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Sea levels are rising and so are we

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convince

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a 16-year-old

and substantially determines if performers will suffer emotion-related detriments or profit from emotion-related benefits

Emotions that are too weak or intense and feel unpleasant lead to lower motivation, distracted attention, and reduced performance.

On the other hand, appropriately intense emotions which feel pleasant and are expected to help future performance are more likely to lead to increased effort, better decision making, and hence enhanced performance

Mann-Whitney U tests of mean ranks showed that compared to students who viewed performance as a threat (MThreat = 7.00, SDThreat = 0.99), students who viewed performance as a challenge (MChallenge = 5.02, SDChallenge = 1.91); reported significantly less cognitive anxiety at pre-recital (U = 21.00, z = -2.167, p = .028) and significantly higher self-confidence both at the start of semester, (MThreat = 4.79, SDThreat = 0.90; MChallenge = 6.42, SDChallenge = 1.08; U = 29.50, z = -3.555, p < .001) and pre-recital (MThreat = 4.45, SDThreat = 0.72; MChallenge = 6.55, SDChallenge = 0.98; U = 2.50, z = -3.104, p < .001, Figure 2).

The clinical implications of this negative association between MPA and flow suggest that a two-pronged approach focusing on facilitating flow and positive functioning as well as reducing pathological MPA may bring about improvements in the performer’s subjective performing experienc

Seligman’s (2011) most recent model of well-being, from the field of positive psychology, understands well-being as comprising five elements: Positive emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and Achievemen

There is a substantial body of Music Performance Anxiety (MPA) research providing evidence that MPA is a debilitating phenomenon (Kenny, 2011) which can affect musicians at any stage of their careers, from highly experienced professional performers (Fishbein, Middlestadt, Ottati, Straus, & Ellis, 1988; Kenny, Driscoll, & Ackerman, 2014) through to child beginners

Anxiety is often described as having an antithetical relationship to the experience of flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975), and it has been suggested that fostering techniques for facilitating flow may provide a powerful tool for reducing MPA and encouraging optimal performance

“when performance anxiety was highest, flow was lowest and vice versa … the presence of one minimises the magnitude of the other” (Fullager et al., 2013, p. 251), and a recent study found evidence of a strong, significant negative association between flow and MPA amongst 200 professional orchestral musicians (Cohen & Bodner, 2018), supporting Kirchner et al.’s (2008) earlier findings with music students

Investigations of the efficacy of existing methods for treating MPA indicate that Cognitive Behavioural Therapy based interventions are most effective (for an overview, see Burin & Osorio, 2016).

However, evidence suggests that pharmacological methods, particularly beta-blockers, are most commonly used, often in the absence of medical supervision (Cohen & Bodner, 2018; Kenny et al., 2014) and that the subject of MPA is still stigmatised, with many musicians and teachers unwilling to talk openly about it

Csikszentmihalyi’s nine dimensions of flow as follows

Although there was an increase in flow over time, this was not significant, F(1, 20) = 4.27, p > .05, η2 =.18, and there was no evidence of a significant interaction between group and time, F(1, 20) = 0.56, p > .05, η2 = .03, indicating that the hypothesis that there would be an increase in self-reported levels of flow in the intervention group, was not supported.

Figure 4. Judge-rated musical performance quality and signs of performance anxiety in the intervention group.

These results support the fourth hypothesis that there would be an increase in judge-rated PQ and a decrease in judge-rated SPA.

Results showed evidence of a significant negative association between MPA and flow, and three out of the four study hypotheses were supported: the music performance skills intervention was found to be effective in reducing pre-/post-test MPA in the intervention group compared to the wait-list control group; there were significant improvements in positive and negative affect and state anxiety associated with the performance situation in the intervention group; and there were significant improvements in judge-rated PQ and behavioural signs of performance anxiety. However, there was no significant change in pre-/post-test measures of flow. These findings will now be discussed in more detail.

This supports the understanding of MPA as a specific type of anxiety, where the performer suffers from MPA without necessarily being generally anxious or impaired in any other areas of his/her life (Clark & Williamon, 2011; Hoffman & Hanrahan, 2011) and corresponds to Kenny’s (2011) description of the first and most mild of three types of MPA (for full coverage of this issue, see Kenny, 2011).

Thus, the absence in improvement in levels of flow in the current study could also be due to the low average hours of daily practice reported

The increases in participants’ positive affect and decreases in negative affect after the second simulated performance compared to the first indicate that the intervention was effective in facilitating positive emotion, the first component of Seligman’s (2011) PERMA model of well-being

Evidence of improvements in judge-rated performance quality indicate that the intervention was also effective in facilitating the fifth (Achievement) component of the PERMA model.

“Ironically, it may be that the last people to receive some benefit from the therapeutic value of music may be the musicians themselves” (Brodsky, 1996, p. 95).

Hopefully, such an approach will enable developing musicians to acquire the skills necessary to enjoy satisfying, successful and healthy lives as performing musicians, in which the threat of debilitating MPA and the need to recourse to beta-blockers are a thing of the past.

Cohen, S., & Bodner, E. (2019). Music performance skills: A two-pronged approach – facilitating optimal music performance and reducing music performance anxiety. Psychology of Music, 47(4), 521–538. https://doi.org/10.1177/0305735618765349

By 2021, schools must offer diplomas based students reaching proficiency in the four core academic subject areas: English, math, science and social studies. By 2025, four additional subject areas will be included: a second language, the arts, health and physical education.

proficiency-based idea has also created headaches at some schools for teachers trying to monitor students’ individual progress.

Students have more flexibility to learn at their own pace and teachers get time to provide extra help for students who need it

It wasn’t for lack of trying,” Bowen said. “It was a systems design problem.”

offer students clarity about what they have to learn and how they are expected to demonstrate they’ve learned it.

