Sounding the Teaching | Page 34

SO UN D I N G T H E T E A CH IN G EX A MI NI NG MU SI C LEA R NI NG EX P ER I ENC ES 2 Exposition STUDENT Y STUDENT D A very confident boy with a flair for dance. He loved performing for an audience and had taken part in Dancesport competitions previously. He found it fun leading his group. He expressed his eagerness for leading future drumming groups. He felt that leaders do not need to know everything. They needed to organise the group, ensure all members are paying attention to one another and that all of them were able to do what they were supposed to do. 32 He didn’t think it was a good idea for all the members to make music decisions. He found that some members were too lazy to contribute ideas and just agreed with everything. He believed that leaders need to listen and learn from their members. He shared that at times, he didn’t facilitate and just let his group discussed as everyone seemed to know what they were doing. He shared that his group members liked to argue and always thought their ideas were better than others’. Most of the time, he had to shout at them to stop the argument. A more liberal leader compared to the rest. He believed in giving his members more freedom and space to explore the instruments and rhythm. During one of the activities, he was observed telling his members to play whatever they liked without giving specific instructions. He had problems getting them back together after that. He felt that leaders should be better at drumming and knew more than the members. He also mentioned that it was a bit frustrating at times when his members went “crazy” during group work, and he had a difficult time trying to get them back on task. His decision to give his members free rein in their rhythms might have contributed to his stress. However, he admitted that those stressful experiences gave him a better idea of how to handle similar situations in the future. STUDENT K A soft-spoken boy. He found the whole leadership experience fun, especially when the team got to experiment with different instruments while deciding on the sound they wanted. He admitted that he had problems controlling his group’s noise level during the discussion. He said he tried to role model the correct behaviour but did not see any improvement in the members' behaviour. He believed that leaders should not be arrogant and bossy but should help their members. He felt that leaders should be attentive to their members’ performance and help those who were unsure of the rhythm. 33