STEAMed Magazine April 2015 | Page 28

MUSIC AND LANGUAGE BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY professional communities in their schools and the broader community interest in ways that improve learning” (Driscoll and Goldring, p. 9, 2003)? How can we bridge the gap between the needs and responsibilities/values established by mainstream, academic society (educators) with the needs and values of an often disparate community? I would suggest that music is one way to recognize the importance of preexisting knowledge and to make connections for understanding new learning. Driscoll and Goldring suggest a “new science of learning” that focuses on the central belief that new knowledge is “scaffolded onto pre-existing knowledge” (2003). Music readily connects pre-existing knowledge to new learning while simultaneously bridging the gaps of diversity within a community.   The gaps of diversity within a community become more evident as school BY EDWARD VARNER realities move away from the traditional understanding of the word The relationship between schools and community is a complicated imply homogeneity, self-containment, and commonality of subject that can incorporate a myriad of voices in an often interests” (McInerney, 2002). This view often denies the complexity and inharmonious discourse about culture, knowledge, and standards. diversity of the people residing in a given community. The reality is that While all of the primary stakeholders of education generally people live in many different conceptual ideals of community. McInerney support the widespread belief that school improvement and cautions that the use of a conventional understanding of community often student learning should include parent and community infers “insiders and outsiders, inclusion and exclusion, us and them, centres involvement, it is quite difficult to find consensus on the and margins” (McInerney, 2002). Music again acts as a natural bridge appropriate definition of community involvement. In their paper between isolationist conceptions of community and a broader view of Schools and Communities as Contexts for Student Learning: New community in search of global understanding. Music finds the common Directions for Research in Educational Leadership, Driscoll and thread that connects human beings in a diverse world. community. Traditional conceptions and “understandings of community Goldring ask, “How do leaders create bridges between the 28