The ‘good-enough’ music teacher

Abstract

Teaching and learning are complex processes and evaluating the work of music teachers is neither obvious nor simple. The outcomes of educational transactions may not be completely or immediately apparent. Furthermore, the contexts in which musical skills and understanding are acquired are multiple, going well beyond the formal categories of ‘general’ class music teacher or the ‘private’ instrumental and vocal teacher. In many of these alternative settings, standardised student assessment or teacher evaluation processes may be inappropriate. In this paper, an approach to evaluating teaching and learning draws on Swanwick's three principles for music educators. To these three principles is added the need to understand the educational and social context in which a teacher works. These criteria help to identify the ‘good-enough’ teacher's contribution to students' musical development. The concept of the ‘good-enough’ teacher is exemplified, not in the context of conventional formal teaching settings but in a third, much less defined role, that of music leader. The extent to which music leaders contribute to their musical environment is evaluated in a study of their continuing professional development. This evaluation was initiated by Youth Music, a UK organisation working alongside the formal and community-based sectors to support music-making and training.

Introduction

Rekindled interest in this issue arose from the author's involvement with the research and evaluation committee of Youth Music.¹ This organisation, among others, has an important role promoting music among young people and has initiated and supported many projects in the community involving ‘music leaders’, who may or may not be qualified teachers. The concept of music leader goes well beyond older initiatives, such as bringing composers into classrooms, and the activities they lead may or may not take place in schools. Because of this increasing role of music leaders, Youth Music evaluates development programmes in several areas of England, which are aimed at supporting and improving their work. In 2006 Youth Music commissioned a research team, TrainingTrax, to systematically evaluate the effectiveness of these programmes.²

This paper draws on the resulting report and sets it in the context of a wider issue: that of the contrast between the formal professional world of the trained teacher and the less regulated and more informal context of the music leader. It is argued that evaluation of music teaching and learning across so many different settings can be conceptually and operationally linked via three principles for all teachers of music proposed by Swanwick (1999). These principles, plus a further element relating to awareness of the wider educational context, may facilitate the evaluation of teaching and learning in which music leaders are involved and also offers possibilities for classroom and teacher evaluation in more formal contexts, mainly by reducing complexity and focusing on musical quality.

Contested issues in teaching and learning

It seems obvious that unless someone is learning something as a direct result of a teacher's intervention, no ‘teaching’ can be taking place in any meaningful sense of that word. This is the case even if someone who may be designated a ‘teacher’ appears to be involved. Teaching only occurs if, as a consequence, there is some change in a learner. This change may be the acquisition of new information, an enhanced skill, or a modified value position or attitude. Unless some change in the student results from the transaction, logically speaking there is neither learner nor teacher. As a respected previous editor of this journal delicately put it, ‘a child should emerge from a lesson a little altered’ (Salaman, 1983: 6). Put this way, it seems reminiscent of the fate of Augustus Gloop in Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, when he is shot up a pipe into the mincing, mixing, slicing machinery.

But don't, dear children, be alarmed;

Augustus Gloop will not be harmed,

Although, of course, we must admit

He will be altered quite a bit.

Roald Dahl (2005)

Most usually, educators in formal school and college settings now seem prepared to work to this model of lesson objectives and demonstrable student ‘alteration’, either shown on the spot or during some later form of assessment. This seems the case even for those who stress that student assessment should be essentially formative, what has been called the art of carefully considered feedback (Murphy, 2007). For any kind of feedback, however sensitive, carries with it the implication of observable outcomes to which we may respond, even if these outcomes are not predicted. Predicting desired outcomes is certainly evident in evaluating teaching in the UK, which is assessed by long lists of ‘standards’ which come into play at various stages of a professional career (Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA), 2007).

Although this way of looking at teaching and learning is currently widespread, it has not always been so. Compliance with the dominant educational culture is lamented by, among others, John Finney, who tells us: ‘Our interest is in qualities far beyond the attainment of task criteria, for completing a task is in itself irrelevant to what I am thinking of as richer learning’ (Finney, 2006: 2). Finney claims that musical understanding involves engagement that is both emotional and cognitive. He looks to teachers to initiate musical encounters rather than prescribe and deliver a set of outcomes. Others have taken similar positions. For example, Swanwick also sees the major task of music education in schools and colleges as increasing the likelihood of musical encounters and suggests ways in which this might be achieved (Swanwick, 1988).

