Running head: INTERVIEW 1

Administrator Interview and Analysis

Justin Gamache

Concordia University

EDDC 620

Nov 26, 2016

INTERVIEW 2

Administrator Interview and Analysis

Even though the issue I have chosen to seek means to identify, and learn to develop

elements to help create a positive learning environment in music without technology. Creativity

is something I have worked with in my music classes, and being a student of music myself I find

it can be difficult to develop a good strong sense of creativity due to how easy technology has

evolved in our daily lives.

Organizational Leader and Setting

The school setting is an independent school in Southwestern Vermont that is dedicated to

building responsible citizens and stewards of the greater world, and builders of the future. The

building mentor/organizational leader is an individual that carries an influence on teaching

quality and student learning that is brought from his direct community service over his years

working.

Interview Questions

Question one asked how would you the administrator evaluate the quality of education in

the world. The education of students in the world today is very bad. We need to think about how

to improve it, how can we help children to be better educated. The problem is that there is so

much to do, as what we do today is so poorly done. All over the world it is very similar no matter

what country is from everyone is in the same war fighting against the failures in education.

These failures exist not because we did it wrong in the past, but because the context of the world

has been changing a lot, especially in the last 50 years.

Question two asked, is this a problem growing in the world with technology rising so

quickly? We live in a different time, where life is not only fast, it’s increasingly faster-paced, full

INTERVIEW 3

of uncertainties, complexities and ambiguities. We have to deal with situations that we never had

to deal with before. And unfortunately, the education we offer our children is still the same

education that was offered in the past century. It is an old format— the same education that I

had. But the world is different now. We have to adapt to the new context. And the world has yet

to do so in the field of education.

Question three asked if teachers have to be familiar with technology? They should know

what is possible — for example that students can communicate well through a video— and from

there evaluate the quality of material produced. That is, teachers need not be concerned with how

to physically use the technology themselves. They can identify who are the best students at using

technology in their class, and make them their assistants. It is nor good teaching to say “now we

will all create a power point presentation individually.” What teachers should say is that

everyone needs to submit something about the specific content using the tool they want. It’s silly

to require everyone to do the same thing. If teachers say “now I will teach you how to do

PowerPoint”, the children will start laughing nonstop.

The final question asked whether or not creativity is important in the classroom and what

policymakers should consider? Most people connect creativity in schools to subjects that

naturally invite one’s creative talent to be utilized. Therefore music, visual arts, drama and

design are seen as domains that develop students’ creative abilities. Rather interestingly, within

arts in schools drawing and music are higher in the hierarchy than drama and dance. Therefore, it

is common in many countries that as the call for more creativity in school education is

responded, it means more lesson time for drawing and music. The notion that many more

education policymakers and practitioners need to accept is that there are many of us who need to

move to be able to think and to create new ideas. Too much deskwork and listening to a teacher

INTERVIEW 4

is not good for nurturing creativity. As we have shown elsewhere, a vast majority of students’

time in school is spent sitting quietly and receiving information from teachers. This makes any

creative thinking or behavior in such classrooms practically impossible.

Issue

The issue I have chosen to seek means to identify, and learn to develop elements to help

create a positive learning environment in music without technology. Creativity is something I

have worked with in my music classes, and being a student of music myself I find it can be

difficult to develop a good strong sense of creativity due to how easy technology has evolved in

our daily lives. So, to incorporate creativity in music, will result in developing a meaning to

creativity without the use of technology. Robinson (2011) stated, “in all creative processes we

are pushing the boundaries of what we know now, to explore new possibilities; we are drawing

on the skills we have now, often stretching and evolving them as work demands” (p. 152).

My building mentor noted that in order for the issue to be understood we must identify

the issue, as I did in developing a music class without the use of technology, and included that in

order to change the system that has been the same continuously for over 50 years we must

change the future of our educational system to integrate creativity with the human connection.

My building mentor explained that as the call for more creativity in school education is

expanded, it means more lesson time for drawing and music.

Process

My building mentor understands that in order to grapple and grow we must take a

“combination of work and progress” (Hallowell, 2011, p. 136) that has been done over the years

to improve the education system. He says our system needs change because it has been the same

INTERVIEW 5

for over 50 years, thus we must understand education so that we can evolve the learning

opportunities without technology, and by that we sometimes should take a step back in the past

before technology to grapple how learning was achieved. The upside is once we understand the

human mind is capable of learning without technology and the downside is we’ve evolved

technology to make our jobs a lot easier.

The biggest lesson my building mentor learned from this process is how important music

is to the human mind and that technology makes it far too easy to learn from. He agreed with my

decision that students should be able to compose on ledger line music paper with a pencil while

sitting at the piano plucking out how they are going to compose music. Great examples of

composers are like Mozart and Beethoven because they didn’t have a computer or any type of

technology to compose music. They use their brains and followed their heart to the beat of

music. My building mentor learned that we need to change the way we teach in the classroom by

accepting simple creative ways that can bring about full humanly creative connections of sharing

ideas and evolving the human mind.

Conclusion

The information provided in this paper will help develop a strong strategic plan that will

allow for the creation of a music program that is completely centered around making music from

the heart like Mozart and Beethoven that will continue to advance learning by developing

excellence and innovation, improving the quality of music education without the use of

technology, and develop outreach opportunity programs where students are able to experience

hands on material from current 20th and 21st century composers.

INTERVIEW 6

References

Robinson, K. (2011). Out of our minds: Learning to be creative. West Sussex, UK: Capstone

Publishing Ltd.