OK…but why do that at all?
- The physical and psychological demands of the training and practice that musicians must achieve to perform to a high standard on their instruments can produce deleterious effects on health and wellbeing, arising mostly from musculoskeletal, neurological and audiological causes.
- Although there is a need for more rigour in the empirical investigation of potential interventions to address musicians’ health and wellbeing, British conservatoires remain guided more by tradition than the available evidence. Their websites still endorse practices that are either not supported by research (despite their popularity among musicians) or are so poorly defined that they can hardly be researched and investigated. This retrograde outlook encourages a rather conservative and conformist attitude that is prevalent among musicians.
- An unfair emphasis on individuals to enact changes in lifestyle is continuously being pushed, while the larger cultural, social and environmental factors remain vastly unaltered and particularly resistant to change.
- We argue that the above are at least partially due to the lack of critical thinking training and health education among music students and their teachers. Introducing such training might not only increase their health literacy (i.e. the achievement of health-related knowledge and relevant set of skills), but also empower them individually and as a group to question the status quo and assertively demand for changes to be made accordingly, to their own benefit, rather than submissively adapt to cultural norms informed by the mere passage of time and the burden of tradition.
- Although such changes require considerable resources and never happen immediately, we argue that we need to start by asking questions. The literature suggests that critical thinking needs specific training and doesn’t necessarily happen by itself, especially given that one would need exceptional courage and to assume some risk to go against ingrained cultural norms.
- Given that the role of higher education is not solely to prepare students for existing jobs but also to turn them into informed citizens, critical thinking can help them to shape the world and to embody the change they want to see. In addition, efforts focused on changing policy and management practices might be more effective, realistic and beneficial for a larger number of people than solely attempting to change individuals.
And what are you aiming for?
- To raise awareness of and debunk various myths that are being circulated in music education in relation to psychology and health
- To discuss about the importance of critical thinking in education and what the available literature tells us about effective interventions aimed at training it
- To discuss how we can, as researchers, bridge the gap between the evidence and the practical real world, as well as educational policies
- To discuss the findings of the first paper on neuromyths among music teachers and how these might inform future practice
- To discuss potential ways in which the specific training of critical thinking could be incorporated into the pedagogical training of musicians
- To address the link between critical thinking and health promotion in music education
- To discuss how the Socratic method might be used in training critical thinking
- To brainstorm ideas on how critical thinking and psychology might be incorporated as part of musicians’ formal training – examples will be provided from the latest research in the field
How would I benefit from this?
• Free access to an interdisciplinary, ground-breaking event on critical thinking in higher education
• The chance to be innovative within your own field and even initiate new professional pathways
• The opportunity to meet students, researchers and practitioners from your field of interest, as well as from related fields
• The opportunity to have your ideas discussed within an exploratory round table discussion, given that we will allow plenty of room for this!
Our speakers include:
- Prof. Reinhard Kopiez, Professor of Music Psychology, Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media
- Prof. Jane Ogden, Professor of Health Psychology, University of Surrey
The event will incorporate a considerable amount of group discussion, in an attempt to dive into a rather innovative field and hopefully reach some meaningful conclusions and suggest a few solutions.
Our event is highly interdisciplinary, and it is open to postgraduate students, researchers and specialists in:
- Music (Performance and Education)
- Psychology
- Philosophy
- Education sciences and policy
- Medicine (with a focus on health education, health promotion and prevention, as well as public health)
- Science journalism/Science communication
Although attendance is free, places are limited and registration will be based on a brief expression of interest. We ask potential participants to explain the nature of their research, interests and/or background, and detail why this event is relevant to them in writing to us by Sunday, 15 October 2017.
Finally, we will keep the format and content flexible and depending on the background and interests of attendees, the conversations we will be having can follow various pathways.
Raluca Matei – raluca.matei AT student.rncm.ac.uk
Keith Phillips – keith.phillips AT student.rncm.ac.uk
Please do email one of us for further details. Additionally, If you could please forward this to any relevant postgraduate students, researchers and/or specialists, I would be immensely grateful!
With many thanks and kind wishes,
Raluca
Raluca Matei MSc, BMus, MBPsS
AHRC-funded PhD student in psychology and health promotion
Royal Northern College of Music,
Manchester
Email: raluca.matei AT student.rncm.ac.uk
orcid.org/0000-0002-0192-8965
