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One of the purposes of The MayDay Group is to engage music educators and others in examination, critique, and reconceptualization of music education practices, including matters of curriculum. Generally, the word “curriculum” implies a course of study or the elements of a subject or domain. Study of curriculum may include analyses of the ways in which programs of study are constructed, examinations of goals, and interrogations of why and how curricular decisions are made. The MayDay Group, in its statement of action ideals, moves the conversation about curriculum toward consideration of social contexts, examination of institutional priorities, and critique of standards documents, among other concerns. The signatories of the original MayDay Group “action ideals” advise that curriculum “must be guided by a sound philosophical process,” which “should precede considerations of teaching and research techniques, methods, materials and assessment” (MayDay Group 1997, pp. xxxi–xxxvii, this volume).

These are reasonable and appropriate ideas about curriculum—ones that should provoke and engage. Yet the MayDay Group agenda, and others similar to it, has not yet taken hold in the imaginations of a broader spectrum of music educators, or as Malcolm Gladwell (2000) might put it, the conversation has not yet passed the tipping point from idea to movement. Why? I suggest in this essay that our philosophical approaches tend to reify both music and practice; that the “what,” “how,” and “why” questions of curriculum, however important or redefined by postmodern discourse, tend toward abstraction; and that these two things together distance practitioners from the intent and spirit of the conversation. I suggest that foregrounding two different categories of questions—“who” and “where”—may be not only more fundamental to music education in the twenty-first century, but also more likely to engage practitioners and provide impetus for the curricular transformations The MayDay Group and others seek. Further, I posit that philosophy of place may provide a useful lens for engaging others in critical dialogue about curriculum and other matters of importance in music education.

Notes on A Philosophy of Place

Take the word “home”

for example,

often considered

to have an address.

How it could sweep across you

miles beyond the last

neat packages of ice

and nothing be wider

than its pulse.1

Although most literature on philosophy of place has been written within the last quarter century, conceptions of place in the understanding of human life and mind have roots in phenomenology and existentialist traditions.2 In everyday parlance, “place” means an area or geographic locality—a physical space. More sophisticated conceptions of place account for both space and time. Place may mean an area or geographic locality (space) in which someone or something was, is, or can be (time). A regional map, for example “is of a place, and that place is that place and not another, not only because its space is different from another space, but also because it truly represents a given space at a given time” (Flay 1989, 2).

Philosophy of place, however, moves beyond time-space conceptions and considers place a human phenomenon; places become places through and in the lived experiences and interpretations of those who encounter them (Pickles 1985, 170). In other words, place as a space-time abstraction is useful as a reference, but it is devoid of meaning and sociocultural significance without the actions and interactions of people in that space-time. For example, “space is to place what house is to home. Home, like place, is experiential, whereas house, like space, is objective” (Jung and Jung 1989, 88; emphasis theirs). Or, put another way, “places… are always profoundly human, made and made meaningful in the conceptualization and articulation of their boundaries, character, and ultimately, their value, in relation to humans” (Leary 1997, 20). Philosophy of place considers space-time as lived rather than as material or mental (Cresswell 2002). Place is not fixed or unchanging, not frozen in time or bounded in space; rather, place is dynamic and fluid. Because we understand place through actions, interactions, and relationships, place is “always becoming—in process” (Cresswell 2002, 20). Simply stated, place is nexus and synthesis of space, time, and experience, and it is constantly changing.

Malpas (1998) suggests that understanding place may be essential to “an adequate understanding of human being” and that “finding place is… a matter of finding ourselves” (38–39), pointing to the complex relationship between place and identity. We “become” through our actions; our actions occur in relation to others, to our own histories, and in time-space contexts. Cresswell (2002), citing other writers, notes that places operate through “constant and reiterative practices” (23) that not only affirm and re-affirm individual identity and social belongingness, but also create place or make places what they are. Cresswell summarizes:

Place is constituted through reiterative social practice—place is made and remade on a daily basis. Place provides a template for practice—an unstable stage for performance. Thinking of place as performed and practiced can help us think of place in radically open and non-essentialized ways where place is constantly struggled over and reimagined in practical ways. Place is the raw material for the creative production of identity rather than an a-priori label of identity. Place provides the conditions of possibility for creative social practice. (2002, 25)

Three more ideas about place are important to the ensuing discussion of curriculum and agenda. First, the experience of place is not only fluid, but also simultaneously individual and collective. “Place” may be socially constructed, but it is individually understood. We may be in the same space at the same time but experience and understand place differently, even if we are doing or seeing or hearing the same things, because the web of experiences that makes each of us who we are is not identical. Writers taking this perspective suggest that understanding between and among people develops in “the place in between” (perhaps in liminal spaces) and that the interplay of places is where community develops.3

Second, place is simultaneously unique to the individual, and complex, multiple, and layered. Each individual is situated in places that not only overlap, connect, and nest with that person’s experiences, but that also overall, connect, and nest with and within the places of other individuals, groups, societies, and cultures. We are, therefore, always multiply situated or multiply placed, even though we may not know or be conscious of this condition.

