Too Much Noise in the Classroom? Towards a Praxis of Conceptualization

In this paper I begin to theorize what secondary school music education might look like “post-deconstruction.” In particular, I explore the argument for a reconsideration of the importance of conceptualization in the process of music education. I argue that is it through coming into contact with powerful conceptual knowledge that students’ potential to participate fully as capable musicians in their world is most likely to be realized. Conceptual knowledge provides the link between experience and the understanding of that experience. The great paradox of postmodernism is that in opening up some possibilities we have subsequently closed others down. There is a danger that in placing the knower rather than knowledge at the center of our educational endeavors, we have reduced access to something extremely important: the dimensions of knowledge that hold the power for students to move beyond their experiences, to imagine, and conceptualize a different world.