HARD TO EARN, EASY TO LOSE: THE EXPERIENCES OF THREE MUSIC LEARNING THEORY-BASED ELEMENTARY GENERAL MUSIC TEACHERS AND UNIFIED CURRICULUM WRITERS

Local education agency (LEA) administrators often require elementary teachers of standardized tested subjects English Language Arts, math, science, and social studies to use pre-published pacing guides and scripted lesson plans. These administrators do not require the same of music educators. As such, elementary general music educators often create and use their own lesson plans with the same cohort of students over multiple years. They are responsible for the liberating yet daunting task of helping students meet local or state standards with few to no mandates for short- or long-term planning.Elementary music teachers may draw from published music curriculums or create their own based on established music pedagogical frameworks (Bresler, 1995; Bugos, 2011; Hernandez, 2022; Mynatt, 2018). As an elementary general music teacher, I have drawn heavily from Gordon’s (2012) Music Learning Theory (MLT) as my pedagogical basis for music instruction. MLT-based materials I have used for kindergarten through 4th grade include Jump Right In: The Music Curriculum, Revised Edition (Taggart et al., 2000, 2001, 2004, 2006, 2010). However, I have found that I need to supplement Jump Right In with contemporary materials to craft a modern curriculum fitting my unique teaching context and students. When I looked to the literature to understand how other MLT elementary general music teachers have written their own curriculum, my searches yielded no results. To improve instruction in elementary general music, the purpose of this qualitative research was to understand the experiences of elementary general music educators who created and used LEA-wide elementary MLT-based curriculums. The single question guiding my study was, how do MLT-based, elementary general music teachers describe their experiences writing and implementing a formal curriculum in their LEA? I selected a qualitative, interview-based design for my study. I used purposeful sampling to recruit three elementary general music teachers who had worked with colleagues in their LEA to write and implement an MLT-based curriculum. Using Seidman’s (2006) three-interview design, I gathered information from the participants. Because of my personal connection to the study, I used Braun and Clarke’s (2013, 2022) six-phase iterative approach to conduct reflective thematic analysis: familiarizing myself with the data; coding; generating initial themes; developing and reviewing themes; refining, defining, and naming themes; and writing up. While analyzing the data, I developed codes from which sixteen subthemes emerged. I assigned each of these subthemes to one of three emergent themes: (a) teachers were steadfast and determined, (b) teachers were advocates, and (c) LEA policies helped and hurt. Participants’ data became organized by one overarching theme, instigators of and obstacles to change. For these three teachers, the experience of creating and using LEA-wide elementary MLT-based curriculums was hard to earn and easy to lose. I present implications for music educators and their LEA administrators who aim to undertake similar projects. I discuss personal implications, and I make recommendations for future research. Keywords: Music Learning Theory, elementary general music, teacher-created curriculum, reflexive thematic analysis, critical qualitative approach