Norman Meehan - Tertiary Teaching Excellence Teaching Profile

Senior Lecturer, New Zealand School of Music, Massey University

Teaching

Many years ago New Zealand jazz pianist Mike Nock – who has taught for the Sydney Conservatorium for more than 20 years as well as maintaining an international performing career – said to me: “You don’t learn to be a jazz musician at school. We don’t turn out jazz musicians; jazz musicians turn themselves out. But we can widen their musical knowledge and give them a broader field of awareness.”

He went on to say that jazz musicians don’t come to terms with the deeper aspects of the art in the classroom – that happens on the bandstand – and he elaborated on his own understanding of what was most important in the music. “Jazz is about freedom – express yourself, be yourself, try to find your own stuff – that was what it was all about. Find your stuff, not try to sound like anyone else.”

Those ideas have become central to the way I teach. When I started teaching at the Wellington Polytechnic in 1998 I taught a mixture of practical and critical papers. These days I almost exclusively teach historical/critical/analytical papers, largely because I believe if we do that well, we can create an environment where students will have the opportunity to ‘turn themselves out’ as jazz musicians; to develop ‘their own stuff’. I’m not interested in training people to sound like Stan Getz or Louis Armstrong; I’m committed to training them so that they will sound like themselves.

My own experience as a student led me to this. As an undergraduate (and reasonably experienced musician) at a Conservatorium (i.e. receiving practical training) I was skeptical about the value of journals and critical papers and edited volumes and all that; I couldn’t see how that was going to help me on the bandstand. But I really wanted to understand the music, so after graduating I attended music school in Philadelphia and later Boston where I undertook Masters’ study. As a graduate student I took papers that led me to engage with the academic literature and the ideas it explores. What I discovered was that with the knowledge and – more importantly – the understanding I gleaned from that study, I played differently. And I played better. That was because I was now thinking differently.

So what I want to do for my students is to help them really understand the music, and develop their own ideas about it. Facilitating them to develop their own ideas and the confidence to express/attempt those ideas is the greatest gift I can give them.

So, how do you do that?

It’s not very fashionable to say it, but I think being a successful teacher is about love: love for my work as a teacher, for my subject, and for my students. I’m not sure I could do my job very well at all if I felt anything less than love.

I have described the priorities of my teaching practice as ‘the three Es’, for expertise, enthusiasm and empathy. Really knowing your stuff (expertise) requires loving your field; well, it does for me anyway. I remember as a student, one of my teachers talking about the content of a paper he taught and saying “I think about these ideas everyday.” I was pretty impressed by that, but find that it is now something I do myself. I really love jazz; it’s so interesting. And I’m sure that has helped me stay current with my field, and helped me have useful things to say about it to students too.

I think that my love for the music, coupled with the enjoyment I get from teaching combine to make me an enthusiastic teacher. Enthusiasm and passion are compelling, and there’s not as much of it about as we might hope. It’s great to inject some of that into the classroom (of all places!). There are days when I don’t really feel like being enthusiastic (you know – when you have a headache and a twofoot pile of papers to mark), and on those days, I sort of ‘put enthusiasm on’ – like a coat I guess. Anyway, when I do that – which is basically professionalism – I find that pretty soon I am enthusiastic. It seems to be a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, and has the same effect on the students too. Well, most of the time.

Empathy can be a bit harder. Much of what I teach now is at upper levels, which means my classes are smaller, and I can get to know my students personally. Having 15 or 20 students in classes that mainly comprise of discussions and debate makes it pretty easy to get to know the students and establish some rapport with them. When you have 120 or more students in a lecture theatre it’s basically impossible to enjoy that kind of relationship with them. I’ve tried a few things: having students say their names before answering a question; breaking into smaller groups among which I circulate. But I have never been able to learn all the names or know who all the people are in cohorts that size. However, with groups of up to about 50 students I have been able to get to know them. It takes a bit of determination and homework but I have found it’s possible.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what do you actually do in the classroom?

One thing I think about when teaching is stories. Margaret Mahy has suggested that ‘stories confer structure upon our lives.’ That’s an idea I have applied to my teaching, and I try to use stories to add shape and structure and context to the ideas I’m working on with my students. I think the stories do two things. First, they kind of ‘humanise’ concepts because they are usually about a person and something that has happened to them. For example, when I talk with students about the need for space when they are improvising, I’ll tell a story about Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Coltrane was a fantastic saxophone player, but he really ‘ran at the mouth’ when he improvised. Miles once asked Coltrane why he played so long, and Coltrane said, “Well, once I get started, it’s hard to know how to stop.” Miles suggested, “Why don’t you try taking the saxophone out of your mouth?” Now, that’s pretty funny, but it makes the point that Miles, who is a really important person in the field of jazz, thought brevity had value in the music.

The second valuable thing about stories is that they are memorable, and can become a kind of mnemonic for the ideas we explore in the classroom. For example; off the cuff I can’t remember much about the technique of Arnold Schoenberg’s music, but I can clearly remember the stories my teacher told me about Schoenberg and his debt to Beethoven. When I think about those stories, they remind me of some of the details of Schoenberg’s twelve-tone music, and its relationship to the musical techniques we can find in Beethoven’s music.

Another thing I think about is questions. The intellectual values I most want to inspire in my students are curiosity and skepticism, and our discussions are usually directed toward those values. I’m not too interested in offering students answers, but I’m very interested in helping them to develop enquiring minds and a determination to find their own answers. One student in the Jazz Literature 2008 (300-level) class sent me an email in which she wrote: “You said half way through the paper that ‘you go to university to get better questions’, and I really believe this to be true. This paper is certainly connected to that.”

I think if students can formulate their own questions, then in the true jazz tradition, they’ll find their own stuff. I can’t ask for more than that.

I too hope to continue formulating better questions, and to continue learning from my students. I’m not sure they realize just how much they teach me each year.

Peer and Student Comments

“Norman is a brilliant teacher! His articulate way of explaining himself and his ability to draw out the thoughts of his students so that their ideas are clarified is amazing. He is not just knowledgeable, he is able to share his knowledge humbly and constructively.”
Student, Studies in Jazz Literature 2008 (300-level)

“He was great in stimulating my thoughts into the deeper ideas covered; as a result I feel my thinking process has gained so much. Thanks… my willingness to discover and learn has deepened through your involvement.”
Student, Studies in Jazz Literature 2008 (300-level)

“People are encouraged to, not only take in the information given, but, to seek for themselves and create their own ideas on topics.”
Student, Jazz History 2004 (100-level)

“Norman is awesome. He is considerate, compassionate, enthusiastic, caring and knowledgeable about his subject material. I rate him highest out of all my lecturers over all my (6) years at Uni.”
Student, Studies in Jazz Literature 2008 (300-level)