Third, places are, in some sense, a narrative synthesis of experience. In whatever ways we may come to understand place, our places, or ourselves in place, we do so in the context of the narrative of our lives through time, in location, and in relation to self and others. We relate our understanding through social transmission of our own histories, including the stories we tell ourselves and stories we tell to others. In other words, “places and their corresponding meanings come into being through individual encounter, contextual interpretation, and the social transmission of stories” (Leary, 1997, 20). Put another way, we understand place in part because we have memory of it (backward in time), act in it now, and anticipate acting in it (future), and because our shared experiences and our sharing of experiences, whether in real time or through narratives recalled and retold, affirm our individual and social identities.

Philosophy of Place in Education and Place-Based Education

Philosophy of place, which has been a useful tool for cultural and humanist geographers, has traveled into schools in what is now known as place-based or place-conscious education.4 Although most often associated with outdoor, environmental, and ecological education, place-conscious curriculum and pedagogy can also be found in rural and urban education initiatives and home-schooling programs, as well as in political theory, literature, and architecture. David Sobel (2004) describes place-based education as “the process of using the local community and environment as a starting point to teach concepts in language arts, mathematics, social studies, science, and other subjects across the curriculum” (29). Place-conscious learning is grounded in the “real and proximate, not abstract and remote” (Chin 2001, 19), and is usually described as experiential, multidisciplinary, collaborative, learner-centered, and constructivist. Place-conscious curriculum begins with the local, moves gradually out into the world, and examines the complexities of relationships of places with the goal of promoting social responsibility and action (Sobel 1996). Ultimately, “place-based educators advocate a pedagogy that relates directly to student experience of the world, and that improves the quality of life for people and communities” (Guenewald 2003/Fall, 7).

David Gruenewald describes a synthesis of place-based education and critical pedagogy that can form and inform a critical pedagogy of place. Writing from an ecological perspective, Gruenewald asserts that a critical pedagogy of place “must embrace the experience of being human in connection with others and with the world of nature” (2003/May, 6) and should “[aim] to evaluate the appropriateness of our relationships to each other, and to our socio-ecological places” (8, emphasis his). A critical pedagogy of place for music, then, might be grounded in consideration of socio-musical places. Gruenewald also comments that rather than “actual experience with the phenomenal world, educators are handed, and largely accept, the mandates of a standardized, ‘placeless’ curriculum (8), and further, that current discourse about education, standards, and testing, as well as the very structure of schools, isolates and distances both teachers and students from places outside of schools. Place-conscious music education would seek to reconnect schools and communities and lived experience.

The disposition of place-based educators, regardless of discipline, would be one of examining the local as a starting point for building curriculum rather than accepting the status quo. Gruenewald suggests that place-conscious education begins with questions such as “What happened here? What will happen here?” (2003, 11). While Gruenwald’s questions direct attention to the past and future, focusing on the present—what happens here—seems more apropos to me. Place-conscious education should embody questions of practice in the present: What practices occur here, in this community? Who is “practicing”? Who is participant, onlooker, and absentee? What do the practices communicate about self, community, and context? What narratives, counternarratives, and subnarratives are embodied in these practices? Whose are they? What do they mean? Which practices dominate here? Why? These questions and others could create a “starting place” for building place-conscious music curricula.

An Example

I am writing this essay while living in Arizona, a “border state,” where the school-age population is currently changing rapidly. In the decade from 1992 to 2002, the number of school-age children in Arizona grew by more than 40%, and the number of Hispanic students enrolled in public schools nearly doubled (USDOE 2002). Some time before I knew anything about philosophy of place, Keith Preston, an Arizona band director, recounted a story that illustrates some of the qualities of thinking one might anticipate from a musician educator conceptualizing curriculum from a philosophy of place. When I asked Keith to re-tell his narrative for this essay, he said:

I was teaching band at Trevor Brown High School in the Phoenix Union District, and I noticed that the school population didn’t match up with who I had in band. Same thing with the choirs and the string program. The school population was about 55% minority ethnic groups and 45% Caucasian, and the band was about 90% Caucasian students. There was a population that wasn’t being served. So I thought we needed to offer something that would be different—maybe a mariachi. A big problem was that I didn’t know anything about it. I knew it was popular, and I had heard banda music and mariachi music, but I didn’t really know much about it. I mean, how do you tune a vihuela?

