Faculty: Recent Research

Teaching in the Inner City: Students get an Immersion Experience in Diversity

Music Education students find inner city teaching internship and exposure to culture to be life altering, enlightening experience

Music Education students got a strong dose of a different kind of reality and culture when they ventured into inner city Detroit for a two-week teaching internship. What they learned, observed and experienced culminated into a trip they will never forget, changing their views about diversity and American culture forever.

Donna Emmanuel, doctoral student in music education, established and administered the three-week, three-credit course as part of her dissertation. Cynthia Taggart, associate professor of music education, oversaw the project. Taggart is a specialist in elementary and early childhood education, and provided the expertise for the elementary setting. After a one-week orientation, Emmanuel and the five music education students who participated - three undergraduate and two master students - moved into inner city Detroit for two weeks where they taught, previewed/evaluated lesson plans, and observed music classes and teaching techniques at numerous schools. They all stayed together in one apartment, which not only fostered continuous discussion of day-to-day experiences among the students, but also enabled Donna to record all the feedback.

Music education students returned from the internship with a renewed self-awareness, drastically changed perceptions, and a new perception of their roles as citizens. They learned how teaching methods varied depending on the culture of the classroom. In addition, they learned that the tendency to teach based on their our own upbringing, background and culture doesn't necessarily work for students of other cultural backgrounds.

"Research shows that course work alone does not always prepare a student for teaching culturally diverse students, which is inevitable for the next generation of teachers," said Emmanuel. "It's the immersion in the environment - getting to know the people, students, parents, school administrators, and teachers, and actually living in it - that provides the true experience."

In addition, the music education students experienced what it felt like to be outsiders, as the only Caucasians in classrooms full of Arabic, Hispanics and African Americans. However, upon completion of the internship, all of the students agreed that they felt much more comfortable with the idea of teaching in diverse settings, and that the internship additionally gave them a sense of whether or not they would enjoy teaching in an urban setting once they graduated.

"One of the goals of the project was to give students the cultural contexts, materials, strategies and pre-service experiences to encourage them to pursue careers in culturally diverse settings, including urban settings, thus potentially beginning to remedy the problem of music teacher shortages in the Detroit Public Schools. To make this goal a reality, we hope to incorporate this internship into the music education curriculum at MSU," said Taggart.

"The project also served as an exercise in learning to understand our own culture before attempting to teach to a variety of other cultures," said Emmanuel. So in preparation for the internship, the students attended a one-week orientation to share their own backgrounds and beliefs through activities, and discussions on how their views impacted their teaching styles. Following the internship, they regrouped to repeat the discussion process only to find significant changes in their views. Most discovered that they went into the internship with certain prejudices and stereotypes, and came out of the internship with changes in their attitudes and beliefs. An example of this was how amazed the students were at the high level of music potential and aptitude of the children. Essentially, the internship helped them understand their own cultural issues.

Emmanuel identified the need to expose music education students to mixed cultures after teaching minorities and at-risk students for five years in Florida, and noticing their extremely segregated living situations. "Students are becoming more and more diversified while the majority of teachers are remaining white, middle class females, indicating an imbalance," she said.

"The word multicultural is no longer a part of my vocabulary due to the negative connotations that go along with it in our society. Instead I choose to use the word 'Intercultural,' " said Emmanuel.

Changes in perceptions following the internship

Before:
• Students defined teaching as giving students knowledge.
• Students defined diversity as primarily racial.

After:
• Students redefined teaching as empowering students to learn through the best methods based on the students' own cultural backgrounds.
• Students expanded their definition of diversity to include religion, gender, economics, sexual preference, values, special needs students, physical disabilities and visually/hearing impaired as well.