Becoming music-making music teachers: Connecting music making, identity, wellbeing, and teaching for four student teachers

Abstract

The purpose of this descriptive case study was to examine the developing music teacher identity of four student music teachers by exploring the meanings of music making and the intersections of music making and teaching. Participants all had dual student teaching placements: elementary general music and secondary band. Data were generated through background surveys, three individual interviews per participant, video recording of participants’ music making inside the classroom, and participant journals. Individual interviews occurred before, during and after the student teaching experience. Videos of participants using their own music making inside the classroom during one class of their choice were jointly viewed during the second interview. Music making intersected with participants’ personal and professional identities, wellbeing, and their teaching. For example, the intersections of music making and wellbeing included feeling connected to self, to others, and to their spirituality while music making, as well as music making being an expressive tool, stress management tool, and mood enhancer. Music making also contributed to teaching as an efficient pedagogical tool (to enhance student learning) and classroom management tool (to promote student engagement). Participants used music making inside the classroom to excite and inspire their students and themselves, to bring students’ attention to the teacher and the music, to gain credibility and establish expertise, and to model technique and musicality in the instrumental classrooms and musical concepts and improvisation in the general music classrooms. Through music making inside the classroom, participants developed their professional identity, realizing what kind of music teachers they wanted to become: excited about music and music teaching, and music teachers who use music making to inspire students to be excited and engaged in music learning.