Predicting or even merely observing change in students has a long and contested history and there are recognised difficulties with the input/output model of teaching and learning. One problem is that any alteration as a consequence of teaching may not be immediately visible but might be unobservable (Polanyi & Prosch, 1975). Indeed, Polanyi concluded that ‘the idea of knowledge based on wholly identifiable grounds collapses, and we must conclude that the transmission of knowledge from one generation to the other must be predominantly tacit’ (Polanyi, 1967: 25). Learning might also be delayed or deferred until such time as an individual is able either to assimilate new knowledge to existing schemas or alter these frames of reference to accommodate the impending change. Eisner (1985) in the USA and Stenhouse (1975) in the UK also questioned the validity of simply predicting and observing behavioural change as a basis for evaluating the effectiveness of teaching and learning.

We should also remember that, although ‘learners’ are necessary for people to be said to be ‘teaching’, teachers are not always necessary for learning. Indeed, across the spectrum of lifelong learning, teachers are not always visible. Every lively person is to some degree an autodidact, a continuous learner, absorbing attitudes and information in the process of adapting to a physical and cultural environment. Learning is by no means confined to the formal situations of lessons in classrooms or music studios but is an ordinary everyday activity and, as such, is rarely problematic. In the case of music, Lucy Green shows how rock musicians teach themselves, perhaps with a little help from their peers. They tend to choose the music they want to work with and towards, learning informally, by aural copying from admired models, usually on CD or some other recorded format. During this process they move easily between the roles of audience-listening, composing and performing. They often work in haphazard ways, beginning by approximating whole pieces, and they are strongly influenced by peer groups (Green, 2001). This is reminiscent of Vygotsky's ‘zone of proximal development’, the space between any level of independent learning and additional levels of possible achievement, perhaps with adult guidance or in interaction with more advanced peers (Vygotsky, 1978).

The matter is further complicated by the fact that a great deal of music teaching is not carried out by general teachers in schools or by instrumental teachers working within conventional systems for assessing outcomes, such as student examinations. Over more than a decade there has been a massive growth of music educational ‘outreach’ expected from and initiated by arts agencies, orchestras, opera houses, community groups, music centres and many other agencies. There is a plethora of community musical activities being led, sometimes by ‘qualified’ teachers, sometimes not. Indeed, a wide range of people lead specific musical activities as part of a rich social fabric. In her now classic study of music in Milton Keynes during the 1980s, Ruth Finnegan found music in 92 schools, but also in eight brass bands, 100 choirs, 200 small bands – including pop, rock, folk and jazz – four classical orchestras and several chamber groups. There was also music-making in many of the 70 churches (Finnegan, 1989). Activities of this kind were sometimes led by a general or instrumental teacher taking on the music leader role in his or her spare time but sometimes not. A music leader can be anyone with an interest in music who someone is willing to follow. This variety of ways in which music is taught and learned makes problematic any consistent and reliable form of classroom evaluation. How do we know if the teaching is ‘good-enough’?

The good-enough teacher

Consistent evaluation of music teaching and learning under so many varied conditions becomes problematic and is not susceptible to standardised itemised check-lists. What is required is a strong sense of the fundamental qualities that characterise what is sometimes called ‘best practice’. The psychoanalyst, Donald W. Winnicott, long ago, coined the phrase the ‘good-enough’ mother, defined as one who tries to provide what an infant needs, but progressively leaves a time lag between these needs and their satisfaction, thus increasing independence and a sense of personal control and creation (Winnicott, 1953). The concept of ‘good-enough’ is very apt, suggesting not some idealised perfection but simply moving in a positive direction, contributing quality to the milieu of children's development with their independence in mind, creating what Winnicott calls ‘potential space’ (Winnicott, 1971). This concept has been explored for arts education by Malcolm Ross, who considers that the good-enough teacher can have a life-enhancing effect upon pupils by working in this potential space, developing the field of cultural activities that lies between subjective and objective realities (Ross, 1978). Others in different ways have also identified what Swanwick calls the ‘space between’, where we create meaning, articulating and communicating experience (Swanwick, 1999), and Popper, with his concept of ‘World Three’, which is the distinctively human world of symbolic forms (Popper, 1972).

