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ENGAGING AFRICENTRIC DISPOSITIONS

By Dr. Georgiary Bledsoe and Dr. Sonya White Hope

April 2021Engaging Africentric Dispositions

People have been making music in African-centered ways for millennia. In that sense, an Africentric paradigm is nothing new. However, American music education has been missing a systematic way of engaging Africentric music. While our first article focused on the need to engage an Africentric paradigm, this second article begins to lay out systematic ways that teachers can engage it. Here, we illuminate the first of four pillars in the Sankofa Songs Africentric Arts Education Framework - Dispositions and provide a concrete example.

We - Dr. Georgiary Bledsoe (GB), ethnomusicologist, piano teacher and Dr. Sonya White Hope (SWH), middle school string teacher and music education scholar - have been in dialog for years about contributing new and compelling perspectives to the discourse about culturally relevant pedagogy. This series of articles and SankofaSongs Summer Institute are two of the outcomes of our collaborative synergy and ongoing conversation.

GB: The Sankofa Songs Africentric Arts Education Framework is a set of understandings and strategies designed to help teachers engage with Africentric music in holistic ways. The first pillar is Dispositions. Dispositions can be defined as tendencies to act in certain ways in given circumstances. In the context of music education, dispositions are essentially cultural preferences - expressed through pedagogical and musical values. Dispositions are the bedrock of music education. “Every child can learn” is a familiar disposition often heard and repeated in education circles. But in the context of gross racial disparities, it can become an empty platitude. Eurocentric models, whether intentionally or otherwise, often ignore, suppress, marginalize and even denigrate the cultural practices of people of African descent. If teachers adhere to the internal logic of these models, even if they do so unconsciously, how can they expect to engage inclusive ways of being and doing? The first pillar of the Framework is predicated on the following assumption: before an educator can comprehend the nature of the change required; before one can even fully recognize that change is needed; before one can switch from “I think, therefore I am” to “I am because we are,” there has to be an openness. Educators must first recognize that highly valuable knowledge exists outside of the Eurocentric paradigm, that some of this knowledge even exists outside of the educators themselves. The following foundational dispositions, when adopted, offer educators opportunities for meaningful engagement with an Africentric paradigm.

Foundational Africentric Dispositions

1. Teachers can grow and teachers must grow. This disposition prepares teachers to enrich their musical practices and lives, and to unravel thorny tangles of culture, identity and race with grace and stamina.

2. The music and culture of Black Americans are foundational to and integral parts of American music and culture. This disposition places American expressive identity at the center of music education and opens space for bringing more balance, breadth, depth and clarity to what Americanness means.

3. Africentric music is of value and can be used to teach all aspects of musical proficiency. This disposition is a corollary to the second disposition and prepares teachers to offer a bundle of thorough, honest musical values that is meaningful, useful, and I might even say indispensable, to all students.

4. Lived culture is indispensable to musical practice and to music education. This disposition prepares teachers to recognize the shifts in meaning and identity required to navigate and authentically engage “music of the academy, music of the student, and music of the community.” (Pearson-Bush, 2020)

5. Students can learn and students can learn from me. This disposition is a mindset that transforms “every child can learn” from a platitude to an intention. It assists teachers in focusing on student needs as revealed through relationship.

Our concrete example comes from the classroom experience of Dr. White Hope. She bridges theory and practice by applying these Africentric dispositions with her students.

SWH: All of us have pedagogical dispositions. They are always there. Functioning like a computer’s operating system, they silently guide our every decision, our every move. The adoption of Africentric dispositions can expose challenges and may entail discomfort. The growth disposition is a heartset and a mindset, and the two must not be separated. I teach the music of Black Americans year-round, but during Black History Month I’m very deliberate and overt about giving students some ways to help them be more inquisitive that they probably aren’t getting from anywhere else. Remote learning has convinced me that the purpose of education should not be to produce widget makers. Rather, students already have a lot of information. We need to help them learn how to prioritize and use information. In that context, this past February, my goal was to help my students learn about Black music culture, its function in society and its role in their lives. To that end, as an opener for a lesson, I asked the question: “What do you want to know about African American work songs?” My students’ responses were overwhelming and told me several things: that I need to know more about this music, that I need to teach aspects of culture that are probably uncomfortable; and that students, parents, and administrators might question my motives. In order to teach this really cool and valuable music, I knew I needed to expose my students to some brutal realities, that some aspects of our history as Americans were unjust and unkind, and there was no way to sugar coat it. Perhaps most of all, I was trying to teach them that music is more than just something you happen to listen to when you need to ‘chill out.’ I needed to teach them that music can be functional too.

