Process vs. Knowledge in Secondary Music Education

For a secondary music teacher, it is only natural to strive to produce highly intelligent, creative, and innovative musicians at the completion of a student’s high school music education. In order to reach these desired student outcomes, the teacher should place great awareness on both process and knowledge based approaches to teaching, and be judicious in selecting which of these two teaching styles will be most beneficial to student learning in particular situations and under certain circumstances. It would be simple to suggest that it is solely up to the teacher to appropriately implement and complement these teaching styles, however there are many variables and pressures that can dictate how, when, and even if both teaching styles are used. These variables and pressures include the increasing pace of social development, parent and community expectations of the music department, societies views and values regarding music, student desires and expectations, and the impact of inadequate musical resources on process and knowledge education styles.

In his 1970 book titled ‘Future Shock’, Alvin Toffler states that “the rate of change has implications quite apart from, and sometimes more important than, the directions of change”. This statement is extremely important when considering the rate at which music has, and always will be changing, in style, genre, technology, and audience to name a few areas. Toffler’s statement also stresses that it is important to teach how to cope with the change as opposed to only teaching the expected direction of change. Besides, it is almost impossible to predict the ‘direction of change’ especially in music, where the thought of a computer being the only ‘instrument’ necessary in creating a hit p...

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