Theoretical Revolution In Education

1 William Molnar 1. From your own field, please select and describe an example of a theoretical revolution. (One famous example from astronomy is Galileo and Copernicus’s heliocentric construct, replacing the view that the sun moves around the earth. In a theoretical revolution, the acceptance of a new theory necessitates rethinking a prior theory and abandoning beliefs that were generally accepted by experts and specialists--astronomers in this example.) In your discussion, identify the new theory and sketch some of the features of the earlier theory or ideas that it supplants.

Thomas Kuhn stated that science was a “peaceful interlude punctuated by intellectually violent revolutions”. And in those revolutions, he wrote, “one conceptual world view is replaced by another”. In addition, Kuhn stated that “the new paradigm cannot build on the one that precedes it, it can only supplant it. The two”, he said, “were "incommensurable”. In the field of music education, there are three major schools of philosophy that is used to teach music to children. One of these philosophies is the philosophy of Zoltan Kodaly. Kodaly, was a Hungarian composer who designed the idea of teaching music through the use of solfeggio and hand symbols to designate the notes of the scale. Kodaly’s believed that in order to create a well-rounded individual, music should be developed emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually. Kodaly believed that musical ability is possible in every person and that music education should begin as early as possible. Music education should begin at home and then continue in school. The second philosophy is that of Jacques Dalcroze. Dalcroze, A French musician, felt that children learn music best through movement. All of Dalcroze’s lessons are based around movement. Dalcroze believes that children can feel music very young and can feel music before understanding the other elements of music such as melodies, harmony, tone color, and form. The Dalcroze method involves teaching musical concepts through movement. Dalcroze believes the body should be used as a musical instrument and was the best for generating a musical foundation. The Dalcroze Method consists of three elements: eurhythmics, solfege, and improvisation Using all

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three of these element will create a complete musician.

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The theoretical revolution that I wish to use as my example is the philosophy of Carl Orff. Orff. Orff was the head of the Guenther School and worked with musical beginners. It was at the Guenther School that Orff began to develop his music education theories Some of Orff’s approaches are Dalcroze-like but instead of focusing on movement, Orff focused on the use of percussion instruments. The focus of the Orff method is the development of music that can be reenacted in the life of a child. The Orff approach follows the theory like language, music can be taught in the same fashion. In learning acquisition, a child learns to speak by imitating what they have heard and learned to interpret symbols that represent the listening sounds. Orff believed children should learn music as if they were learning a language. In the early stages of child development, they are naïve to the elements of music. Students are taught melodies that involve moving similar to the Dalcroze method. Orff approached music this way because he believed that children must have the ability to feel music before seeing it. Singing follows directly from speech. Orff created an order that the students learned to use solfege. Orff believed that the pentatonic scale is native to children. Orff wished to use this scale because it helped the child relive the modes of early music history Orff felt that using the pentatonic scale gave children confidence. The final section of Orff’s theory is movement (another concept borrowed from Dalcroze). Orff believed that movement helped children become expressive. Expression allows the child to use their imagination. Following observation, the teacher can create lessons that build musical concepts out of this. The final step in the Orff methods is the development of the creativity in a child. In its early years, music

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education stated that children should read music before anything else to be a true musician. The Orff method focuses on creativity and expressiveness. The use of Orff in the 21st century has been very well received by thousands of music teachers around the world. The American Orff-Schulwerk Association (AOSA), of which I am a member of, promotes Orff education as the major teaching method to be used when teaching music to elementary and middle school children. The Orff philosophy is quite different from the ideas of the past. The philosophy of Orff was definitely a paradigm in the field. In the 1970’s, the “aesthetic education” was the buzz word and was quite different from the philosophy of Orff. The idea of aesthetic education, coined by Bennett Reimer’s philosophy has encountered significant and sometimes heated criticism. Bennett Reimer’s book, “A Philosophy of Music Education” (1970) built upon ideas advanced by Charles Leonhard and others in the late 1960’s. It offered the music profession a challenging image of itself, one that maintained the inherent worth and dignity of instructional endeavors in music at a time when educational practices in general were subject to intense scrutiny. Music education was justified, the profession found comfort in saying to the extent it contributed to the broader project of “aesthetic education. Vernon Howard, a scholar of Harvard University objects Reimer’s philosophy. First, he states that it is not really philosophy’s place to justify music education. Second, he challenges Reimer’s claim that music does for feeling what writing and reading do for reason. In the area of aesthetics, Reimer believes that those who teach aesthetics should be made aware of the importance of music. With regards to music literacy, Reimer’s definition and idea is more of the whole child. Reimer expected students to be

