Name
1856 - Bridges For All? Six Pillars for (W)rapping Music Education in the Twenty-First Century
Date & Time
Wednesday, July 29, 2026, 10:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Description
Can we build bridges for all? All the people in the world? All the musicians? All of us? Who is “us”? Music educators? To think “all”, we must think about who we are. What do “we” have in common? What makes us whole? And which of our landscapes need bridging? Who wants to bridge, to whom? Or with whom? Then, which bridges need mending? Should we fix old bridges to make them look like new, or should we rebuild from scratch? There is multiple potential for bridge building in music education. Bridges may connect the inside to the outside. The new and the old. The folk and the royal. The electric with the acoustic. The virtual with the real. One can envisage a myriad of bridges to build. Who is making the calls? Do we really want to build bridges for all? What if we decide to bridge some people, but not all? If we do choose to unite, how interesting it is to unite but then lose individuality? A precondition of pedagogy (Van Manen, 1990). As Bowman (1998) stated, “stressing similarities can obscure the uniqueness and particularity of individual voices” (p. 11). How can we preserve what is unique while still being part of a whole? According to Dewey (2009), “There is no inherent opposition between working with others and working as an individual. On the contrary, certain capacities of an individual are not brought out except under the stimulus of associating with others” (p. 164). Eisner (2002) stated we should build bridges to “create . . . our lives,” and “satisfy our quest for meaning [content, definitions, explications], establishing contact with others [collectively, as a group] and sharing a culture” (p.3). The most challenging part is “sharing”. Are we ready to open the gates? To listen to other voices? To accept multiple perspectives? Sharing, as Gadamer (1975) reminded us, is being present. As it stands, we continue dividing people by color, race, gender, background, social class, and age. We are divided by us and them, inside and outside—by music room, football field, parking lot, country club, party, parade, ritual, ceremony, gathering, hunting, feasting, courting, dancing, making love, making war, tripping, disturbing, annoying, provoking, awakening, believing, enlightening, healing, and husting. We should start accepting who we are, respecting our differences, and believing in multiple processes of music bonding with whoever wishes to share—now.
Location Name
210A - Poster Gallery
Session Type
Poster Presentation
Presenter(s)
Luiz Claudio Marques Barcellos
Poster Board
19