This mini-unit presented interesting opportunities for professional growth, even if my experiences included an element of uncertainty. It was particularly frightening to introduce all the cultural aspects surrounding work songs in the wake of the capitol insurrection knowing full well that my student body is anything but homogeneous. Statistically, I knew that some of them would bristle at my suggesting there were African Americans who were treated unjustly, ever, under any circumstances, whether in the context of slavery, Jim Crow or convict-leasing. I also had to face the reality that some of the students in front of me might well have descended from the creators of work songs and others from those who placed those creators in unjust situations. Facing the potential blow-back from the images I used to explain what happened - while attempting to convey that information without assigning value - was also difficult.

There is additional growth I experienced associated with my determination to truly portray the music of work songs. Some of the songs existed in the unjust context of convict-leasing and labor camps, while others were created in the context of paid labor. My second lesson was on the Gandy dancers whose job was to straighten railroad train tracks. These musics and their soundscapes were very different from each other, as their contexts were different. Then, considering the various motivations of the singers toward the work they were doing, many had things to sing about that aren't at all appropriate for the seventh grade. My ultimate goal was to share the music, to situate the people who produced the music as human and to give a more complete picture of the realities that shaped their musical practices. I wanted to give students tools for wondering about knowledge, being curious and for assessing the knowledge they receive so that they can figure out how they’re going to use it and prioritize what they get from it. I knew it was important to teach music from a lived perspective since these musical practices were dictated by the life circumstances of the musicians.

In fact, with these lessons, I was thinking about how my immersion in the Sankofa Songs Africentric Arts Education Framework is really revolutionizing my teaching. I’m noticing an engagement level that I hadn’t had before, which is kind of mind-boggling!

GB: What an amazing story, Dr. White Hope. I can see several of the foundational dispositions reflected in your experience and I believe those dispositions map directly onto your students’ increased engagement. In your choice of lesson topic, you forged broader representation and enriched your students’ perspective. With your invitation to the students to share the kinds of knowledge they were seeking, you faced the realities of race head-on and demonstrated the mindset that your students can learn - from you. You gave your students permission to think critically about topics that resonate in the current social and political climate. You shed light on this climate rather than sweeping it under the rug. You recognized both your own growth and that of your students.

You placed this Black musical practice in the context of the specific American institutions that shaped it: convict leasing and railroad labor. You kept lived experience at the forefront of your lessons and it guided the way you differentiated between 1. music of the academy - stylistic factors that characterized the work songs, e.g. function; 2. music of the student - the kinds of information they sought; and 3. music of the community - song functions and lyrics that were apropos to the practice, but not appropriate for you to voice, address or indulge in your setting.

You recognized the value of this musical practice even for students and members of the broader community who might experience discomfort. And you offered an honest account that expanded the horizon of all the students. No wonder engagement is growing in your classroom! Kudos to you!

Now that we have unpacked key aspects of the first pillar in the Sankofa Songs Africentric Arts Education Framework, we look forward to our exchange in the next article on the second pillar - Aims. Aims focus on intentions and purposes. They are central to engaging an Africentric paradigm and to revolutionizing our teaching!

Reference:

Fitzpatrick-Harnish, K. (2015). Urban music education: A practical guide for teachers. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Cited in Pearson-Bush, S. (2020). Students’ Perceptions And Experiences: African American Students In Band And Orchestra Programs (Unpublished doctoral dissertation), p. 102. University of New England. Retrieved April 8, 2021 from: https://dune.une.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1304&context=theses

To cite this article:

Bledsoe, G., & White Hope, S. (2021, April). Engaging Africentric Dispositions. Retrieved [insert date] from https://www.sankofasongs.org/articles/africentricparadigm-dispositions