Music education is often pre-dominantly practical, with
the focus on experiential and participatory learning styles. However, allowing
space for dialogic learning and teaching will have immense benefits for
individual learners and the group. Music making is a social activity and therefore,
by its very nature, a collaborative experience. Creating communities of learners,
or communities of practice, is an essential part of the world of music. The shared
experience of music-making for both performers and listeners brings people
together socially enabling dialogic learning to take place. It is important for
music educators to appreciate the important role that dialogic teaching has
within the community of practitioners, whether these be adults in a music group
or a class of children in a music lesson. Although the activity may be focussed
on the performance or music making itself, through dialogic learning the
community can learn from each other and their shared experience, and also impact
on others outside the community, for example the listeners. Dialogic teaching and
learning is part of the journey for that community of learners, and often that
learning journey is more important than a particular end product.
Considering this may lead to music educators broadening their outlook in terms of the impact their work can have on both their community of learners and wider afield. Music can be used to help break down barriers between communities and directly open dialogic discussions between different communities who may otherwise have no reason to communicate with each other. Through these dialogues more learning takes place. A simple example within school music: my school in England learnt a song in Arabic to share with a school in Palestine who had learnt a song in English. The journey of learning the songs for both communities of learners opened up many opportunities for dialogic teaching and learning within each community, and then this dialogic learning was expanded to include learning between both communities when they shared the songs on a Zoom call and got a chance to ask questions about each other’s life and culture. The importance of creating space for this dialogic teaching and learning leads to immense benefits.