By Dr. Georgiary Bledsoe and Dr. Sonya White Hope

July 2021

Our series of articles, “Engaging an Africentric Paradigm,” has introduced the reader to a systematic way for K-12 educators to teach Africentric music as an indispensable component of American music. In this article, we round out the discussion by pulling the strands together to illuminate Practice, the fourth and final pillar in the BaobaoTree Framework. Here, we seek to provide guidance in choosing materials, and processes and strategies that will center, reflect and convey the musical values and modes that lie at the heart of music traditions created and honed through time by musicians in our American corner of the African Diaspora. 

Our definition of Practice encompasses methods and content. Methods are the processes teachers employ to build students’ skills, convey concepts and impart knowledge. Content refers to repertoire and to the materials teachers use as representations of the musical culture they wish to teach. 

SWH: Methods and content are on a continuum within Practice. Said another way, all practices have a ‘method’ perspective that mirrors their ‘content’ perspective and vice-versa. I’ll use a concrete example to illustrate this point. Mixture of timbres, an African American musical preference discussed by Olly Wilson (1999), can be used within music teachers’ practice as content and/or as method. From the perspective of content, a music teacher might lead a class in a two-part assignment. First the students would observe “conceptual approaches to the process of music making” (Wilson 1999) by listening to a recording of Papa Was A Rolling Stone performed by The Temptations, then they would discuss the mixture of many distinct timbres in the performance. Similarly, highlighting the power of the mixture of timbres as a method, the same teacher might create an assessment that requires students to work in small groups that collaboratively compose and perform a short piece. The piece would demonstrate the students’ ability to manipulate an assortment of rhythmic patterns in an ensemble context. The use of classroom instruments that combine a mixture of timbres (and/or body percussion that exploits a variety of timbres) would situate this experience within Africentric practice while simultaneously facilitating the teacher’s assessment of individual students’ learning.

CONTENT & METHODS

GB: In article 4, we referenced King and Swartz (2016) with regard to pedagogy and the centrality of relationships, and we summarized their six Africentric pedagogical principles. In their work, each pedagogical principle is paired with a content-focused principle. We here adopt the idea of pairing the pedagogies with content-focused principles, but we adapt it to reflect our understanding of methods and content as occupying a single continuum. We pair the pedagogies with strategies for choosing content and methods. Just as content and methods populate the bounds of the same continuum, together as Practice, they form a continuum with pedagogy. As a reminder, in our lexicon, Africentric pedagogy is a relational, generative and emergent commitment to group well-being and belonging. 

Methods/Content Continuum               Content <-----------------> Methods

Pedagogy/Practice Continuum            Pedagogy <---------------> Practice

In this way, content and method can be seen as experiences of pedagogy in action. In the graphic below, the two continua are visible, Methods/Content and Pedagogy/Practice. The solid green arrow indicates that Practice is made up of methods, symbolized by the guitar teacher, and content, symbolized by notated scores. The pale yellow vertical arrow connects Pedagogy, symbolized by the light generated by two hands touching, with Practice. The vertical arrow then branches out toward methods and content. Note also that Pedagogy, the relational, generative, emergent commitment to group well-being and belonging also forms the backdrop to the entire montage, indicating that Practice (method and content) is really Pedagogy in action.

The Pedagogy/Practice pairs provide strategies for choosing strong content and for structuring its use. They suggest methods that expand current notions of literacy, lesson planning and assessment. We recognize that the content and methods resulting from the use of these strategies may at times seem to generate friction between contemporary teaching orthodoxy and Africentric practice. We suggest ways to resolve these frictions that lend expansiveness, flexibility and generativeness. It is important to recognize that the elements of the Framework build on each other and are interwoven in actual practice, layering Practice with Pedagogy, informed by Dispositions and Aims.

Pair 1. Eldering & Inclusion. Eldering means instructing with authentic authority based on knowledge, wisdom, and expertise, where knowledge is a communal experience and everyone has something to contribute. Its Practice counterpart, Inclusion is a strategy of choosing curricula in which cultures and groups are the subjects of their own accounts, not objects of others’ accounts about them. In Africentric music education, Inclusion means choosing methods and content which prioritize and center Black authors’ (composers, arrangers, lesson planners, scholars, clinicians, etc.) presentation of Africentric topics. 

Pair 2. Locating Students & Representation. Locating Students means designing learning opportunities around normative characteristics of Africentric culture. Its Practice counterpart, Representation is a strategy of choosing curricula that provides enough content and context to avoid distortions and stereotypes, making more authentic portrayals possible. In Africentric music education, Representation means choosing methods and content which reflect the narratives, values and priorities of Black musical communities. 

Pair 3. Multiple Ways of Knowing & Accurate Scholarship. Multiple Ways of Knowing refers to the heritage or cultural knowledge teachers have about their students. It reflects the range of culturally-specific Africentric ways that students learn. Its Practice counterpart, Accurate Scholarship is a strategy of choosing curricula that avoids errors and omissions so that it reflects the past rather than appropriates it. In Africentric music education, Accurate Scholarship means choosing methods and content which examine knowledge with integrity and correct past errors and omissions.

