Satis Coleman 1, Dan Shevock

Satis Coleman... some thoughts...

 I initially became interested in Satis Coleman when I saw a reference to her in something I was reading about improvisation. A jstor search led me to Volk's 1996 MEJ article on Coleman. I was intrigued. From what I have read--Volk's MEJ article, Southcott's (2009) the Seeking Attitude, and Coleman's own books--my interest and esteem in Coleman as an important music educator has only increased. This interest is connected in my love of improvisation, and my appreciation for the philosophy of John Dewey.

"Interest" is a central concept in Deweyan educational philosophy (Dewey, 1910). Continuity demands that educative experiences be rooted in children's interest, and Coleman's unique way of attending to student interest--taking students on field trips to the Metropolitan Museum of Art where they looked at instruments from a variety of world cultures (Volk describes this as a precursor to "world music"), then returning to school so that students could build instruments and then perform on them--seems fresh and modern in 2013. This way of teaching seems outright radical for the 1920s. I cannot for the life of me imagine why Coleman's name isn't on the tip of every music educator's tongue.

One aspect of my own paper makes connections between Coleman's writings, which include improvisation, "primitive music for little primitives" and mother tongue, and similar ideas later made popular in American music education by music educators Carl Orff and Shin'ichi Suzuki. So my question is, why was Coleman's voice lost between the 1940s when she retired from the Lincoln Lab School, and the 1990s? Would her teachings have been more readily accepted if she were a man? As I read her, I am constantly stunned by the profundity of her writing, thinking, and philosophizing. A copy of the poster I presented at the Penn State Graduate Exhibition today is on my weebly page, http://danshevock.weebly.com/research.html. ...

Challenge: What other voices have been lost to our gendered music education history? ...

Dan Shevock
Ph.D. Student, Penn State
3/24/2013...

References

Coleman, S. N. (1922). Creative music for children: A plan of training based on the natural evolution of music including the making and playing of instruments. New York, NY: G. P. Putnam’s Sons.

Coleman, S. N. (1939). Your child’s music. New York, NY: Van Rees Press.

Dewey, J. (1910). How we think. Boston, MA: D. C. Heath & Co. Publishers. Retrieved from http://www.gutenberg.org/files/37423/37423-h/37423-h.htm. 

Southcott, J. (2009). The seeking attitude: Ideas that influenced Satis N. Coleman. Journal of Historical Research in Music Education, 31(1), 20-36.

Volk, T. M. (1996). Satis Coleman’s “Creative Music”: Hands-on music education for children was the goal of the innovative music educator Satis Coleman. Her legacy enriches today’s classrooms. Music Educators Journal. 82, 31-47. DOI: 10.2307/3398949.