Out of the Trenches: The Joys (and Risks) of Cross-Disciplinary Collaborations

Abstract

How do we find ways of interacting and working together across professions, ideologies and subject areas across the school curriculum? This question, posed to me by the ISME committee, begs the larger question of whether indeed we should collaborate, and why. In my studies, I have found that even when schools were committed to arts integration, of all school teachers - arts and academic subjects included - music teachers are typically the least likely to participate in collaboration. This was particularly glaring in the high school that had the most successful and exciting arts education program I have ever seen. This school, in Washington State, integrated the arts into every imaginable subject - from physics and math to French and Chinese. The only teachers who were not involved in the whole school endeavor were the music specialists. In another, Midwestern school district that included six elementary schools, all arts specialists collaborated closely to develop and implement an impressive integrated curriculum, except some of the music teachers.1 Who were these integration holdouts? Were they mean, evil spirited, ignorant saboteurs? On the contrary. They were knowledgeable, intelligent, dedicated, friendly educators and often well-liked by their students. Therefore, their reluctance to collaborate in such highly collaborative environments is all the more puzzling. In fact, it makes us wonder whether these teachers may have seen what the rest of the school missed: that unlike other disciplines, music could not or should not be integrated into the rest of the curriculum. Disciplinary isolation is not restricted to schools, but is often characteristic of