Pair 4. Question-Driven Pedagogy & Indigenous Voice. Question-Driven Pedagogy is a reciprocal learning experience based on inquiry and built around thought-provoking questions. Its Practice counterpart, Indigenous Voice, is a strategy of choosing curricula that portray cultures and groups through the experiences of their members, and historical events through the voices and actions of those who were present. In Africentric music education, Indigenous Voice means choosing methods and content that mirror the lived experiences of Black musical people and communities.

Pair 5. Culturally-Authentic Assessment & Critical Thinking. Culturally-Authentic Assessment guides students to produce knowledge and arrive at solutions through community-informed standards and expectations, like demonstration. Its Practice counterpart, Critical Thinking, is a strategy of choosing curricula that is broad enough for students to question, see patterns, evaluate information, identify areas of significance and produce knowledge, rather than only recall and restate it. In Africentric music education, Critical Thinking means choosing methods and content that help students make connections and synthesize information.

Pair 6. Communal Responsibility & Collective Humanity. Communal Responsibility means fostering belonging, working together, reciprocity and being responsible for each other. Its Practice counterpart, Collective Humanity, is a strategy of choosing curricula in which there is equity in the presentation of knowledge across cultures and groups, and where there is no hierarchy of human worth that places some groups above others. In Africentric music education, Collective Humanity means choosing methods and content that prioritize community in music-making and present Africentric knowledge equitably vis-a-vis other cultures.

SWH: Employing Africentric music education Practice can richly add to teachers’ methods and content tool kit by highlighting and re-prioritizing traditional scope and sequence items. Advanced concepts, elements, and skills presented as Africentric Practice can enrich foundational learning while simultaneously planting sophisticated conceptual ‘seeds’. Case in point, a beginning string teacher needing a method in which students gain facility in performing on and/or identifying the open strings can enlist African American’s “tendency to approach singing or the playing of any instrument in a percussive manner – a manner in which qualitative stress accents are frequently used.” (Wilson 1999) Assigning students the task of creating a tongue twister highlighting the sound “k” , the teacher can then challenge students to slowly ‘play’ the tongue twister – or a specific portion of the tongue twister – highlighting the “k” sounds with the bow while performing on one open string (see Example 1). Prioritizing African American’s preference for aural and oral learning, the complexities of reading rhythmic notation can easily be postponed until an appropriate time. The end result would provide students repetitive opportunities for learning their open strings while simultaneously allowing them to examine concepts associated with advanced bow strokes and the triplet as a musical element. Likewise, a general music teacher seeking content that reinforces the notion of steady beat can engage students in a discussion centering the role of musical body movement (Wilson 1999). Viewing a traditional African American gospel choir step-clapping* and/or a traditional Dixieland band’s funeral march^ not only provides students an Africentric model of steady beat but also buttresses opportunities for future conversations regarding concepts such as metrical stress, elements such as down beat, and skills such as moving in unison.

Example 1. Crispy Critters. Students and/or the teacher can create a tongue twister that juxtaposes duple and triple subdivisions:

© Sonya White Hope 2021 Used by permission

* See the Sister Act 2 excerpt (2:30-3:10).

^ See the Ernest “Doc” Watson’s Jazz Funeral video.

In closing, we share two opportunities for the reader to learn about and access our professional development and curricular resources. SankofaSongs and the Hayti Heritage Center, with support from the North Carolina Humanities Council, have joined together to present a summer institute dedicated to culturally relevant music education strategies for teaching music of the African diaspora. The institute is scheduled for July 22-24, 2021, and will be co-directed by Dr. Sonya White Hope and Dr. Georgiary Bledsoe. With a theme of Scott Joplin’s grand opera Treemonisha, the 2021 institute will offer three days of programming for PreK-college music teachers and arts administrators. The Summer Institute is a groundbreaking initiative that sets the stage for teaching Africentric music as a core part of American music education and as an appropriate and impactful response to the cultural milieu of every child in America. Visit www.sankofasongs.org to learn more.

In addition, BaobaoTree has created a wonderful set of curricular resources to support teaching and learning Treemonisha! The BaobaoTree Edition of “A Real Slow Drag” for Concert Band, published by GIA Publications, will be available in July 2021. The Companion to A Real Slow Drag for Concert Band, also available July 2021, provides pedagogical activities to support concert band directors in using Africentric approaches in teaching the arrangement. Our first Teacher’s Guide, called Teaching Treemonisha, will equip teachers to deepen their students' engagement with Treemonisha and the Africentric Framework on many levels! The Teaching Treemonisha Teacher’s Guide will also provide access to online resources: an interactive timeline of Blacks in opera; and “Inside Treemonisha,” a series of interviews with musicians and composers of historic importance in the life of the opera. Visit BaobaoTree online to gain access to these and other curricular resources and to learn about more resources on the way: www.baobaotreelearning.com 

To cite this article:
Bledsoe, G., & White Hope, S. (2021, July). Engaging Africentric Pedagogy. Retrieved [insert date] from https://www.sankofasongs.org/articles/africentricparadigm-practice

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