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American Idol, Judging, & The EveryFan Sensibility

Just as the NAEP provides a national assessment of 8th graders’ music and arts education, I think the commentary surrounding Ellen DeGeneres’s role as the newest judge on American Idol is also worth looking at in terms of assessing the state of music education in the US. In articles across the Internet such as this one from Craig Berman for MSNBC, the notion of an “EveryFan Sensibility” is lauded in terms of average people not having the knowledge or desire… Read More »American Idol, Judging, & The EveryFan Sensibility

Potsdam People Article & Using American Idol in the classroom…

It was fun to read the recent write up in the Potsdam People that spotlighted me however, I was a little concerned about the way it discussed my use of American Idol in the classroom. These two sentence in particular were inaccurate: “Tobias also had his class compose music, and he would have the students judge the compositions like on American Idol..” & “Yet at the same time, Tobias had his students use American Idol-style judging when students composed their… Read More »Potsdam People Article & Using American Idol in the classroom…

Reflections on using American Idol in the Music Classroom

As many readers know – ABC world news tonight broadcasted a story on the use of American Idol in the music Classroom recently that included me and many of my 5th-7th grade general music students. In this post I want to provide some background information on why I chose to use the show in my classroom, how I use it, why I participated in the news story and my reflections on the entire experience. I also just found out about… Read More »Reflections on using American Idol in the Music Classroom

ABC Weekend World News Interview – American Idol and the Music Classroom

This past week a crew from ABC weekend world news report visited my classroom to interview me and observe how I infuse the show American Idol in the classroom. It will probably air on ABC around May 21st or 22nd – I’ll post the details when I know them. I posted my response to the National Association of Music Education inquiry about the use of American Idol in the classroom a few months back. It was a great experience to… Read More »ABC Weekend World News Interview – American Idol and the Music Classroom

American Idol and Music Education

Here is my response, with additions, to a question about the effect the show American Idol has had on music education. “I have addressed the show American Idol in my 5th grade general music classroom in relation to the idea of assessing performances. After my fifth grade students create original compositions and perform them for each other we speak about what criteria we would use to assess the compositions and performances. We use American Idol as a reference for discussing… Read More »American Idol and Music Education