What then characterises the good-enough teacher of music? The good-enough music teacher is able to facilitate students' immersion in this environment of the symbolic world and promote the growth of their musical autonomy. How is this to be done? Elsewhere it has been argued that there are three principles for teachers which may foster the musical environment (Swanwick, 1999). These are:

• • care for music as a vital, living form of human discourse;

• • recognition of the contribution to musical discourse that students bring to the classroom transactions, which takes in the concept of student independence;

• • the promotion of musical fluency.

These are not difficult concepts. ‘Discourse’ is here used in a non-technical sense and is close in meaning to ‘conversation’, the expression of ideas, meaningful interchange. Discourse is not only verbal activity, it runs through all symbolic forms. For example, Kress and Van Leeuwen (1996) have convincingly demonstrated a grammar of visual design. Musical discourse involves thinking and communicating in musical images, in tones and tunes. Fluency is the ability to share, produce and collaborate in the production of these sonorous images. This is analogous to but not the same as fluency in a language. It is discourse in music not about music.

The arguments advanced for these fundamental principles for music education cannot be elaborated here, except to say that, in musical discourse, sounds are perceived as linked into expressive shapes and these expressive gestures may be combined into organic forms of feeling which have the power to reach into and relate to our personal and cultural histories. These qualities characterise musical encounters and permeate the musical environment. We should therefore be aware of them in all educational transactions, whatever the setting, genre or technical level. Care for musical discourse, the musical autonomy of students and musical fluency may be to some extent observable, revealed in the activities of teachers and students. Even though they are not necessarily predictable, they are looked-for outcomes in music education. Lights flash on, so to speak, when these qualities appear. These are recognisable virtues, even though their manifestation may not be predicted or take the form of specific behavioural objectives.

To these specifically musical criteria we should add a non-musical element. This arises from the complexities of educational networks and social structures in contemporary society. In order to promote a musical environment, teachers also need some understanding of the context in which they and their students work. It is mainly these elements that are worked out in such detail in the Professional Standards for Teachers, though taken by themselves the ‘standards’ may not significantly enhance the quality of actual musical transactions (TDA, 2007).

Youth music

The guiding principles associated with musical encounters can now be contextualised. We have seen that music education can take many forms. One of these involves music leaders. It is to this broad role that we now turn. This is a category of music educators whose activities usually take place beyond the definitions of general class or instrumental teachers and who may not even regard themselves as teachers, but would rather see themselves as musicians, wishing only to communicate their ways of making music to others.

There are many agencies involving music leaders and among them Youth Music plays a substantial role (Youth Music, 2007). Youth Music was set up in 1999 as a national charity with three main roles; allocating funding, working as a development agency and that of advocate. The aim is to provide high quality and diverse music-making for 0–18-year-olds. In particular it seeks to involve young people in areas of social and economic need, especially those who might miss musical opportunities available in other and more formal contexts. For this reason, a very large number of music leaders have become implicated in many and various projects.

Youth Music declares five guiding objectives (Youth Music, 2007).

• • Access – for those with the least opportunity.

• • Breadth – music of all styles and all cultures.

• • Coverage – rural, urban, coastal and UK-wide.

• • Development – music leaders get increasingly better at what they do.

• • Quality – encouraging high standards for all.

At the time of writing, it is estimated that Youth Music has reached more than 1.4 million young people, making over 1800 funding awards and distributing finances totalling £66 m. It has made an input into music education in 99% of local authorities and many other agencies. Youth Music has a grant from the National Lottery through the Arts Council totalling to date £80 million each year. Around £33 million has been attracted in partnership funding from other sources. The activities and projects supported by the available funding are intended to complement music in the National Curriculum by supporting activities held mainly outside of school hours, working with non-profit making organisations. Twenty-one Action Zones in England and two in Wales have been set up by consortia of partners involving organisations from the public, voluntary and private sectors.

Youth Music has supported its objective of breadth of music-making by creating employment for over 6000 music leaders and funding training for them. The range of music in contemporary society is so wide that diverse musicians are necessarily being drawn into music education as music leaders, rather than in the traditional and more formal roles of general class music teacher or instrumental instructor. This raises important questions about how music leaders are identified, the extent to which they relate to the traditional teacher colleagues and the ways in which they are initiated into their projects and supported in their development. How is their work to be evaluated?