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able to understand musical notation at the start of the musical knowledge. This completely contradicts the philosophy of Orff. Aesthetic education is based on philosophy and not in music making. Reimer believed the child must understand the writing process of music before being able to produce a product based on the symbols that are represented on the paper. The 1970 philosophy of aesthetic education has been replaced by the concepts of Orff. As a theoretical revolution, the new theory of Orff necessitated the rethinking of the prior theory of Bennett Reimer and eventually brought music teachers to abandoning his beliefs. Kuhn states that “we have elevated the scientist to the status of ‘revelator of truth’ where ‘truth’ is defined in terms of the prevailing paradigm belief and not objective facts. Since objective facts do not determine what truth is, when there is some compelling reason to believe something that is in contradiction with the facts, the support of the paradigm community gives justification to that choice”. The changes brought on by Orff would be what Kuhn would refer to as a paradigm ‘anomaly’. At the start, Orff’s philosophy at the beginning could not be explained. It was because most of the theory of Orff was based on the psychological development of the child and when one involves psychology, then science becomes a factor in the process. Since education wasn’t viewed as a “science” 30 years ago and the two shouldn’t mix. Today still, it is debatable if education is a science or an art form. That question can be answered in another paper. As I am finding out through the course on Human Inquiry and Science and the reading of Kuhn, he believes that some person will feel that the anomalies are justifiable for a new paradigm and willv create one that explains them and the data of the previous one. The theoretical revolution of Orff, once observed and explained, was easy to understand and soon

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became the new science in the field of music education. “Tell me, I forget. Show me, I remember. Involve me, I understand “ Carl Orff 2. Citing the relevant concepts in Sayer’s chapter 2, please explain what factors caused the new theoretical framework in your field to finally push through and gain acceptance over the old framework.

The one issue that Sayer points out in chapter 2 is the distinction between real and thought objects (p 47). He states that empirical and observational statements are both included within the domain of thought objects. Sayer divides thought objects and real objects. The thought objects are theory and empirical observational factual knowledge whereas real objects are facts as things or states of the world. Sayer then goes on to state that the thought objects side of the equation attempts to lean toward the right-hand side. Sayer feels that theoretical and factual knowledge do have something in common and that the contrast between the speculative and unrealistic character of theory and the reality of facts loses much of its force. In the field of music education, the ideas and philosophy of Bennett Reimer would satisfy the left side of the equation, the thought objects side that consists of the theory, whereas the philosophy of Orff, would satisfy the right side of the equation. Sayer states that “many cognitive activities involve material processes of searching, separating, dividing, combining, and manipulating. In some ways, these processes follow the model of the philosophy of Carl Orff. In his section on ‘Theory’, Sayer discusses the common-sense conceptions of theory. He relates theory as fact Again here the old philosophy of Bennett Reimer would fit into this side of theory, hypothetical, etc. but the philosophy of Orff would replace it with the other side of the equation; fact or reality, practice, common sense,

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etc. Much of the philosophy of Orff is based on much practice and common sense with regards to the normal growth of the child and is an objective approach to music education. Sayer states that theory that has been opposed to practice will only take a tiny bit of sloppy thinking to align the hypothetical with the impractical (p 50). At the time when the theories of Bennett Reimer’s aesthetic education were being scrutinized, educators in the field of music began to move towards the theory of Orff. They were beginning to oppose what was happening in practice and finding it impractical. They soon realized that aesthetic education and the thought that the child must learn to read and write music at the beginning of their music experience was the wrong approach. They were aligning the theoretical with the impractical. They were discovering that children were not grasping the concepts of music in the way they were hoping they would. As a result, other theories were becoming available and were exploited by those who wanted to make a change. Following the growth of the child through normal language and speech made much more sense and this began to uphold the field of music education and the push to follow the theories of Carl Orff In his section on the conceptual mediation of perception, Sayer discusses the first object of perception. He states that visual (and other sensory) fields are ‘conceptually-saturated’ (p 51). In the old philosophy of Reimer, he did not tap into all the sensory fields. The only field he tapped into was visual (the visualizing and reading of music notes). In Orff, he attempts to involve all the senses one experiences especially hearing, seeing, and touching. Music educators grasped onto this concept as if they were being pulled out of the ocean for dear life. This is another factor that shows