So I approached my assistant principal with the idea. He listened for a while, then he got a big grin on his face and said, “Can you do it?” I said, “I have no idea.” So he agreed to create the class for the next year. At first it had to be listed as “Orchestra” because it wasn’t in the course catalog, but the guidance counselors helped us get the word out that one particular section of orchestra was going to be mariachi.

That summer I took a two-week mariachi workshop at the university and applied for a grant to get artists-in-residence to come and help me. We had eight or nine students sign up that first year, and the interesting thing was that it wasn’t all Latino kids—a couple of the students were Caucasian and one was African-American. We didn’t have any music, so I purchased CDs and picked out the music by ear and made arrangements. I also borrowed some arrangements from the university professor, who was great about it. We wound up with about 6 or 7 tunes that we could play, and I was learning right along with the kids. We performed a couple of times and word spread. By registration week for the next year we had 38 students sign up, which was too many for one mariachi. So we put them in two levels—a beginning group and a performing group. The performing group went out and played at all kinds of events. We played for donations, and we used the money to buy outfits for the kids. By the third year we actually started to look like a mariachi too. We performed all over the place. This went on for the five years I was at Trevor Brown.

Then I moved to Peoria High School, and I was given a stagecraft course [to teach]. I knew nothing about stagecraft, so in October I asked the principal if I could start a mariachi. He said yes. By that time I had 27 tunes, so we started with those. The Peoria kids got good enough that we could play a 30-minute set, which is about what a mariachi does. It got to be very popular. We played at quinceañeras, weddings, funerals, at a grand opening of a Seven-Eleven. If I would have let it, it would have consumed all of our time, it was so popular. I ended up saying “no” more than “yes” because it was requested so much in the community.

The greatest thing was that the mariachi at Peoria was mixed ethnicities—like Trevor Brown—though the population of the school was more Caucasian than Trevor Brown. And for the students who were Latino, it was a point of pride, even though mariachi was not the music they were listening to by choice. They listened to banda and rock. But this was the music that they came from. I didn’t have to tell them; they told me. And when we played for older people in the community, we could tell we reached them. The students could tell. They brought it up.5

Keith’s tale foregrounds place—the local and the lived. Although he does not use the word “marginalized,” he perceives that some students are missing in the school music ensembles, and he devises a remedy, one that he hopes will resonate with some of the “outsider” students. He does not eliminate band, which serves some students and segments of the community well.6 Instead, he opens another possibility—one connected to place. Fortunately, an administrator supports Keith’s decision, though the hegemony of the school schedule means that “mariachi” is listed as “orchestra.” Undaunted, Keith continues his activism by engaging other adults (counselors) to make the group visible to students he seeks to serve. He does not assume that his musicianship and success with the band privileges him or that his skills will transfer to mariachi, and he turns to the community outside of the school to educate himself.

When the first mariachi students arrive, Keith continues connecting to the community, enlisting community musicians to help the students and himself. He purchases recordings and makes or borrows arrangements. He learns the language, the names and ways of festivals and events at which mariachis perform, how a mariachi looks as well as how it sounds. He continuously locates himself in roles of learner and co-learner. Note his use of the pronoun “we” whenever he refers to the mariachi, including both learning and performing. “We” implies a “community” of which he is a member. It is hardly surprising that number of interested students increases fourfold by the second year.

Although Keith’s motive for starting a mariachi at the second high school seems different (avoidance of the stagecraft course), he holds on to the idea that mariachi is relevant for some students. He continues to seek help from the community, then he returns the ensemble to the community for all kinds of events (what other school ensemble performs for funerals?). He notices and celebrates the mixture of ethnicities among the students in the mariachi while recognizing the special and specific meaning of the experience for Latino/a students. The students notice community members’ responses to them, and Keith acknowledges and values the students’ observations.

