From Tema Okun (2022):
“[O]ur cultural habit of applying a sense of urgency to our every-day lives in ways that perpetuate power imbalance while disconnecting us from our need to breathe and pause and reflect. The irony is that this imposed sense of urgency serves to erase the actual urgency of tackling racial and social injustice.
A constant sense of urgency :
- makes it difficult to take time to be inclusive, encourage democratic and/or thoughtful decision-making, to think and act long-term, and/or to consider consequences of whatever action we take;
- frequently results in sacrificing potential allies for quick or highly visible results, for example sacrificing interests of BIPOC people and communities in order to win victories for white people (seen as default or norm community);
- reinforces existing power hierarchies that use the sense of urgency to control decision-making in the name of expediency;
- is reinforced by funding proposals which promise too much work for too little money and by funders who expect too much for too little;
- privileges those who process information quickly (or think they do);
- sacrifices and erases the potential of other modes of knowing and wisdom that require more time (embodied, intuitive, spiritual);
- encourages shame, guilt, and self-righteousness to manipulate decision-making;
- reinforces the idea that we are ruled by time, deadlines, and needing to do things in a “timely” way often based on arbitrary schedules that have little to do with the actual realities of how long things take, particularly when those “things” are relationships with others.”
What does urgency look like in music education?
Manifestations
Where did you see this WSCC in your K-12 music education? Where did you see this in your preservice training program? How does this characteristic show up in your job requirements now? How does this characteristic show up in your standards? What behavioral management practices reflect this characteristic? How do your teaching practices perpetuate or challenge this WSCC? Try to be specific.
Remedies
What specific pedagogical tools have you used to challenge this characteristic? What repertoire or content could be incorporated to remedy this characteristic? What needs to change in music education culture or school culture in order to accommodate remedies for this characteristic? What do you wish you learned in your preservice program that would help you challenge this characteristic? How could remedying this characteristic benefit your students and their communities?
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