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how the new theoretical framework in my field finally pushed through and gained acceptance over the old framework. Sayer states that perceiving learning is helped along by the help and perception, and with interaction of other objects assisted by active manipulation of the world (p 52). Orff’s philosophy was well involved with interaction with objects (percussion instruments) and other people (other students in the class that were used to help improvise material on the instruments). In another statement made by Sayer, he states that scientific concepts that was viewed as theoretical aids to understanding, have passed into common sense, where ignorance of the mediated nature of experience allows them to acquire the status of ‘fact’ and to be used for rejecting other, still conspicuous, theoretical concepts. The musical concept of Bennett Reimer can be regarded as theoretical and has passed into common sense philosophy of Orff where the experience is allowing those that accepted his theory as fact proven through experiences and was used for rejecting other theoretical concepts (the concept of Reimer). Sayer says that in learning a new body of theory, we usually eventually find that the new concepts will allow us to see new objects. Learning the theory of Orff helped education find a new concept of teaching music as a new object, the object being the new theory. Sayer felt that physical and social scientists will see how observations are not made in a vacuum but are guided and shaped by prior questions, problems, and hypotheses. Orff’s philosophy was guided and shaped based on prior questions brought about through Reimer’s theory of aesthetic education, problems were found throughout his theory and new hypotheses were developed in how to teach music to children. Orff’s new hypotheses were that children should learn through rhythm and speech, a concept

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not thought of by Reimer. Sayer felt that theoretical change is an all-or-nothing deal and this led to the idea of either continuing with the ideas of Reimer or completely abandoning this theory and pushing through to accept the ideas of Orff. In his section on “sense and reference and the conceptual and the empirical”, Sayer brings out an important point. He says that development and use of concepts were used not just for observation and representation of the world, but acting in it. “For work and communicative interaction; for making and doing as well as speaking, writing, listening and reading,..for teaching children. Conceptual systems concern not only what we observe, but what we can do and how we do it” (p 59). This statement models Orff’s philosophy. The concepts applied by Orff represent the concepts that are taught to children around the world by acting in it. Orff believes in making and doing, speaking, writing (later in a child’s musical experience), listening and reading. Orff believes that music education is not only what we observe, but how it is done.

Sayer, continuing on his subject on sense and

reference says that the idea of new concepts can only become reality through ideas that already exist. The philosophy of Orff which was a new concept was developed from a pre-existing philosophy. He explained this unfamiliar new theory by referencing to the theory of Reimer. He showed how aesthetic education was not producing a positive music education experience for children because it was not involving all the other senses other than visual. In addition, Orff showed that involving the visual sense first was unnatural. This pre-existing philosophy was slowly pushed aside as Orff gained strength in his methods.

In his thoughts on idealism and relativism, Sayer

brings out an important point. In his theory on idealism and relativism, he believes that

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advice is given that we should doubt everything. He also states that in concluding his argument he states that the arguments of idealism and relativism are only useful if those involved in the argument are consistent and accept that they must not assume something which their conclusions deny. In the philosophy of Orff, skepticism of this new idea began to develop. Educators needed to check that it was better than the knowledge the believers and skeptics were confident with at the time and that was the philosophy of Reimer. Teachers were comfortable with the idea of students learning to read music at an early age. It took Orff a while to win over teacher’s trust in his ideas of how music should be taught. But it didn’t take long for teachers to push through and put aside the ideas of Reimer and join the bandwagon on the Orff’s ideas of music being taught through reaching the other senses first and leaving visual learning as last, not first. In addition, Sayer says that we should say as social scientists do, that knowledge should be judged as more or less useful rather than true or false. Music educators should embrace the knowledge of Orff as useful and not as a true or false ideology to the field of education.

Sayer states that if one believes that an object

or structure behaves the way it does if our theory were true, it is the same as saying that it is not inconsistent with the theory. In the case of Orff, it is the structure and characteristic of the world that makes his theories and practices possible. As the world changed and new ideas in education were becoming into practice, the old ideas of Reimer were becoming obsolete. As we approached the late 1990’s and into the 21st century, the ideas of Orff took off replacing the 30 year old school of thought. In conclusion, although the philosophies of Bennett Reimer being replaced by the philosophy of Carl Orff doesn’t

