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This blog post reports on current and ongoing research into the identity of classroom music teachers and, in particular, whether the teachers think of themselves more as musicians who teach (musician-first) or teachers who specialise in music (teacher-first). It is important to state at the outset that, by ‘classroom music teachers’, the focus is on those who teach music to pupils in the 11–14 age range in English state schools. Peripatetic instrumental and vocal teachers have not been included.

‘How a teacher thinks of themselves is important as it may have an impact on the what-and-how of what they teach.’

How a teacher thinks of themselves is important as it may have an impact on the what-and-how of what they teach. This seems to be particularly pertinent to classroom music teachers, many of whom will consider their identity as ‘musician’ as more vital than that of ‘teacher’ (see for example Saunders, 2008); that this identity is a vital part of ‘who the teacher is’ (Ballantyne & Grotenboer, 2012; Wagoner, 2012). It is also attested that pupils’ musical identities will frequently be linked to those of their teachers (Hargreaves et al., 2007). This exploration of how classroom music teachers think of themselves (‘musician-first’ or ‘teacher-first’) forms the central question of an online survey distributed nationally via professional associations and responded to by 48 music teachers from around England currently or recently teaching in schools. Fourteen of those who completed the survey also agreed to a one-hour online interview. The results of this enquiry are summarisedin table 1:

Table 1: Online survey results: ‘musician-first’ or ‘teacher-first’

It can be seen that, within the entire participant cohort, most considered themselves as ‘teacher-first’ while, in the interviewed subgroup of participants, most thought of themselves as ‘musician-first’, though the differences are not particularly large, statistically. These results contradict earlier studies from researchers such as Saunders (2008) which argue that music teachers commonly think of themselves as ‘musician-first’. Participants in the research reported in table 1 were invited to explain their choice of the identity they most aligned themselves to. Their comments (on the survey) seemed to suggest that those teachers who were actively making music externally to their school role (such as in orchestras/bands) placed a greater emphasis on their musician identity than those who did not; that is, they seem to think that having an identity as musician depended on whether one was still a practising musician – that it is possible to ‘lose’ one’s identity as a musician.

One participant, considering herself as strongly ‘musician-first’, stated that she always maintained her ‘own performing life despite teaching for 34 years’. Another, who considered herself as ‘teacher-first’ commented that she ‘was told during [her] PGCE that you are one or the other [that is, teacher or musician]. It is near impossible to be both due to the amount of time teaching takes out of your life and education in general.’

This research is ongoing, also focusing on certain personality traits of musicians and teachers, and an exploration of the development of a ‘model of the musician-teacher identity’. An important issue has already been raised, however: the hypothesis that if a music teacher recognises the ‘musician’ within themselves the more likely their teaching will focus on the development of musicianship in their pupils and the development of the next generation of musicians. The possible consequence that springs out of this hypothesis is that it is also more likely that the pupils will see themselves as musicians rather than, simply, those who have been provided with an experience of music in their schools in a series of ‘taster sessions’ which, ultimately, have only a small part to play in their lives.

References

Ballentyne, J., & Grotenboer, P. (2012). Exploring relationships between teacher identities and disciplinarity. Internation Journal of Music Education, 30(4), 368–381.

Hargreaves, D. J., Purves, R. M., Welch, G. F., & Marshall, N. A. (2007). Developing identities and attitudes in musicians and classroom music teachers. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 77, 665–682.

Saunders, J. (2008). The music classroom: Pupils’ experience and engagement during adolescence [Unpublished PhD Thesis, The Institute of Education, University of London].

Wagoner, C. (2012). Defining music teacher identity for effective research in music education. Proceedings from ISME 30th international Conference. International Society for Music Education, Thessalonika, Greece, July.