Deciding to believe that all students are capable of learning all of the standards, she said, “was scary.”

We inherited a structure for schooling that was based on time and on philosophical beliefs that learning would be distributed across a bell curve,

get crystal clear about what we want students to know and be able to do and then how to measure it.”

medication in the treatment of music performance anxiety. I considered a range of prescribed substances, including beta-blockers,

Kenny, D.T. (2011). The Psychology of Music Performance Anxiety. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Three groups of therapies—behavioral, cognitive, and cognitive behavioral—are all based on the same principles, but use the available therapeutic techniques in different amounts.

These researchers identified six techniques/interventions that are unique to CBT when compared with the spectrum of psychodynamic-interpersonal psycho-therapies, as follows

how does each author use authenticity as a strategy for making or justifying decisions in music education?

authenticity enhances an aesthetic experience; for others, authentic musical encounters enhance student motivation

since the original loses some of its essential qualities in a simplification.5

His view of historical authenticity calls for knowing the intentions of the composer, the performance practice of the time, using period instruments, and being musically creative within the boundaries of the composer's intentions

Peter Kivy's twofold model of authenticity. Focusing on historical authenticity in performance, Kivy explores two main aspects of authenticity: historical (attention to the intent, sound, and practice of the original) and personal (interpretation and expression of the performer).

Swanwick writes: "'Authentic' musical experience occurs when individuals make and take music as meaningful or relevant for them"

Swanwick's emphasis on the importance of personal relevance yields different choices for a music teacher than Palmer's position does.

Another example is found in the work of music educator and researcher Kay Edwards, who also reached the conclusion that attention to authenticity increases student response to learning. In her qualitative study of the response of children to a unit on Native American music, she found that the group using instruments of the Navajo, Hopi, Apache, and Yaqui peoples generated more journal responses overall (her criterion measure) and more responses about instrument playing than the groups with the inauthentic (traditional music room) instruments.

Using indigenous instruments, original languages, and involving culture bearers in instruction benefits student involvement and interest as well as helps them develop musical skills. Connecting the story of a piece of music to students' own experiences and encouraging students to create new music in the style of music being studied help facilitate meaningful experiences for students.

"World music pedagogy concerns itself with how music is taught/transmitted and received/learned within cultures, and how best the processes that are included in significant ways within these cultures can be preserved or at least partially retained in classrooms and rehearsal halls.

Clark started an online fundraiser to pay for bikes. He raised more than $10,000, and neighbors donated dozens of bikes and helmets for the rides.

She couldn’t be sure whether her kids were uninterested or whether they lacked the necessary pens, paper and crayons at home.

He decided he would take his students on socially distanced bike rides across the city. “It was a leap of faith. I got extremely nervous. I was trying to find a way to connect with kids,” Clark said.

her young students are musical detectives, in search of learning. She teaches most grade levels and the school chorus.

t he’s found other ways to keep his students engaged and cycling the city. He invited students to a weekly entrepreneurship class for which they rode their bikes uptown from Dunbar to the gym where Clark works, Sweat DC. The students met with the owner of the gym and the owners of a nearby bar, Hook Hall, and the bagel shop Call Your Mother Deli to learn what it takes to run a business.

She wanted them to create their own composition, their own snowy-day song.

When Clark wanted to teach them about resilience, he took them through the hilly streets of Georgetown.

In lessons for older students, some days there were makeshift drums involved or recorders that students had taken home.

she was able to use the treehouse as a key part of her lessons.

She lugged a bookshelf, desk and heater into the 5-by-7-foot space, and ran an Ethernet cable from the house so she’d have Internet.

before climbing into what passes for her classroom in 2020: her daughters’ decade-old treehouse.

So as one class studied architecture this fall, Daney, 54, encouraged them to walk in their neighborhood to take photos of houses of different styles: ranch, colonial, Victorian.

nd he stuck with his usual method of helping students learn about the design process, asking them to prepare a meal. They started with ideas and research, made a plan, carried it out and evaluated it. The result: soups and pastas and pastries.

Kids need connection, he said. “I think they’re starving for conversation,” including with adults.

In fifth grade, students are expected to learn how to add, subtract, multiply and divide with whole numbers, decimals and fractions. Through a computer application the students have, they can program the robot to move a certain distance, stop, maybe even turn.

With learning all-virtual, he packs a big Ziploc bag — for each student, each quarter — with things like fishing line, foam board, pipecleaners, magnets, Popsicle sticks and rubber bands. Whatever they will need for their projects.

And a lot of the math is a little sneaky. They think they are trying to get the robot to move, when they are actually measuring the angles to get it to move.”  

Others complete their math problems directly on the computer, which can lead to some troubles as they try to show their work.

When Kristin Gavaza interviewed for the music teacher position at Dorothy I. Height Elementary in the summer, she told the principal she had some ideas for how to create a festive concert while students were scattered and learning from home.

Of course, schools and classroom practices need to be current -- what teacher or district leader would say that we should continue to teach the way we did back in the "good ol' days?" Can you show me a successful organization or business that prides itself on keeping things exactly the way they were?

We need to believe the adults delivering education services are capable of being innovative, adaptive and collaborative and welcome being accountable for student outcomes. Then we need to invest in this belief by providing both the professional development and the infrastructure to make this belief a reality for all students and all teachers.

Ultimately, it is about delivering core education in today's world by today's standards of success.

I believe this is the basic approach: Education needs to be more relevant and rigorous for students. Educational institutions need to be more engaging and empowering for teachers. A high school diploma needs to be more directly applicable and valued in the economy. These are attainable goals; all education investments should be measured against these objectives.