’s theory of “thick” as opposed to “thin” experience suddenly approach my mind. Will electrical instruments be able to guarantee the qualities and characteristics of a “thick experience”, reflecting on the complexity of the human being as opposed to the “thin” concept of sensory experience, while making available the whole spectrum of sounds than can be ever conceived?

Even though my provocation may not appear to be dramatically related to Mr Cage’s theory, I believe the impact of the electronic sound discovery will surely affect human conditions and the way a person experience the musical experience as well as the artist’s performance. The dichotomy between new and old ways of producing sounds and music, may then lead to a wider reflection having social and anthropological implications.

The Italian political philosopher, Giovan Battista Vico (1668-1744) was the first expositor of the fundamentals of social science and of semiotics and became particularly important for a few ideas he introduced into Western philosophy, for his theory that, historically, civilizations cycle through three periods, from one governed by imagination, superstition, and custom to one governed by rational understanding, after which things always cycle around again.

Furthermore, I would argue that present times are shaped by increasing research on Technologies as well as Artificial Intelligence. Their implementation tell and will be telling, very much about our culture, and behaviours. Following Mr Vico’s theories, I believe that technological innovations will be carried on as far as a point of “saturation” will be reached. However, the discoveries will provide us all with a qualitative experience that will stimulate a multitude of human feelings, among which the “nostalgia”. The learning curve will tell a different story and most probably will bounce back the electronics renewing a sense of belonging to the past and the old ways in which instruments were played and designed. Electronic instruments will then cohexist with classical ones, that perhaps will be used only in small groups of communities, yet they won’t abandoned. 

Elena Arzani

www.elenarzani.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58XjuGAla5U

EA versus AE

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“If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.”

― Albert Einstein

When Albert Einstein expressed those lines, he was totally unaware that many years later, someone born with the same capital letters, would have reflect not only his name, but also his attitude towards life and knowledge, just like a mirror. Indeed, if I were not a creative mind, most probably I’d be a physician inspired by the ancient knowledge and wisdom of the Greek world…

Hello everyone, I am Elena Arzani, your Captain on this cultural journey, and I welcome you onboard!

I am an Italian multiPod creative person, Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and Master of Arts in Design Studies, with a PgCert in Academic Practice in Arts, Design, and Communication. I attended the MA in Design Studies at Central St. Martin’s College of Arts and Design, and I’ve been  practicing internationally as Art Director, Photographer and Editor, for over 25 years. More recently I have become Associate Lecturer at University of the Arts London, collaborating with the Master course in Culture, Criticism, and Curation at CSM, and the Master in Graphic Branding and Identity at LCC, London.

After having made a few intervention in several academic courses, embedding the study of music culture within in the UAL course curricula. I was meant to become a PhD researcher this year, further developing my academic inquiry on sound landscapes in Academic Institutes, but plans have gone astray due to the pandemic. I am presently looking for financial support, investors and partners, that may hopefully allow me to pursue my objectives in 2021.

My background in strongly informed by creative communications, new media and contemporary arts, the industry of fashion, publishing houses, music and advertising. In the past I developed a pioneering project on Art in (health) Therapy combined with new technologies. This continues to be a great interest of mine. I publish on exhibitions of modern and contemporary arts, cinema, book and music reviews, and I interview people from the star system.  I am currently working on a book on contemporary photography, while completing my research project in Musicology.

Elena Arzani

About Me and more…

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Being a photographer, my presentation includes several shots that I took either on assignment or while producing my own fine arts. The display of images is aimed to show the different fields I touch upon in my everyday professional practice as Photographer, Art Director, and Editor. My 25 years career experience and my curriculum are strongly informed by the fashion and advertising industry, Publishing Houses, music, contemporary arts and photography.

The reason why I chose to become a Lecturer, it is due to my strong will of “giving something back” to the Educational Institute, that has helped me to become the person, and practitioner I am. The course in Applied Imagination (that back then was named “Design Studies”) has been a turning point in my career, and it has contributed to shape my social identity. At times it’s been hard to show the people, how “transferable skills”, and being “broad” can be a “plus”, rather than “someone hard to place”.

My methodology at work is researched based, I am a problem solver, and I tent to address the process rather than the curriculum. It is the project that tells me, what it is the best media in which can be developed, sometimes it takes shape of a photographic exhibition, some other times perhaps a graphic layout or a written article. Quoting one of my favourite films, I might say that “everything is illuminated”.

Hopefully I’ll be able to inspire the students, providing them with something meaningful, useful, and long lasting reflections, for example, “Reading, engagement and higher education’, Higher Education Research & Development, 38 by Aldridge, D.”. fosters a fruitful reflection around methodologies, and the different approaches in teaching. I personally find Aldridge’s reflections very intriguing, in a way the reminded me of some theories by Albert Einstein, particularly when the “alienation” is considered as an opportunity, or perhaps a challenge, to ignite people’s engagement. The famous scientist says: “Humiliation and mental oppression by ignorant and selfish teachers wreak havoc in the youthful mind that can never be undone and often exert a baleful influence in later life.”

And then adds: “The real difficulty, the difficulty that has frustrated the sages of all times, is this: how can we make our teaching effective to the point that its influence on the emotional life of man can resist the pressure of the elementary psychic forces of the individual? We do not know, of course, if the sages of the past have really posed this question with the same awareness and in the same form; but we know how much they have tried to solve the problem.”

Creativity comes from anguish as the day comes from the dark night. It is in the crisis that inventiveness arises, discoveries and great strategies. Those who overcome the crisis surpass themselves without being ‘overcome’. Who attributes his failures and difficulties to the crisis, violates his own talent and gives more value to problems than to solutions. The real crisis is the crisis of incompetence. The inconvenience of people and nations is laziness in seeking solutions and ways out. Without crisis there are no challenges, without challenges life is a routine, a slow agony. Without crisis there is no merit. It is in the crisis that emerges the best of everyone, because without crisis all the winds are only slight breezes.

To speak of crisis means to increase it, and to be silent in the crisis is to exalt conformism. Instead, we work hard. Let’s finish it once and for all with the only dangerous crisis, which is the tragedy of not wanting to fight to overcome it. ”

Elena Arzani