The Doug Goodkin Lecture Series

I’ve long known that I’m a preacher without a pulpit, a public speaker without a podium, a lecturer without an audience— unless I create one. So back in 1996, when the Summer Orff Training Course I’m currently teaching was in Mills College, I created a ritual time to give a talk once during the two weeks. Like this blogpost, my articles and books, it has been both a way for me to coherently gather my thoughts and make them presentable and also a way to share that which I think is worthy of sharing. The Orff Approach turned out to be a hospitable Venn diagram with education, child-raising, community, neuroscience, ritual and ceremony, psychology, anthropology, social justice, history and so much more. So each year I checked in what seemed to be of interest to me at the moment and set to work.

 

I should be preparing my talk tomorrow, a blend of showing slides and videos from Ghana and not only celebrating the genius of their ideas about music education, but cross-referencing with the current book I’m reading by Gabor Maté: The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture.  Last year’s talk was titled Trauma, Loss and Healing, but here I want to take a new slant to show what we can learn from other cultures without over-romanticizing them. Consider how to adapt their lessons into our own unique cultural situation, particularly the culture of schools. 

 

I should be preparing that lecture now! But when I searched for what I talked about last year, I miraculously found a list of all my talk titles since 1996. That’s enough to reveal both the depth of the Schulwerk and my own peculiar habit of non-stop reflection and trying to connect the dots between things that are usually kept separate. I’m sure I’ll share snippets of tomorrow’s talk here later, but meanwhile, enjoy these titles and see if you find any intriguing. Not that I could necessarily find the actual talk, as some were oral presentations based on little drawings I made on butcher paper (which I think I actually have in some drawer at home). Anyway, here they are:

-       Trauma, Loss and Healing— Aug. ‘22

-       Blend in; Stand Out—Aug. ‘21

-       Teach Like It’s Music— Aug. ‘19

-       Character in the Music Classroom— Aug. ‘18

-       Social Justice and Music Education— Aug. ‘17

-       Ritual, Ceremony and Orff Schulwerk— Aug. ‘16

-       The Humanitarian Musician— Aug. ‘15

-       Keeping the Wild in the Wildflower—Aug. ‘14

-       Jazz and Orff Schulwerk—Aug. ‘13

-       Motivation and School Culture—Aug. ’12

-       Brain Rules—Aug. ’11

-       Assessment in Orff Schulwerk– Aug. ‘10

-       Opening and Closing—Aug. 09

-       The Legacy of Carl Orff—Aug. 08

-     Orff Schulwerk as a Calling—Aug. ’06

-     The ABC’s of Education—Aug. ’05

-     Assessment: An Orff Schulwerk Perspective—Aug. ‘04

-    Orff Schulwerk, Colonialism and Relationship—Aug. '03

            -    Music Education in the Fast food Nation—Aug. '02

            -    The Roaring Twenties: Culture in Transition—Aug. '01

            -   Chutes and Ladders: The Chakras in Education—Aug. '00

            -   The Cycle of Learning: The Ideas of Alfred North Whitehead—Aug. '99

            -   Orality and Literacy—Aug. '98

            -    Multiple Intelligences and Orff Schulwerk—Aug. '97

            -   The Triune Brain and Its Educational Implications—Aug. '96