Case Study

Jeanna Jerde

The student that I chose for my case study is a fifteen year-old, freshman male. He comes from a middle class family with both parents in the household. He is involved in the Senior Choir and Band and is a talented percussionist and bass singer. He also taken piano lessons since kindergarten and participates in piano festivals and attends music camps every year. He was born with one ear canal closed and without an ear lobe. According to Ruder (2010), this condition is a relatively common birth defect called Microtia: Grade III which is a severe type of ear deformity where only the lobe of the ear is present. This is usually associated with no ear canal (atresia) and a loss of hearing in that ear. At one time, he had muffled and rushed speech and was enrolled in speech therapy. He had four surgeries and now has a complete, reconstructed ear but still has no ear canal in his right ear. At first, I was the most curious about the way his hearing disability affected his musical progress. From my own observations, discussions with this student, and discussions with my teacher, it is apparent that due to his dedication and practice he has become quite skilled at audiation. According to the Gordon (2008), audiation takes place when we hear and comprehend music for which the sound is no longer or may never have been present. Because of this skill, he doesnt have the necessity to rely heavily on the ability to hear to make music.

Another issue became more prevalent than his hearing disability. Despite his demonstrated dedication to music, this student has shown little commitment in other academic areas. He has troubles completing and focusing on tasks that are not of great interest to him. This lack of effort has put this student in academic probation and detention several times. According to school policy, academic probation requires that the student is removed from all extracurricular activities. This demands that the students would be removed from any performances that arent required for a grade. Due to academic probation, he has had to miss several pep band performances, was almost unable to attend all-state chorus, and has been banned from sending in an all-state band audition recording. I have observed this student in band, choir, and in other classes. In music classes, he is typically focused and engaged in learning and performing. In other classes, he is distracted and distracts other students around him. He often makes excuses for unfinished class work and seems unconcerned about the consequences of his actions. I gathered from my discussions with this student, that he doesnt believe these subjects are important to achieve his goals. I have also gathered from discussions with my cooperating teacher and faculty that this student has always been eccentric and that his parents have encouraged his eccentricity. While normally this would be considered positive, other faculty and I believe it might have promoted a lack of respect for authority and overconfidence.

My cooperating teacher and I have thought of and implemented several strategies to aid this student. One of these strategies is already in place; negative punishment in the form of removing participation in performances in order to encourage this student to participate in class and turn in class work. Another strategy that I have implemented involves making connections across curriculum. I hoped that he would find other subject areas more interesting if the connection to music was emphasized. My cooperating teacher and I discussed this strategy with his teachers and made an effort to make more interdisciplinary connections in our own lessons. According to Fogarty and Pete (2009), this is called an integrated model that involves interdisciplinary team discussions when planning curriculum. Finally, the last strategy that I employed involved engaging him in a candid conversation about the full scope of skills that is needed to be a successful performance artist. This includes skills that he may not have thought of, such as writing music history essays, the extensive use of math skills in composition and music theory, and the academic requirements to be accepted into college. I think that this students academic disinterest is not a problem that will be solved quickly and will need the attention of his family and faculty over an extensive period of time. I hope that I had at least partially aided in initiating this positive change. If he is able to overcome his academic struggles, I believe he has the potential to become a fantastic performer.

Works Cited
Fogarty, R.J., & Pete, B.M.(2009). How to Integrate the Curricula. California: SAGE. Gordon, Edwin E. (2008) Audiation. Retrieved from http://giml.org/mlt/audiation/ Ruder, R.O. (2010). Coping With And Curing Microtia. Retrieved from http://www.robertrudermd.com/microtia.html.