At some level (and without knowing it), Keith operated from a philosophy of place. He asked critical questions: Who goes to this school? Who is in the band? Who is not included, either in the band or in any other ensemble? What does the community tell me about how to serve or engage the marginalized? What is my role and response as a musician and teacher? What changes can I make? Who can help? What do I need to learn? What is my role in this new ensemble? How can the community help us? What can we return to the community? We might critique the depth or breadth of Keith’s questioning, his acceptance of certain assumptions, and so on. The more important point is that Keith recognized the dynamics and fluidity of place, changed the curriculum of his own volition, and invested in the change so that the musical experience was one of quality. Even more, he did so without rejecting an existing musical practice (band) in the school that served some students well. In effect, he invented a curriculum of multiple musical practices that was responsive to place and meaningful for the students.

Keith’s story represents a qualitatively different kind of engagement with curriculum than that of music educators in a neighboring district whose administrator “mandated” mariachi programs in the schools. Given the directive, the teachers shrugged and added the ensembles, but few of them “owned” the decision, and the kinds of critical questions implicit in Keith’s actions were not asked. Similarly, the transformation of curriculum that Keith effected is different than the transformations that occurred in some schools when “multicultural” was applied to the music curriculum in the United States. While the intention of multicultural curricula may have been, in part, to include the musics of marginalized students, in some instances multicultural music became about “location,” not “place.” In elementary music textbooks, for example, songs of various cultures were inserted like photographs of faraway locations in geography texts. The profession and related school music industries were resoundingly criticized during a symposium preceding the 1990 biennial meeting of the Music Educators National Conference for importing pieces and practices disembodied from people and disconnected from cultures. Eventually, as context, role, and meaning were recognized as relevant, these ideas were applied to the music of “others”—other people and other times— but still not to the lived experiences of students and local practice of their communities.7 When music and practices are about location (geography), not place (a human construction), meaning is lost.

By pointing to these problematics of multiculturalism as it occurs in some contexts, I do not mean to suggest that inclusion of diverse musics is poor practice or that multiculturalism is the only practice of the music education community that sometimes suffers from failure to consider place. I also do not suggest that Keith’s story is an exemplar of multicultural music education; in fact, Keith never used those words to describe the change he implemented. Rather, the change he implemented might be seen one teacher’s response to his assessment of the local place—the students, the curriculum, the school, and the community—and to his perception that current practice was, simply, not good enough.

I also do not intend to suggest that place-conscious education is a silver bullet. Among the criticisms of place-based education are that it appeals to the parochial, that the local can become tyrannical when one group imposes their meanings on others, that it can become insulated from broader cultural conflicts, and that it involves distinctions in which “the other” may be devalued or ignored. Human failings make any of these shortcomings possible in any context. I do suggest, however, that examining “others’” places before we interrogate and investigate our own increases the likelihood of continuing hegemonic views and practices, and that place-conscious education can inform and possibly transform music education curriculum and pedagogy.

“Placing” Curriculum in Music

local knowledge is to live in a place

and know the place

however barren8

We return, then, to the agenda of The MayDay Group, which I interpreted as engaging music educators and others in critique, examination, and reconceptualization of music education practices. While we may reach consensus that decision making about curriculum should be “guided by a sound philosophical process,” the subtext question (even the elephant-in-the-room query) seems to be, “Why doesn’t that occur more often?” Curriculum, though affected by a multitude of “places,” ultimately rests in the hands of the practitioners who enact it. Where are they in the philosophical dialogue? Are we bold enough to consider that practitioners have been marginalized by the ways in which philosophical discourse is sometimes conducted? Turning the lens of place toward a critique of the ways in which we teach the practice of philosophy, which can affect curriculum, may yield perspective. In other words, asking ourselves the questions “Who are these practitioners?” and “Where are they located (psychologically, socially, physically)?” may enable us to rethink the pathways that we believe lead to engagement in philosophical dialogue and transformation of curriculum and practice.9

Philosophy is an ongoing practice of questioning and thinking aimed at examining the grounds for belief and action; philosophy is not a practice of answers. Yet, the daily experience of music education practitioners, particularly those located in the public school sector, is one in which they are expected to have “answers”— for students, parents, colleagues, and citizens with perspectives that range from sympathetic to skeptical. While there may be little doubt that philosophy yields strong standing ground from which practitioners can respond to those who either support or challenge them, there is no great clamoring for philosophy courses, seminars, or sessions at in-service meetings. Is it possible that the ways in which we engage practitioners in philosophy are disconnected from the “places” of practitioners?

