Dear Stephen,
Happy new year!
I am writing on behalf of SMEI Would it be possible to get a message to PPMTA members or notification on your website regarding the forthcoming SMEI conference this 24-25th January? The conference is being hosted by DCU, The School of Arts Education and Movement and will take place on St Patrick’s Campus, Drumcondra beginning at 9.30am each morning.
The keynote speaker is Professor Patricia Shehan-Campbell and we believe that her Keynote paper will be particularly relevant to Post-Primary Music teachers as they undertake teaching within the new Junior Cycle programme. The title of her paper is: World Music Pedagogy as Pathway to Intercultural Understanding. Within this paper she aims to highlight how World Music Pedagogy ‘considers the complexities of diversifying the musical content of curricula […] and the myriad ways in which social justice is achieved through transformative course design’ She ‘acknowledges the importance of recordings’ as they offer pathways foe students to ‘know music by listening, participating and performing in it, engaging in creative variations of it, and understanding the meaning and value of the music’. This we believe connects inextricably with both the ‘strands’ and the ‘elements’ of the new Junior Cycle.
I attach both a flier for the conference and the conference programme. We understand that it would be difficult for teachers to attend on Friday, but we are also offering a ‘day rate’: €55 for SMEI members and €65 for non-members.
It would be great if there were some post-primary teachers there.
Many thanks,
Lorraine
(Chairperson, SMEI)
Dr Lorraine O Connell
Musicianship Co-ordinator,
Lecturer,
Conservatory of Music and Drama,
TU Dublin