Identifying and supporting music leaders

Youth Music has a website specific to music leaders (musicleader.net) with the following aims:

• • to enable music leaders to develop their skills and practice;

• • to encourage new music leaders into the sector;

• • to improve standards of music making activity;

• • to increase the understanding of working practices across and between the music, youth, education and learning communities;

• • to increase financial investment in workforce development from external sources.

The current web page (musicleader.net) gives the following information. Although their page is under review, it seems important to give excerpts in some detail to show the scope of the organisation.

A music leader is somebody who works with music and young people – whether you are working in the formal or non-formal sector.

MusicLeader is aimed at all music practitioners and project managers, from experienced professionals to complete beginners.

Practitioners may include music teachers, music service employees, music advanced skills teachers, community musicians, and musicians who also work in education.

Project managers are those who are supporting the practitioners and managing the activity being delivered. This includes those project managers who specialise in working in the arts and music but may also be other public sector employees – such as Early Years workers, Youth Workers, Youth Offending Team Managers.

Potential participants are encouraged to register as personal members or to take up enhanced membership – requiring more career information – should they wish to be associated with projects. Projects are defined as either a sequence of linked sessions or just one-off musical events (MusicLeader, 2007).

We can now see that both the management of these projects and the range of those who participate as music leaders open up a Pandora's box which continues to exercise Youth Music. These musicians may or may not have any teaching background, professional training or qualification. The range of music they represent could cover any genre at any level. While they may be less likely to be associated with the ‘formal’ music curriculum in schools or with conventional instrumental instruction, a number of projects do interact with these activities. The concept of music leaders is thus extremely wide and their proliferation and formal recognition raises important issues of training, quality assurance and evaluation of teaching and learning. To facilitate professional development, regional Music Leader networks have been set up in London, the West Midlands, North West, Yorkshire, the North East (also impending in the South West). To take just one example, the West Midlands regional centre currently offers one-to-one surgeries focusing on professional development, mentoring arrangements, improvisation evenings, and what are called ‘formal/non-formal marketplaces’, giving teachers and freelance music leaders opportunities to meet. There are various training courses; including a national programme for those working or aspiring to work at Key Stage 2 in group instrumental tuition (further information is available via the Music Leader web pages cited above). This kind of programme may point the way to future modes of collaboration between formal and informal music teaching.

The evaluation methodology

Evaluations of previous Youth Music projects have exposed variable musical and teaching skills among musicians aspiring to work with young people as music leaders (Youth Music, 2007). These projects included those titled Dynamo 2002, Music Maker 2003, First Steps 2003, Plug into Music 2004, Singing Challenge 2004. To address the issue of uneven quality, research was commissioned to investigate the effectiveness of the music leader professional development programme in five geographical regions. The commissioned evaluation team, TrainingTrax, monitored development over a year.

The methodology of this evaluation centred on ten individual cases. Multiple case studies of this kind can be seen as a form of ‘quota sampling’, described by Cohen and Manion in their classic text, where categories of individuals are sampled with reference to criteria which locate participants over a specified range (Cohen & Manion, 1980). To meet the criterion of range, two music leaders from each of the five areas were involved in the project. Between them, these ten people represented a wide range of music, including samba, hip hop, rock, vocal, choral, classical orchestral, beginner woodwind, early years teaching, music technology, and improvised percussion playing. They came from socially and ethnically diverse backgrounds and from different geographical areas and they had various levels of musical involvement in different working contexts. The music leaders were each offered up to £500 to contribute to continuing professional development during this time and they could choose how best to use these resources.

Data sources included:

• • the participants keeping monthly diaries of professional development and work experience;

• • two observations of complete teaching sessions 10–12 months apart;

• • these teaching sessions were also DVD-recorded – video moderation included a scoring system for leadership qualities;

• • music leaders were asked to evaluate their teaching on each DVD recording;

• • two interviews with each participant focused on the diaries, the observations and the recordings – there were also opportunities for email reflections in correspondence with the evaluation team;

• • there were five group discussions with young people who were directly participating in the current music projects.