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compare to the philosophy of Newton being replaced by the philosophy of Einstein, it is still a major change in the field of music education. Sayer says that for two ideas to be contradictory, they need to have certain terms in common. There was mutual contradiction between Reimer and Orff. There were some terms that were in common which is what caused Orff to contradict the beliefs of Reimer. There has been a major shift in the paradigm of music education and a new scientific revolution took place that brought music educators from all around the world to become one. The philosophy of Reimer was like teaching in a vacuum. It was not widely accepted and was not a worldwide philosophy. Orff is taught in countless countries throughout the world. A child in the United States that is taught the Orff method can be placed in a classroom in any country in the world, and pick up just where they left off in the U.S. This is what helped push through the old theoretical framework and start the acceptance of the new theoretical framework. This change in philosophical thought brought about a change in knowledge which Sayer says can only be comprehended as growth. The change in philosophy from Reimer to Orff brought about significant changes in music education. As Sayer states, change in knowledge is an all-or-nothing affair. He also feels that in the realm of eclecticism it can be insightful to look at old subjects in a different light, and borrowing concepts from other theories can help catapult new theories. This is exactly what Orff did; He looked at an old subject in a completely different way, borrowed some concepts from the older theories and used it to his advantage to create his philosophy. This helped push Orff over the edge into acceptance and approval amongst music educators around the world. Sayer sums up my final thoughts on the idea of pushing though the old framework and accepting the new framework perfectly. Pushing through

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the old framework requires change. Sayer states that satisfactory interpretation and observation involving the discovery of objects is the simplest type of change. Furthermore, he states that “an interesting kind of change involves developing the growth that can occur when the displacement of an existing concept actually changes its meaning” (p 51). Sayer reminds us that it is important to realize the difficulty of producing effective change. The philosophy of Orff may not compare to the discovery that the earth is round and not flat, but in the field of music education, he has brought an entirely new idea that children learn best when taught based on their physical and maturational levels and through the use of natural elements such as the use of speech and the feeling of rhythm. In his last section of his book, theorizing and the development of knowledge, Sayer concludes that the easiest change is discovering the instances of objects that are already generalized. In the eyes of Sayer, “a more interesting kind of change, involves the development rather than mere growth, which can occur when the dislocation of an existing concept to a new situation actually changes its meaning” (p 52). This is exactly what Orff accomplished. His changes occurred by displacing the existing concept of Bennett Reimer to a new situation and completely changed its meaning. He changed music education from a visual learning experience to an aural, tactile and kinesthetic experience. Music education has now been stronger than ever with this new philosophy in place.

3. Describe how professionals and scholars reacted to the theoretical shift at the time of the theoretical revolution.

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In the section on the conceptual mediation of perception in chapter 2 of Sayer’s book, Sayer discusses the psychology of perception literature which demonstrates the key role of practice in the learning process. He feels that “the manipulation and exploration of the world along with interaction with objects are assisted through perception and learning” (p 52). Philosophers and scientists interpreted this research in different ways, but there is one common interpretation that supports the orderingframework as view of theory which Sayer wished to contest. As Sayer states, an equality exists between ‘data’ which the world uses as perception. Sayer states that It then appears that statistics are “untainted by concepts or theories and only subsequently interpreted explained concepts or theories and interpreted, explained or predicted using some theoretical or conceptual ‘framework’” (p 52). The scientists claim that the data that is gathered in science is already generalized to a conclusion. Many scientific concepts that are theoretical have now become common sense. Sayer’s main point is that there lies a lack of foundation in that accepted criteria for comparing the observable from the unobservable and observational statements from theoretical statements. Social scientists tend to talk for a middle ground, but Sayer feels that in the area of theoretical and observation language, it does not make sense to talk like social scientists do. It appears to me that with this statement, Sayer has ill feelings towards the processes of social scientists. Sayer feels that social scientists are always searching for a middle ground between things that are different and between abstract and non-abstract concepts. Middle grounds, which Sayer refers to as bridges, are needed. Sayer also states that both physical and social scientists will agree that observations are not made in a vacuum but “guided and shaped by prior questions,

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problems, hypotheses, conjectures or theories” (p 55). Sayer claims that these questions, problems, hypotheses, etc. make judgment about relationships and between variable. This view sustains the ordering-framework or ‘filing’ system’ conception of theory. Many of the professionals and scholars in the field of music education didn’t take too kindly to the philosophy of Orff. They didn’t see the need to change the process that was used in the 1960’s and 1970’s. But like Sayer’s social scientists, these scholars attempted to search for a middle ground between the two theories and not pass judgment between the two. After gaining a better understanding of the development of the child psychologically, then they began to gain perception into the process of Orff. Sayer stresses the point that we (scientists) use concepts for work and interaction, not just for observing. They use concepts for making, doing, writing, listening, reading, and running for organizations and working with them. “Conceptual systems concern not only what we think we can observe, but what we can do and how we do it” p 59). When discussing the British riots in 1981, Sayer discusses the contextualization of the conclusion of the papers. In this section, he makes mention of natural science and states that there have been numerous cases of observations conflicting with theory and are being protected from testing by the decisions of disturbing familiar theories. Sayer notes that there is no factual basis to fall back on if a disagreement arises, it is only best to settle the issue by using the concepts and empirical evidence where no disagreement exists and then try to check the consistency of the dispute. Sayer claims that social scientists neglect the “importance of conceptualization prone to inserting the misconceptions of unexamined common sense

