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Editorial In an educational world caught up in normalizing and standardizing instructional objectives, methods, and learning outcomes, it is sometimes refreshing to hear talk of transgression-subverting the status quo, pressing the narrow confines and rigid boundaries of thought, and opening spaces for thinking about and doing things differently. Of course, there is no particular virtue in change itself, or in novelty as opposed to tradition. Still, in an environment in which all too often educators feel bound to follow the directives of others, challenging these injunctions is an important undertaking for philosopher and practitioner alike. Recuperating the word "transgression" where it instances careful reflection and critical thinking about commonsensical and taken-forgranted ideas and practices is an important philosophicalundertakingthatcanbebeneficialto music educators and those interested in thenwork . This is not to say that all our writers in this issue would necessarily think of themselves as explicitly transgressing particular norms. Still, in one way or another, their various projects challenge received wisdom and articulate and exemplifythevariouswaysinwhichtransgression can take place, intellectually and practically. How does this idea play out? In her essay, "Threatening Behaviors: Transgressive Acts in Music Education," Patricia O'Toole leads offthis issue with an essay that builds on Elizabeth Ellsworth's work m examiningmodes ofaddress. Applyingthis idea to music educationreveals and transgresses institutionalassumptionsabout"who Music Education tfiinks its participants are." In dialecticalvein, sheproposesanapproachthatcan be transformative for music education practice. Peter Dunbar-Hall proposes that Andrea Boyea's views regarding the treatment ofNative American musics in music instruction in the United States resonate with the teaching of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ASTI) musics in Australian schools. He proposes a similarly social and contextual approach to these musics and shows how ethnological approaches have validity in music teaching. Seeing these musics as intimately tied to the rest of culture suggests important implications not only for the teaching ofall musics, but in teacher preparation programs that mayneed to be re-drawn to provide expertise ofthe sort necessary to address musics from this different and broader view. Tackling the aesthetic and ethical "conundrum" of opera, Yaroslav Senyshyn and Danielle Vézina offer an alternative way of looking atopera, and suggest someofthepossible pedagogical implicationsthat will flow fromtheir views. In taking the position of opera's importance in the Western musical canon and positing the study ofopera in musical instruction, they subvert the views of those music educators who might be tempted to devalue the Western canon in favor of studying and teaching other musical traditions. And they propose alternative means of study opera by viewing it through the lense of"community." In some ways, David Schroeder's essay on four approaches to teaching jazz improvisation transgresses the boundaries of traditional philosophical reflection by basing ideas on what jazz practitioners do and say in the process of teaching students to improvise and relating them to the ideas ofthe pianist Bill Evans. Yet this is the stuffofreflection in the field ofjazz, and this is whatjazz educators say and do in the midst of passing on to their students the art of improvisation. What comes clear in his essay is how reflective jazz players are about what they do, and how they think about improvisation as learning a series ofquite specific and "teachable"©Philosophy ofMusic Education Review 10, no. 1 (Spring 2002):1-2. Philosophy of Music Education Review skills. This view removes much ofthe "mystery" ofimprovisation and regards it in a more practical and technical way. Reflection ofthis sort enables us to see into the instructional process ofjazz in a way that otherwise would not be possible. In this issue, we introduce a Symposium feature—a series of short papers on a particular theme. Bennett Reimer's commentary on his essay prepared for Vision 2020, editedbyClifford Madsen and widely published by the MENC-The National Association for Music Education (copyright 2000), provides an introduction to the discussion by respondents Anthony Palmer, Thomas Regelski, and Wayne Bowman to the question "Why do humans value music?" The transgression here is that no one answer to any philosophical question suffices as a basis for music education practice, and no single declaration, however well-meaning, serves to articulate all of the desired ends of music education. The richness ofthese...

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