Four vignettes

The following are short edited extracts, snapshots only, extracted from the detailed notes of the evaluation team. These include observations of teaching and learning on two DVDs taken at about a year apart along with some comments from the music leaders. The purpose here is not to make comparisons but to give a flavour of the quality of the musical environment, to identify ‘good-enough’ teaching. The objective is to illustrate and to some extent test out the three principles of care for music, care for the music of the students and their independence, and the promotion of musical fluency. The data were also sifted for evidence on the music leaders' understanding of their working context, though this will become more apparent in the next section.

Each vignette focuses briefly on one music leader.

1. 1. During on-going vocal workshops for students in a girls' high school the first recorded observed session began with warm-ups, humming, buzzing and improvising over ostinati with soloists taking the lead. Through aural copying and improvising these girls were developing vocal and musical skills. As a group and individually, performances were fluent showing a high level of confident independent learning with more experienced singers taking a leading role while less experienced singers memorised the songs. The view of the music leader when observing the DVD was that it seemed like a juggling act to keep the session energised, neither boring the experienced ones nor rushing the newer members of the group. For this reason she felt it important for participants to teach their peers. During the second recorded session there was evidence of further development of vocal technique, including unaccompanied close harmony singing and syncopated rhythms. The less experienced members of the group were observed to be becoming more secure in pitching. The method of aural imitation contributed to general fluency and students teaching their peers left some room for the second principle of care for the musical discourse of students, introducing an element of autonomy.

2. 2. This was a small beginner percussion group in an on-going project located in the premises of an arts organisation. The emphasis was on aural rhythm work, with groups repeating rhythm patterns interspersed with individual improvisation; using African djembe drums to make their own piece. Call and response activities helped to develop a sense of pulse and the ability to reproduce complex rhythms, using a range of instruments including body percussion. There was extensive demonstration and modelling with inspirational, energetic and enthusiastic leadership. The young people acquired new skills requiring physical, intellectual and creative effort. On observing the DVD, the music leader noted that the whole group might have been taught each separate part to keep everyone active and involved. In the second recorded session, there were samba, Iraqi and hip-hop rhythms, first rehearsed then performed in a public space. Modelling included a great deal of physical movement. The participants were learning a lot about performing, presentation, musical cooperation and concentration through the ensemble work. All three performance pieces were under control with expressive musical elements, including a range of dynamics and textures. Observing the second recorded session, the music leader observed that he felt much more confident compared to a year ago, especially in managing the group. Musical fluency was once again evident along with the expressivity of associated movement; commitment to music as lively and meaningful discourse.

3. 3. There were three sessions during the first recorded project, which took place in a nursery school with children of ages 2–3 years. The aim was to explore music information technology, specifically what Midi-creator sounds are available and how they are made, encouraging musical interactions between the children. Children took turns at investigating sounds, then playing in pairs, finally playing together. These children were developing new understandings by exploring sounds, listening, and discovering the difference between fast and slow and were able to make changes of pitch with a variety of timbres. They listened attentively and seemed to enjoy creating the sounds. The second project recorded on DVD was a one-off session with a small group aged 10–12 years who were learning to play new instruments such as drum kit, guitar and keyboard as backing to vocals and to create a group performance. Even within the context of the session, i.e. learning to play instruments new to them, these participants were observed to be able to make music and care for musical discourse, though not with any great fluency.

4. 4. The sessions in this project took place in a community hall and were part of an ongoing project ending with a performance in a local Market Square. A range of samba pieces and rhythms were fluently modelled, imitated and practiced along with improvised rhythms and call and response games. Drumming techniques were developed and, eventually, extended musical compositions were created and performed with a sense of enjoyment and enthusiasm. Peer group leadership was encouraged and the leader communicated her own enthusiasm for the musical discourse and the contribution of the students. Sometimes this led to situations where it was, as she said, difficult to hear the explanations ‘amidst the stray rim shots and chatter’ though, on seeing the DVDs, she noted that in the second session she seemed more in control, ‘in a gentle way’.

Main findings

In this article we are focusing on the contribution made by music leaders to the musical environment, the extent to which they were ‘good-enough’ teachers, able to immerse their students in the ‘potential space’ of musical activity. These qualities can be described and operationalised in terms of the three ‘principles’ identified earlier: care for music as human discourse; care for the musical contribution of students and their musical autonomy; the promotion of musical fluency. This interpretation of the evidence on specifically musical qualities is supplemented by the extent to which the participants were also aware of the significance of the organisational context in which they were working. We can now bring together in summary some of the main findings and perceptions of the evaluation team and interpret them from the perspective of these over-arching criteria. It is important to bear in mind that the characteristics of the good-enough teacher were not at the outset shared with the evaluation team, though it would be interesting in the future to conduct lesson observations purely on this basis.