Philosophy of place may be an appropriate starting point for engaging practitioners for two reasons: Philosophy of place begins with consideration of the particular, and philosophy of place foregrounds lived experience. The local and the lived are personal and felt. Beginning the practice of philosophy with questions of “where” and “who” as prelude to considering “what,” “how,” and “why” honors the lived experience of each teacher, who operates in a place unlike any other. Developing teachers’ abilities to examine their contexts (which matter to them immensely) and themselves by asking critical questions of place aims toward embodying Maxine Greene’s sense (1995 and 2001) of “wide awakeness” and being “fully present” as a musician educator, and it is this sense of being wide awake and fully present in place that may propel the kinds of thinking and action that lead to transformation of curriculum rather than tacit acceptance of the status quo. I use “practicing (or asking) critical questions of place” specifically to illustrate what, I believe, must occur—actual practicing of the art of questioning and critique, starting with the local—for the practice of philosophy and the subsequent transformation of curriculum to take hold.

By emphasizing a philosophy of place, I do not mean to privilege this perspective, although my convictions about the usefulness of place as a starting point for practicing philosophy and developing curriculum are strong. Rather, I believe that place should be one of several perspectives music educators consider, for, as Wayne Bowman notes, no single philosophy “gets things wholly right,” and “none gets things wholly wrong” (1998, 4). It is in dialectic and discourse that beliefs evolve and standing ground becomes firm.

Philosophy of place may also be an effective means of critiquing teacher preparation programs, where ideas about school music curriculum are shaped, in part, for teacher preparation programs may be the greatest impediment to curricular change. Most music teacher preparation programs (in the United States) are constructed on the assumption that those enrolled in them are preparing for careers as K-12 public school music educators. Privileging “K-12” and “public school” has certain consequences, the most important of which is the elevation of certain forms and forums of music making and certain music learners over others. We construct teacher education curricula and name courses in them for what happens in the specific place of K-12 public schools. Everything and everyone else merits a passing mention or elective status. Why is curricular change in schools slow or not prevalent? We are victims of our own curricula and successes. Blaming for our reticence to change teacher preparation programs on the demands of licensure requirements or market forces skirts the issue.10

I propose that we reconceptualize teacher preparation programs as preparing community music educators.11 These programs would include preparation for teaching in K-12 public schools, which are part of the community, but would not exclude or “displace” other practices, forums, or people. Consistent with a philosophy of place, courses and content would develop critical thinking about and engagement with community, the people in it, and their practices, including (but not limited to) public school music programs. Graduates might conceive of themselves as independent contractors in music education. Some might choose to engage their services full time in public schools, others might blend public school and other teaching (for example, private schools, church choirs, and studio teaching), and still others might engage in music education entirely outside of schools. The ethic of community music education programs would be one of preparing musician educators who place people at the center of practice, who view practices a fluid, dynamic, and contextual, and who recognize the need for continual examination of the intersections of people, place, and practice.

Music teacher preparation programs conceived of as preparing community music educators would not preclude pursuit of teacher licensure or those who seek careers as K-12 public school music educators. They would, however, change; they might attract different clientele. And therein lies a crucial point: perhaps the most daunting obstacle to the change suggested here is that it would make the borders of music teacher preparation programs permeable. Will we accept those who wish to be music educators in the community, but not in public schools? What curricular alterations would a place-conscious view of music education and music teacher preparation imply, and what changes are we willing to make?

Where might place-conscious music education lead? To develop curriculum at the level of the local and the lived, community music educators should be prepared to consider principles of practice and critical questions, such as: Who are these learners? Where do they come from? What are the musical practices of their communities? Where, when, and with whom do they make music or listen to music? What do they do? How do they learn music? What can music instruction offer them individually? Collectively? Who is present when music is made and learned? Who is missing? Why? Consideration of these and similar questions allows for construction of curricula that are sensitive to learners of various ages and contexts, reflect the places of music in their lives, and, most likely, meet the standards of various organizations. Teacher preparation courses based on this perspective might not only meet certification standards, but could also embrace those who seek careers as musician educators in the community and who do not seek licensure.

Adopting a place-conscious perspective allows musician educators to maintain focus on their fundamental raison d’être—enabling students to engage in music and to acquire musical skills and knowledge, as well as all the related human understandings and personal growth that emanate from engagement in music making. Simultaneously, a place-conscious perspective requires that musician educators examine which practices, which classes and ensembles, for whom, and why in the shaping of curricular and pedagogical choices for individual schools and particular communities. Furthermore, a place-conscious perspective implies that curriculum and practice are dynamic and fluid, changing in response to shifts that occur over time, in spaces, and in the lived experiences of the learners and the nested communities (local, regional, national, and global) in which schools are embedded.

