My Music Classroom

In a recent curriculum conversation with a colleague, I was asked about the role of our curriculum—and our roles as music teachers—in being the gatekeepers of musical knowledge and history. Two principal questions were posed:
What music do I choose to introduce to our students through our curriculum?
How do I ensure that our students are exposed to the best of what has been written in the course of music history?

As musicians, we are all highly opinionated about what we perceive to be the best or most important pieces of music, and which composers we feel our students ought to be introduced to. Just look at the launch of the Model Music Curriculum. When it launched, Twitter was alight with reactions—some incredulous that certain composers were excluded, others baffled at what was included.

So, is there a set canon we should expose our students to? In English, is it the teacher’s responsibility to introduce Shakespeare as a central figure of literature? And if so, is Beethoven therefore a necessary centrepiece of an effective music curriculum? I can’t get this question out of my head.

A curriculum is so much more than a list of pieces to study. But that said, the music we choose tells our students a lot about what we value and what we choose to elevate. We do hold a responsibility to educate and expose our students to high-quality musicianship, compositions, and performances—and we commit to that in our curriculum statement of intent.

At BCCS, we are very aware that all our curriculum staff are white, classically trained musicians. To serve our school community effectively, we have to work hard to explore and demonstrate the immense value of music from a broad range of contexts—not just those of the European classical canon. Despite what our exam boards may suggest, music extends far beyond the Eurocentric collection of set works. That said, our exam classes do explore some significant and groundbreaking works: The Rite of Spring, Pierrot Lunaire, Brandenburg Concertos, through to Jerry Goldsmith, Miles Davis, Kate Bush, and Courtney Pine.

So who gets to choose what is deemed “the best”? And how do we tread the path of such great responsibility? In a subject area facing relentless cuts to curriculum time and increasingly fragmented provision through subject carousels, how—and where—do we fit it all in?

Last year, I had the great pleasure of meeting inclusion advisor Manu Maunganidze, who challenged me to be bolder in allowing students to drive the curriculum more, bringing their own musical experiences into its centre. This conversation fed directly into the curriculum planning I blogged about last week, and into our department’s mission: to be humble in admitting we cannot know it all, and to recognise that our students bring rich and diverse musical experiences into our classrooms.

We have a unique opportunity to harness this as our superpower as music educators. This isn’t just about engagement—it’s about crafting a curriculum that is rich, meaningful, truly diverse, and deeply inspiring for the students in our care, while helping us continue to learn and grow as educators and musicians ourselves. I am certain our students can only benefit from that.

LG

*Manu Maunganidze works with the Global Goals Centre, NYCE, and advises cultural and environmental institutions on inclusion and equality issues.