World Cultures in the Music Room: avoiding exoticism

This school year my primary focus is on creating a more equitable classroom for each and every one of my students, no matter who they are or where they come from. Over the course of a series of posts, I am focusing on particular people groups and perspectives that tend to be marginalized in US-American music education. My hope is to give music teachers practical suggestions and thoughts to ponder to encourage all of us as a profession to have more open and honest conversations about these topics. None of us is able to perfectly understand every perspective in the world, but we are all capable of expanding our worldviews- in fact I believe we have a responsibility as educators to do so!

Today's topic is a familiar one for this site: world cultures. How can we better reflect the wide variety of cultures that our students encounter in their lives? How can our classroom be more responsive to the needs of students from cultures different from our own? How can we model respect for, and teach our students to respect, a broader range of cultural perspectives? Today's focus is on one key aspect of these important questions: avoiding exoticism.

No matter what your local neighborhood or student body may look like, we all live in a global world. Although chances are good that you have multiple countries represented in your student population in one way or another in this day and age, even if you teach in a completely mono-cultural setting, I believe it is important to help students understand and respect the perspectives of cultures around the world to give them the tools they need to be successful in today's society, and to be better humans who can empathize with a broader range of perspectives.

With all of that said, I know that authentically and appropriately representing cultures with which you yourself are not familiar is no easy task! I have talked with so many music teachers who are too scared to incorporate perspectives and material from other cultures because they're afraid they'll "do it wrong". My top suggestion for better reflecting, responding to, and respecting a broader range of cultures from around the world in our music classrooms is to

Avoid exoticism.

This is one of the most difficult concepts to explain but also the key to creating a classroom climate that celebrates and normalizes cultural perspectives from around the world. Whenever we're presenting ideas or music from unfamiliar cultures, we need to do our best to avoid presenting them as "interesting", or as "curiosities", and instead present them as facts of life. A lot of this comes down to checking our own perspectives as teachers: do we think of other cultures as exotic, or just another example of what "normal" look like?

As a US American who grew up mostly in Japan, a common reaction I hear when people find out about my upbringing is the question, "what was THAT like?". My life seems very exotic, unusual, interesting, maybe even cool, simply because I was in a country with which they are not familiar. The problem is I never know how to answer that question- to me, my life was my life. It is my normal. The same is true for everyone- it's important to remember that for Japanese children, going to a festival in the summertime and doing a traditional dance (bonodori) with the other festival-goers is not particularly noteworthy- it's normal.

It's difficult to adequately explain this concept in concrete terms, but here are some practical suggestions for working to avoid exoticism in the way we present world cultures in our classrooms:

1. Present facts of life as facts, not anomalies 

This may seem counter-intuitive, but I find that teachers who get overly excited about little details of life or music from other countries when they present them to their students often end up conveying this sense of exoticism rather than the appreciation they're really going for. I find it more helpful to present material regularly and matter-of-factly, and avoid spending a lot of time giving students too many examples of random little factoids they find interesting but aren't directly related to the lesson content. Those random factoids just create more of a sense of "other" for students.

It can be exciting and intellectually stimulating to have our ideas of normal shattered by encounters with new perspectives, worldviews, and ways of life. There is certainly nothing wrong with modeling that excitement for learning new perspectives and appreciating different points of view. But if we as adults can treat these new perspectives with more of a sense of normalcy when we're sharing them with our students, they will be more likely to internalize them in the same way they learn that ice cream comes in more than one flavor and fire is cool to look at but not to touch: new information for them, but that is normal for others.

2. Don't limit musical examples to "folk"/ traditional styles

One important, concrete way to normalize other cultures is to present visual and musical examples that are current, not just historical. Too often the way we present cultures in our classes leads students to think that all men in Scotland walk around in kilts, Ethiopian people are all naked and starving, and people in Mexico only listen to Mariachi music. We know that's not true, but how many of us grew up thinking this way and were, at some point later in life, startled to realize that the rest of the world doesn't fit such outdated caricatures?

Preserving traditions that have been around for hundreds and thousands of years is important, but we need to be careful not to give students the impression that the rest of the world is living in the past. The truth is, good or bad, that our day-to-day lives have a lot more in common with the lives of those around the world than they ever have before, and showing students modern examples of music and culture, while perhaps less "interesting", will better help our students relate to other cultures and treat people as normal rather than "other".

3. Use musical material from a range of cultures when the culture is not the point

Another way to normalize world cultures for students is to use material from a variety of countries in day-to-day lessons without focusing on the cultural background of the material. Just because the song is in Korean doesn't mean you need to spend 10 minutes talking about Korea, any more than you need to do a lesson on German culture when you use music by Beethoven. Making it a normal part of your classroom to include examples in different languages and from different cultures will make it less of a curiosity and more of a normal part of how we go about our lives.

And please, whatever you do, don't use the phrase "world music"! Let's remember that our native culture is part of the world just as much as all the others. Creating a category of "world music" implies that there is music that is not from "the world" (which leads to that exoticism I keep talking about, where the native culture is "normal" and "the world" is "other than").

4. Avoid putting students from other cultures on the spot

Of course you want to bring your students' backgrounds into your classroom and into your lessons- that's the whole point of this series! Finding musical material that represents the cultures of the students in your classes is absolutely a wonderful idea, and when you do, you of course will want to allow those students who are familiar with the culture to share their insights and experiences, or help with pronunciation if they speak the language.

However, in the same way that we need to be careful of making too much of a "fuss" over the music and customs of other cultures, we need to be careful not to exoticize our students. If you are hoping to have a student share something about their culture in class, talk to them beforehand to ask how and what they would be comfortable sharing- they'll need time to think about what would be interesting to non-natives, because remember, all those things that are so "interesting" to outsiders are normal for them!

We also have to be careful not to make assumptions about how familiar students are with their passport culture and/or language. With all of the global mobility in today's society, there are many children who grow up without ever setting foot in the country of their nationality, and/or do not speak the language their parents speak. Make sure you know for sure what your students' backgrounds are before putting them on the spot to share in class.

And just as I said already with the music, allowing students to share perspectives and experiences from their cultures when the culture is not the point can also go a long way in normalizing these perspectives. Don't limit the times that students can share insights into their worldviews only to times when you're teaching a song from that culture! Making it a part of your normal discussions will help students feel more comfortable interacting with a variety of perspectives and with sharing their own.

If you haven't already, I encourage you to go back and read my introductory post for this series on the topic of "reflecting, responding, and respecting" in general. Reading that post will help to frame the discussion and I have also included several reflection questions that I think are helpful for teachers as they begin to think about creating a more just classroom for all students and perspectives.

What are your thoughts? Questions? Experiences? Let's start talking! Share in the comments or send me an email. Next week I'll be continuing the conversation about presenting world cultures in the music room with resource recommendations and other practical tips for incorporating music from around the world in a way that is reflective and respectful of, and responsive to, our global society. Stay tuned!

Stay in touch and get more content sent straight to your inbox- sign up here for the Organized Chaos newsletter!