Finally, philosophy of place, applied to curriculum in music, allows us to view curriculum documents as “maps”—documents that are “of a place.” Curriculum documents, viewed through the lens of place, outline what certain people thought and how they acted or believed others should act in certain locations at certain times. The more remote the map (for example, a “national” curriculum) the more likely it is to be global and general rather than local and lived, and the more likely it is to represent a hegemonized agenda. While curriculum documents may be valuable or interesting for multiple reasons, philosophy of place allows us to see them for what they are—“fixed”—while simultaneously viewing the practices of teaching, learning, and music making—the lived curriculum—as fluid, changing, and responsive. A curriculum document might inform practice, but cannot be practice of either curriculum or pedagogy.

Philosophy of place and a critical pedagogy of place are appropriate starting points for inquiry and negotiation of curriculum and pedagogy in music. If we interrogate the local and lived and examine the who and where as well as the what-how-why of music teaching, learning, and making, then perhaps the curricula we enact, individually and collectively, will be more responsive to communities, more transformative of the profession and its practices, and more engaging for more people in more communities than our current perspectives allow.

Notes

  1. 1.

    Excerpt from the poem “Pause” by Naomi Shihab Nye, in Pfefferle, 2005.

  2. 2.

    For historical summaries of philosophy of place, see Malpas (1998) and (1999), and Cresswell (2002).

  3. 3.

    Flay (1989) describes “I” as the “primordial place” and as “a special place among places.” See his essay, pp. 8–9. Taking a different perspective that comments on place as “subjective and intersubjective creation,” Smith et al. (1998) write: “Each one of us has experienced the disappointment of excitedly introducing a friend to a favorite place, and then sensing the incomprehension at the heart of their feigned pleasure. Each one of use has stood amidst an exulting and admiring crowd, and looked without emotion upon what was for us an insipid and uninspiring scene.” (6). In other words, the old saying “I guess you had to be there” is not about space, but place.

  4. 4.

    “Placed-based” and “place-conscious” are used interchangeably in this essay and elsewhere. See Gruenewald (2003/May).

  5. 5.

    I thank Keith Preston for agreeing to share his narrative for this essay.

  6. 6.

    Several authors suggest that preserving and/or altering curriculum in addition to complete change may be appropriate responses to challenges posed by place-conscious education. Band, in this case, is not “wrong”; rather, a curriculum that offers no other choice for engagement is problematic.

  7. 7.

    The voluntary music standards in the United States (MENC 1994) situate matters of place in Standard 9. This standard is generally interpreted as the “music history” and “multicultural music” standard, implying the music of “other” times, locations, and people. Contextual concerns, or matters of place, become part of the study of “other people’s music,” but not of one’s own music—an odd twist. Bruno Nettl, Patricia Shehan Campbell, and others continue to reiterate that all music should be understood in historical and cultural context, yet the “otherness” associated with Standard 9 persists.

  8. 8.

    Excerpt from the poem “Local Knowledge” by Richard Shelton, in Pfefferle, 2005.

  9. 9.

    My suggestion here respectfully challenges those of us who “teach” philosophy to think about our practices. If the answer to the question “Who are these practitioners?” is “teachers enrolled in graduate courses” or “undergraduate music majors,” then we risk doing what we recommend they do not—teaching the subject and neglecting the people. When we fail to consider the situatedness of teaching and the “places” of practitioners, we begin with questions that, to some, seem remote, abstract, and decontextualized (for example, “What is music?” and/or “What is musicing?”). In these conditions, philosophy becomes a reification of a process, not a practice or disposition. We should hardly be surprised, then, that students and practitioners find philosophy remote and engagement in the practice of philosophy puzzling.

  10. 10.

    For example, attention to early childhood in music teacher education curricula parallels an increase in mandated kindergarten, optional pre-Kindergarten, and early intervention programs in public schools. The presence of young children in public school contexts seemed to legitimize early childhood topics and courses in teacher preparation curricula. We “make room” for whoever is “in place” in schools.

  11. 11.

    While it may seem that the word “community” is not needed, our history is such that “music educator” implies “K-12 public school music educator.” Specifically using the word “community” signifies the difference.