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Welcome to the first posting of News and Views in Curriculum and Assessment!

The general intent of this column is to provide a forum from which to address curricular issues and perspectives of relevance from within and without music education. As editor I will be presenting topics that pique my interest, but I am hopeful that as subsequent editions move along you (the careful reader) will feel free to comment or to make suggestions as to what you would like to see discussed in this column.

Among the issues I would like to see addressed are those that are (of course) generated by and affect music educators directly. However, it is those issues that may have the appearance of seeming to be peripheral to music educators and music education that I really hope to take on in ways that allows all of us to make the obvious and peripheral problematic.

As the column will present topics of recent trends and concerns, it is my hope that each of us will allow ourselves to welcome challenges to our assumptions about the nature of curriculum and assessment. As such, I hope that each of you will offer your own news and views as you grapple with the continually evolving issues of curriculum and assessment theorized and operationalized.

So I look forward to our conversations and as editor of the column willingly take on the task of presenting "the issues." So stay tuned for controversial topics (perhaps not so controversial to the savvy MayDay reader in the know) such as:

* National Standards: The Cultural And Contextual Political Ramifications Of Embracing

* Method and Pedagogy: One of These Things is Not Like the Other

* Critical Pedagogy and its Antecedents

* Democratic Music Classrooms: What Place Democracy?

* Multiculturalism is Dead

* We Are Our Status: The Burden of Complicity

* The Enculturation of the Educative Process

* Critical Consciousness in Classroom Discussions: The Evils of "Classroom Participation"

Thanks again, and stay tuned!

Biography

Cathy has been teaching music education graduate and undergraduate classes at New York University since 2000. She has taught music in public and private schools for 15 y ears, as well as sung and played in numerous ensembles. She has posted on the MayDay website and also written articles on subjects ranging from integrated curriculum, the National Standards, and the theory of multiple intelligences. Her doctorate is in Curriculum and Teaching from Teachers College, Columbia University—which has helped to provide her with a framework from which to address broader educational issues that concern music education. Her specific interest lay in the reciprocity of the teacher/student, student/ teacher relationship. To this end, she sees the process of education as one in which teachers and students share a learning path that is marked by personal construction, rather than one that is dictated by traditional norms and transmission of knowledge. Cathy is also currently the Vice President of the Pacific Southern chapter of the College Music Society.