Remixing the Classroom Toard an Open Philosophy of Music Education [Paperback]

In a delightfully self-conscious philosophical mash-up, Randall Everett Allsup provides alternatives for the traditional master-apprentice teaching model that has characterized music education. By providing examples across the arts and humanities, Allsup promotes a vision of education that is open, changing, and adventurous at heart. He contends that the imperative of growth at the core of all teaching and learning relationships is made richer, though less certain, when it is fused with a student's self-initiated quest. In this way, the formal study of music turns from an education in teacher-directed craft and moves into much larger and more complicated fields of exploration. Through vivid stories and evocative prose, Randall Everett Allsup advocates for an open, quest-driven teaching model that has repercussions for music education and the humanities more generally.

Remixing the Classroomis a stimulating book and will, I am sure, expand the minds of music educators. It is time to pay heed to Allsups appeal and embrace the discomfort of the new. For as the maxim goes: if the highest aim of a captain were to preserve his ship, he would keep it in port forever.

While the impact of [Allsup's] book on our practice cannot yet be predicted, his re-envisioning of music educators as public intellectuals who can shape discourse through the class, ethnic, gendered, and generational realities of conventional music education bursts with possibilities and encourages readers to consider their larger responsibilities.

Stories, metaphors, analogies and quotes from a variety of sources make the text interesting and bring a welcome lightness to this philosophical work in a wayl†