Graduate Research Assistant - Simon Fraser University
David Erickson is a music teacher at Minnekhada Middle School and has worked at Simon Fraser University as an instructor for the course “Designs for Learning: Music” intended for beginning music teachers. He is currently completing his doctoral dissertation in Arts Education at Simon Fraser University. Some of Mr. Erickson’s current doctoral research interests are concerned with alternative pedagogies in school music culture, formal and informal learning interaction, child-centred education, and student-as-partner arts advocacy. Mr. Erickson holds a Master of Arts degree in Arts Education from Simon Fraser University, having published his thesis “Language, Ineffability and Paradox in Music Philosophy”. He conducted his undergraduate studies in Washington State University, receiving a Bachelor of Science in Psychology. While there, he studied music performance and played percussion in both the university orchestra and opera companies under the direction of Dr. Martin-Beatus Meier. Mr. Erickson has composed music soundtracks for a number of productions commissioned by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation and has recorded with avant-garde musician Eugene Chadbourne for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Entropy Stereo Recordings, as well as being featured in other groups on C.B.C. radio with Peter Gzowski and on Vancouver’s “The Fox” rock radio. Now happily involved as a research partner with youth in RYME, Mr. Erickson recently engaged in a study with Dr. Susan O’Neill and Dr. Slava Senyshyn, which explored how we might be enabled to use youth-led artistically crafted research to build and sustain a culture of “knowers” inside the music classroom, while seeking channels with youth for expansive learning opportunities.
