National Review of School Music Education - Murdoch Research ...

The disadvantage of the generalist ‘one-class-one-teacher’ model of education is that one teacher
now has difficulty managing the size and intensity of the modern curriculum (House of Commons,
UK, 1989). Generalist teachers in America have been reported failing to treat music seriously as a
subject, but as a ‘frill’ for entertainment, something which brings together a school community in
the ‘inculcation of traditions, fitting with school productions for holidays’ (Bresler, 1993, p. 11).
Lepherd (1994) made a similar claim that Australian generalist teachers are likely to see music as a
subject just for fun. He described the phenomenon of primary generalist teachers feeling
‘inadequately equipped to provide music education for children’ as a ‘recognised problem for 25
years or more, yet it has not been rectified on a national basis’ (p. 6). Both Bartle (1968) and
Covell (1970) recommended that specialist teachers be deployed to teach music in primary schools.
The main argument for this position centred upon the complex nature of musical understanding,
and Plummeridge (1991) is a key advocate for this line of thinking. In his report on music
education, he makes the observation that teachers must be authorities on subject matter in relation
to their learners, commenting that:
All music teaching calls for subtle and refined musical judgement. To think that a person can
rely entirely on books, materials or instruction manuals to provide the basis of an adequate
pedagogy is quite mistaken. Indeed as Kodály insisted, teaching is not only a skilful but also
an artistic activity; it depends on the individual being able to transform materials and bring
them to life encounters with children. (p. 71)
The deployment of specialist teachers is sometimes problematic. They may be viewed as providers
of release time for generalist teachers who often are not aware of the content and are not
appreciative of the value of music programmes (Colley, 1991). This could contribute to lowering
the status of music specialists (Lamdin, 1992). Askew (1993) points out the problem of specialist
music teachers isolating music from the rest of the curriculum. Despite their best intentions,
Hoffer and Hoffer (1987) note that they have not been able to integrate every music lesson into
the teaching programme of every class they teach. But the generalist teacher would be able to
include significantly more music lessons within a week (Mills, 1989; 1993), a practice that has been
found to be significant in improving the level of student achievement (Runfola & Rutkowski,
1992). It is also argued that generalist teachers have an advantage over specialists since they would
know the children in their class better than any specialist possibly could (Mills, 1993). The holistic
manner of the primary classroom programme could not be maintained in a specialist environment,
as specialists provided a single and possibly narrow view of musical experience, removed from the
rich experiences that classroom teachers might provide throughout the years (Glover & Young,
1999). Sustaining this argument is the belief that an arts education should be a holistic and
generalist one, which provides access for all students through integrating the arts into the general
school curriculum, and making them more relevant to real-life experiences (Mills, 1989; Smith,
1992; Glover & Ward, 1993; Livermore, 1998; Livermore & McPherson, 1998; Glover & Young,
1999; McPherson & Dunbar-Hall, 2001).
The coming together of five art forms as an Arts Learning Area (sometimes referred to as a Key
Learning Area or KLA) in Australian education made possible the integration of the arts. It has the
potential to support multi-arts experiences and artistic processes rather than methods, and to make
teaching of the arts more accessible to generalist teachers (Comte, 1993; Stowasser, 1993,
McPherson, 1995; Paterson, 1998; Bolton, 2000). However, there is also evidence that this
construct of integrating the arts has blurred the distinctiveness of each art discipline in favour of
less complex language and content (Stevens, 1993; McPherson, 1995; Jeanneret, 1999; Watson,
1999). In many schools it is reported that time allocation has been reduced due to the pressure of
meeting common outcomes for each of the creative arts areas (Boughton, 1993; Eltis, 1997). Other
complaints include replacing sequential learning with sets of activities (Paterson, 1998), and that
planning is more difficult for generalist teachers (McPherson, 1997).
The most common solution to the specialist or generalist debate is a compromise – in the form of
consultancy. Plummeridge (1991) advocates the use of a specialist teacher in an apprenticeship
model in the form of a mentoring programme, whereby teachers worked alongside specialists to be
trained in a partnership. Askew (1993) and Lepherd (1994) endorse this form of consultancy,
which encourages team planning, and a sharing of knowledge and enthusiasm to devise a more
effective music programme. Gamble (1998) notes the advantage of having specialists helping
generalist teachers, who, when they became comfortable teaching music, would reinforce it in their
classrooms, and might eventually take over the programme completely.
The second proposed model of consultancy advocated the advisory role that is to be shared
between several schools, with the aim to provide teachers with ongoing support. This system (now
not available) operated in New South Wales government schools through district Creative Arts
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