Constructing a Personal Orientation to Music Teaching : Growth, Inquiry, and Agency

Constructing a Personal Orientation to Music Teaching: Growth, Inquiry, and Agency, (Second Edition), is a textbook for studies in music education. Expanding upon the first edition, the authors promote inquiry and reflection to facilitate teacher growth, lifelong learning, and a disposition toward educational change. The revised text responds to current calls for social change and teacher education reform by reaffirming and intensifying the need for music teachers to adopt a personal orientation toward their work. A personal orientation encourages teachers to initiate their own growth, engage in inquiry, and exercise agency in school contexts.

Strongly grounded in current theories and research in teacher education, Constructing a Personal Orientation to Music Teaching: Growth, Inquiry, and Agency strives to do the following:

• Engage readers in analyzing their own experiences in order to conceptualize the complexity of teaching
• Involve them in clarifying their reasons for seeking a career in teaching
• Support their insights, questions, and reflections about their work
• Promote a reflective, critical attitude about schools in general as music teachers are urged to think of themselves as change agents in school settings
• Construct a moral purpose as a compass to guide their current and future endeavors in the profession.

Every chapter includes a wealth of pedagogical features, including new methodologies and examples of practice to engage the readers in processes of inquiry and reflection.

The second edition is organized in two parts. Part I focuses on positioning music teachers as learners in the profession, significantly expanding concepts explored in the first edition that are central to a personal orientation to professional growth. In the new edition, a reconceptualized Chapter 5 challenges teachers to cultivate their identities as change agents. The second half of the book—focusing on becoming a student of music teaching— features five new chapters. A provocative chapter on curriculum sets the stage for a set of additional chapters that invite deeper considerations of the commonplaces of teacher, learners, subject matter, and context. An epilogue speaks directly to the power of agency, imagination, and hope in teachers’ lives.