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into its ordering framework” (p 62). In addition, it is stated that new concepts can be developed from pre-existing ones. In his argument on metaphors, Sayer makes the claim that scientists and philosophers have disregarded the role of metaphors and ‘picture-carrying expression’ and have represented scientific language as a combination of sets of empirical terms, each of which is taken to be capable of referring, to its object plus logical formula which relate these observational terms together. It can be concluded from this statement that Sayer is not pleased with the acceptance of his theory by the scientific community. Mathematical theories have been created in many sciences, but are often developed and discussed “in abstraction from any reference to the real world” (p 64). Sayer claims that once they are used, something in the real world tends to allow its proponents to imagine an “unproblematic observations can be used to simply be ‘plugged in’ to the equations and that the real business or empirical science only begins once this has been done” (p 64). After reviewing other sections of chapter 2, it appears that Sayer doesn’t agree with the field of the social sciences. His statement on page 65 supports this by his statement that “Given the double hermeneutic of social science, the problems concerning the status and reliability of its knowledge go beyond the simple relationship between thought and material objects to that between the thought objects of the investigator and the concepts and beliefs of the society under study” ( p 65). In his conclusion on social scientists, he dives into the theory of idealism and relativism. He asks how does one know that a real world exists independently of us if its existence can only be postulated in thought and also if there are real objects, how can their relationship to thought objects be discovered? Here are questions that a social scientist

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can answer, but Sayer is actually pointing out that they can’t be answered and he tries to spare the reader by offering answers to these questions. He claims that the second question has caused many debates in social science. To give a short version of his answer to the question, Sayer claims that “the main problem concerns how something as immaterial as a concept or statement or equation can be said to be ‘true of’, ‘correspond to’ or ‘represent’ something material…we can never justifiably claim to have discovered the absolute truth about matters of fact or to have established some absolute foundation for our knowledge” (p 67). Sayer concludes that because the world does not consist of any kind of expectation then we can believe it exists independently of us and is not a figment of our imagination. Sayer does defend the social sciences by stating that knowledge and the material world are different and that facts are fallible but not all fallible in an even way. This statement, Sayer claims, defends the field of social science against the “irrationalism and relativism which often followed the demise of naïve objectivism” (p 68). He also states that one should say as social scientists do that knowledge, rather than being thought of as true or false, should be judged as more or less useful. In the gestalt switches, Sayer states that some argue that it is wrong for a scientist who has changed paradigm to change back again. He states that having the intelligence of a new broad principle needs contact with similar principles, perhaps from within different contexts. The interpretation of the gestalt switch overlooks this and underestimates the spanning called scientific revolutions. Observation is thought of as being theory-neutral and the role of theory is to provide a way of ordering data. Sayer claims that change in knowledge can be

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comprehended as growth and is a process of accumulating new terms without changing the meaning of the old. Sayer blatantly deems this as false and stating that meanings do change. Transformation in social scientific knowledge can promote an adjustment and vice versa. References Bowman, W. (2003). Symposium: Bennett Reimer’s philosophy of music education. Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education, 2(1), 1-7. Hylton, J.B. (2007). Fifty years of comprehensive music education: It is déjà vu all over again? Music Education Research International, 1(1), 13-24. New York Times. June 19, 1996, p B7 (obituary). Reimer, B. (1970). Learning to listen to music. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Reimer, B. (1970). A philosophy of music education. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall. Reimer, B. & Evans, E.G. (1973). The experience of music, developing the experience of music, teaching the experience of music. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Sayer, A. (1992), Method in social science. London and New York: Routledge. www.bhaosa.coom/whatisorff.html www.classicsforkids.com/teachers/orff101..asp http://musiced.about.com/od/lessonplans/tp/orffmethod.htm www.answers.com/topic/orff-schulwerk www.isme.ort/en/advocacy-articles/11-why-music-education.html www.mun.ca/educ/faculty/mwatch/win91/roberts.thml http://usataiwanmusiced.wikispaces.com/Philosophy+of+Music+Education www.cantos.org/Booksfolder/StartHere/Aesthetic.html

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www.kodaly.org.au www.studyworld.com www.thingsrevealed.net/structure.htm www.des.emory.edu/mflp/Kuhnsnalp.html