Care for music as discourse

All the music leader participants saw musical activity as the basis of their work and were of the view that any further training in non-musical aspects was a lower priority. They were generally able to obtain positive musical responses from the young people and many observed sessions were reported as being ‘quite inspirational’. There was a strong statistical correlation between their own involvement in continuing professional development and the response from the young people: in other words, when their care for musical discourse went beyond the immediate requirements of the teaching setting. Most leaders were, to say the least, ‘good-enough’ teachers. The quality of musicianship was perceived by the observers as being strong and developing during the year of the evaluation. At its strongest it matched the highest professional standards, though there was some individual variation in quality which at times resulted in weak or no musical modelling.

Most music leaders displayed a strong interest in music and spent many hours developing musical skills, usually by private study. It is not surprising then that their own performance skills were rated as good. However, at the start of the project three of the ten music leaders were perceived as musically insecure and one of these was still perceived in this way by the time of the second observation. This is an unexpected finding, since when people see themselves as a music leader, a kind of pied piper, we would expect a basic confidence and competence with music of some kind. However, from the evidence of this Youth Music evaluation, we can say that these music leaders mostly enhanced their musical environment, though not always in tidy and conventional ways. There was encouragement of strong musical imagery through building up ensemble textures, setting good tempi and modelling expressive phrasing.

Care for the music of students and the promotion of fluency

The students themselves responded positively to the sessions, which included music with which they could easily identify. They declared their enjoyment and were appreciative of the musical and social advantages when meeting people with similar interests. This was especially so for those who felt they were musically isolated in schools. They generally felt that they had improved their music-making and believed that the performing opportunities sustained motivation and enthusiasm. They claimed to have gained in expertise, self-esteem and confidence. Some had aspirations of becoming musicians/music leaders themselves and several aspired to become rich and famous through pop and rock music. The majority of young people saw their music leaders as ‘teachers’. This is contrary to the view of the music leaders themselves, who tended not to see themselves as teachers, in fact would often rather not. The leaders were perceived by the young participants as expert models. Most said that they wanted to carry on making music for the rest of their lives. One said ‘I'll be gutted when we finish’.

However, very few of the young people were clear on what possible routes they might take to fulfil their aspirations. This relates to the fact that most music leaders declared some insecurity about progression and developmental signposting. The music leaders rarely considered how young people could continue to develop their music-making away from specific sessions. The expectation appeared to be that all musical learning took place in the organised sessions under their facilitation. So, although the here-and-now of the musical environment was often very positive, the on-going musical independence of students was not usually a consideration and to that extent the second principle – caring for the autonomy of music-making among the students – was only weakly evident. Fluency though – the third principle – was nearly always clearly evident, with virtually no dependence on music notations and a great deal of aural transmission.

Understanding the teaching context

As might be expected, this is the area where music leaders tend to be least secure. There appeared to be little mutual understanding between employers and music leaders about what constitutes a reasonable code of practice, especially when the time frame of the projects happened to be short. There were some exceptions where there were already on-going employer/employee arrangements. The music leaders appeared to have little awareness of the wider educational framework. They had little knowledge of national music strategies such as the National Curriculum for music; National Qualifications Framework; the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) and Advanced Level syllabuses. They were not familiar with strategic publications and documents familiar to many in music education. These were regarded as issues for others. They would most probably have difficulty relating to the long lists of competencies in the Training and Development Agency's Professional Standards for Teachers (TDA, 2007). Consequently there appears to be little connection in this area between ‘formal’ work of class and instrumental teachers and the ‘non-formal’ activities of music leaders.

Understandably, there was little knowledge of issues such as Health and Safety, Equal Opportunities and Diversity, Child Protection, Data Protection and Disability. Many of these things were considered by many music leaders to be remote legislative instruments which had little relevance for their own work. Others thought that they were the responsibility of their employers and were at risk of abdicating responsibility. At the beginning of the evaluation only half of the music leaders were covered by public liability insurance, all these through membership of professional bodies. As the project team put it, the remainder were unaware of their possible vulnerability.

