Education Ministry And Pan Trinbago To Include Pan In Schools Curriculum
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Nia Allen - Just Imagine
Contributing artists Ron Reid, Orville Wright & David 'Happy' Williams
Sanch Electronix Limited
Just imagine the nurturing of youth and fostering of entrepreneurship through Pan in Education; just imagine classrooms by day becoming recording studios by night; just imagine blended learning environments and schools without examinations; just imagine The Interactive Metronome App being used for neurological optimization; just imagine mentees providing global mentorship solutions for their elders; just imagine future careers derived from new learning technologies;
Just imagine what you would like to encounter and you will encounter!
Long overdue, about time!!!
I’m a Neuroscientist. Here’s How Teachers Change Kids’ Brains.
By Martha Burns Feb 19, 2019
Teachers change brains. While we often don’t think of ourselves as brain changers, when we teach we have an enormous impact on our students’ cognitive development. Recent advances in educational neuroscience are helping educators understand the critical role we play in building brain capacities important to students’ learning and self-control.
To understand how teachers change the brain, we need to begin with a reasonably new understanding of the biology of learning. The human brain is an experience-dependent organ. Throughout our lives, the cerebrum—the largest portion of our brain—fine-tunes itself to adapt to the world around us. The scientific term used to describe this is “neuroplasticity, ” which involves three processes.
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2019-02-19-i-m-a-neuroscientist-here-s...
How is this approach going to help the youth in PAN develop to their FULLEST capacity?
How are they going to PLANT the SEEDS to DEVELOP their GROWTH?
The new direction in education policy... Educational Neuroscience
Harnessing the Power of Neuroplasticity: The Nuts and Bolts of Better Brains
https://steelpaneducation.org/
The background to this initiative is the growing irrelevance of pan to the musical culture of young Trinbagonians, which has reached crisis proportions. A thorough 2014 Ministry of Culture study describes pan lovers as “an aging population, many of whom are now middle aged and retirees.” Even those youth who play pan are often motivated mainly by the possibility of earning some money; their friends do not support them and after a few years, once they settle into stable jobs, they leave the panyard for ever. This problem, therefore, is one of succession.
Our workshop proposes a radically new approach to teaching pan represents a reformulation of (1) what a steelpan musician should be taught, and (2) how he or she should be taught it. Developed by Fullbright Scholar and specialist pan educator Malika Green, this approach is based on research conducted in steelbands in the US, Canada, UK and Trinidad and Tobago.
Every instrument develops its unique approach to succession, which includes education, and so too does every style of music that is related to the instrument, whether it is European classsical music and piano, the blues and electric guitar or flamenco and acoustic guitar. Here, we too developed our particular ways of teaching pan in the 1950s and 60s. Today, however, with the decline of community steelbands, the indifference of youth and the spread of pan globally, we need to update our curriculum for pan and its pedagogical approach - and not by a copy-and-paste of European classical music pedagogy for piano or strings.
Through our approach students learn faster, absorb musical principles rather than songs, are more confident and creative, and are more likely to become life-long practitioners, as were the pioneers who created this beautiful art form.
Most importantly, our approach is premised on the idea that educationally pan has not yet been taken as valid on its own terms, even while being part of the culture of the African diaspora. Rather, we remain tied to the colonial ideas of music education, which devalues everything that is not Western classical music. When we revalue pan Trinidad & Tobago can become the hub of a global Institute of Pan Education, much as we are the Mecca of the steelband movement.
This is an historic opportunity to bring make pan once again a central part of TT music, and to make us the global centre for pan education. I hope they don't waste it doing the same things we've been doing for the past 20 years, because we will get the same results. More money spent on the wrong approach only leads to more money wasted.
Victor N. Prescod says
This isn't anything new. The 'Pan In The Classroom' programme was established to accomplish that aim, by using the Steelpan as the Primary instrument to teach music in ALL schools in Trinidad and Tobago.
One of the objectives was to establish a curriculum for the steelpan. I should know, since I wrote the Cabinet Note to establish the programme, and served as the Third Project Coordinator of the Pan In The Classroom Project Unit from 2007 to 2010, until I declined to renew my contract.
The project started in 2004 and remained until the UNC government changed the name of the Unit to the 'Multicultural Music Unit'. With that came a change in focus, although Music Instructors were (and still are) being sent to some Primary Schools to teach using the Steelpan.
What I hope is new is that sufficient resources would be put into the programme so that ALL schools will receive instruments and instructors! Steelpans are not cheap, and we moved from a position of supplying 60 schools per year to zero schools for several years, and eventually about 25 schools last year. We need to drastically step up the pace of supply, and ensure that ALL schools are fully staffed with instructors/teachers who are versed in the steelpan to carry the baton forward...