Conclusions

The analysis of such rich data suggested that the take-up of professional development opportunities did appear to enhance the work of music leaders. Indeed, the evaluation process itself may have contributed greatly to this development, especially the discussions focusing on the session observations and the DVD recordings. Exceptionally perhaps, these ten music leaders were not just left alone to get on with whatever their project happened to be, but were able to engage in reflective practice with the support of sensitive facilitators, the evaluation team.

Considering the emergent overall picture, it is clear that usually these ten music leaders were to all intents and purposes ‘teaching’, albeit often without the formal credentials that might be regarded as essential in other contexts. Although they often preferred not to be thought of as teachers, their students were indeed learning and the leaders were enhancing the musical environment in which they found themselves. To this extent they were ‘good-enough’. The first principle, care for the quality of music, was the main contribution of music leaders to the musical environment, along with student fluency arising from aural transmission rather than notation-based activities. Care for the musical autonomy of students was more problematic, as a consequence of the ephemeral nature of the sessions and their dislocation from other aspects of music education.

There is a structural problem here relating to the current status and role of music leaders. For the future development of music education it may be helpful to see the concept of music leader as generic, covering all instances of music teaching and learning, whether formal or informal, in schools or the community and with any age-group.³ Central to this generic concept should be the recognition that the major aim of music education is to enhance the musical environment. This is effected through the ‘good-enough’ teacher of music staying close to fundamental principles. The evaluation of the teaching/learning transaction in music has ultimately to be in these terms. Whatever gloss or further detail we may need to add in terms of professional development, teacher appraisal or student assessment, this fundamental intuitive judgement is prime. And ‘good-enough’ does not mean shoddy, second-rate or just getting by, but a teacher concerned for musical quality and the richness of musical encounters.

One further analysis should be reported. The opportunity for professional development facilitated by Youth Music made a very positive contribution to the quality of the musical environments in which these music leaders were active. There were statistically significant positive correlations between the amount of continuing professional development and measures of the learning, attainment and response of the participant young people (R = 0.64, p < 0.04). There were also positive correlations between these measures of student attainment and the amount of time the music leaders spent in attending or participating in musical performance events (R = 0.71, p < 0.02). These are important findings. Music leaders (and by extension music teachers in any setting) are more likely to enhance an educational musical environment, not only when given professional support, but when they are themselves involved in music, when their own music-making seems authentic. The concept of authenticity seems to underlie much effective outreach work by music leaders and has been observed in another context by Swanwick and Lawson (1997).

The music leaders in this study may have been right to resist ‘continuing professional development’ that did not have a musical focus. Unless the specific discourse of music itself is central to the educational transaction, there is little virtue in ticking check-lists of generally appropriate teacher behaviour. This leaves unresolved the issue of reconciling two very different paradigms, the one represented by current practice in schools and government requirements and the other by the less tangible but important concepts of Finney's ‘richer learning’, Polanyi's ‘tacit knowledge’, Ross's ‘good-enough teacher’ and those self-propelling autodidacts, exemplified by Green's rock musicians. It may be that an ideal way forward lies in a more systemic collaboration between ‘teachers’ and ‘leaders’, the one mainly providing structure and quality assurance, the other giving energy and authenticity to the musical transactions. We saw earlier that in one area at least, the West Midlands, attempts are being made to integrate these two strands.

Of course, we may be interested in other than musical outcomes, and that is fine, provided that we do not claim to be dealing with music in any meaningful sense. If the focus is on music then it seems best to begin any appraisal of educational transactions by attending to the musical environment, intuitively estimating the extent to which good-enough teachers in classrooms and instrumental studios care for the richness of musical discourse and are concerned for the independent musical discourse of students and for the development of their musical fluency: in other words, extending their ability to function in the ‘space between’, in the symbolic world of musical images and ideas. Then we may indeed find that students emerge ‘a little altered’. Specific reasons and justifications for such intuitive appraisals might then be identified. But let us not begin and end this process with itemised lists of competencies and check-boxes, either for the student or the teacher. During this study a woodwind ensemble was observed. The music leader was asked how he dealt with assessment: ‘Assessment? Have a concert’.