A Novel Technic for High School Magazines

Inspired by ideas that Levi-Strauss (1955) presented in Tristes Tropiques, the author discusses music and early childhood in Brazil from educational, historical, anthropological, and sociological perspectives. She begins with a short history of early childhood education in Brazil, including changes in educational policies, teacher preparation, and recent statistics. Next, a brief history of music teaching and learning is followed by a discussion of Brazilian children's current musical practices. In this section, the author discusses teacher training, curriculum, religion, wealth, local culture, and the role of the media. The author concludes with suggestions for the development of both early childhood music education policy and practice in Brazil.     

Making a Design Hold Together

The author examines early childhood music education in Taiwan through Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory. Factors in the microsystem level that influenced the musical development of children included adult perception of children, child-adult interactions, Taiwanese family structure, and the existing early childhood education system. The quality of child-parent-teacher relationships in mesosystem, the second level, had a noticeable impact on children's musical development. Exosystem, the next level, illustrated how insufficient early childhood teacher training in music influenced children's musical growth. The outermost level illustrated the educational policies and how the current practice affected Taiwanese children's music learning. The author gives recommendations to improve current practice of educational policies based on problems raised and discussed in the different levels.     

Music Education for Young Children in Scandinavia: Policy,Philosophy, or Wishful Thinking?

The author discusses current policies, philosophies, and educational practices of early childhood music education in Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway, and Sweden) and to what extent they meet the challenges of music education for young children. Nearly all children use day care provisions, and they are a governmental responsibility. The author reviews governmental policies regarding general pedagogical goals of day care and kindergarten in Scandinavia. During the last decade, teaching plans for preschool pedagogy were implemented and the author discusses to what extent the plans meet current challenges of music education. The author also discusses the challenges of teacher-training programs in light of current policies regarding music education in early childhood.     

Social capital and music teacher professional development: Principle,policy, and practice

Teacher professional development (PD) is often extended as a driver of good teaching and effective schools. In recent years, teacher PD has increasingly focused on developing teacher social capital by placing teachers within professional communities to collectively solve instructional problems. Using Bourdieu's and Coleman's conceptions of social capital as a theoretical and practical lens, this article explores how a social capital frame could generate more effective PD policy in music education. Areas examined also include the specific ways in which social capital becomes a lever for teacher growth and school improvement and the social dimensions of music teacher PD. The article concludes with principles of social capital-advancing PD policy, examples of principle-aligned PD policies, implications for research and advocacy, and an accounting of challenges and opportunities for the future. The author argues that centralizing social capital development as an aim of PD represents a new frontier in music teacher learning.     

Making Illuminated Parchments

The author describes how contemporary music education at the secondary level has fallen short of Dr. Charles Leonhard's vision for developing musical understanding and musical responsiveness in all students and cites several historical events as pivotal in promoting the profession's current path. The author then challenges this generalization by describing the professional practices of a forward-thinking high school band director who epitomizes Leonhard's ideal of a music teacher and serves as a model for professional dispositions. The author also offers social interaction theory as a promising foundation on which to assemble a music teacher education program capable of producing teachers with dispositions that serve the highest goals of the music education profession.     

Early Childhood Music Education in Australia: A Snapshot

Policy for early childhood music education (birth to eight years of age) in Australia covers a complex and diverse range of curriculum guidelines and legislation relating to the contexts of day care, preschool, and the early years of school. Australian models and policies vary from state to state and according to setting. Furthermore, early childhood education is constantly changing and evolving, responding to new practices, altered government priorities and funding, and community needs. In this article, the author aims to provide a snapshot of the situation by reviewing and analyzing educational policies, teacher training, and providers of early childhood music programs as well as suggesting some future directions.     

The True Meaning of Design

Recently, state and federal legislators have emphasized teacher quality in their efforts to improve public education. Many reformers believe that merit pay may prove invaluable in attracting highly qualified educators to the workforce and retaining them, as well as in improving students’ test scores. While merit pay's ability to recruit and retain great teachers is as yet unproven, recent studies have found little evidence that merit pay improves students’ test scores. The following article seeks to inform merit pay policies by offering insight from research in educational psychology and outlining possible implications for music education.     

Modern Methods in Teaching Art

Academic programs use objective and standardized assessment criteria. Music education programs have avoided such objective assessments via the assertion of subjectivity and aesthetics in music learning. In this article, the author introduces the revised Bloom's taxonomy as a tool to translate music education outcomes into objective educational criteria. The author analyzes cognitive processes and knowledge domains that address more complex forms of musicianship using achievement standards from the nine national standards in music education as examples. The author also introduces four new knowledge domains to describe procedural and metacognitive knowledge that are integral to music learning. In addition, the new taxonomy elevates creativity as the most complex of the cognitive processes, which has positive implications for the field of music education.     

Make an Art Slide Library

Self-assessment can play an important role in teachers’ personal and professional development and is encouraged by educational programs worldwide. This article reports on a Greek study that aimed to investigate generalist preservice kindergarten teachers’ self-assessment of their music teaching ability. One hundred participants were asked to design and deliver three music sessions for the kindergarten and then prepare a short reflective portfolio. Qualitative analysis of the portfolios led to the identification of different issues related to student practices, including preservice teacher training, teaching ability, the effect of different school environments and policies, and personal thoughts and feelings. Finally, the article discusses the role of self-assessment in understanding students’ academic needs and suggests initiatives and policies that might promote better teaching practices in music education, both at kindergarten and university level.     

Inspired by the Clavilux

This article is a response to Shuler's 2001 article predicting the future of music education. The respondent assesses Shuler's predictions, finding that many have come true but critiquing Shuler's overall positive assessment. The respondent then goes on to make one prediction about the future of music education: that algorithms will increasingly be understood as deeply involved in music education. The article discusses three main points regarding algorithms: one, that music is increasingly involved in algorithmic processes; two, that while algorithms are hidden, they nevertheless have political consequences; and three, that users and algorithms are mutually entangled, with users often orienting their behavior toward algorithms and algorithms increasingly being customized based on a model of the user. From these three premises, the author goes on to discuss five implications music educators should consider in developing a balanced view of twenty-first-century music education: first, the shift from the authority of the teacher toward the algorithmic wisdom of the crowd; second, the rise of music as content; third, the opportunity to engage with the governing of algorithms; fourth, the need to understand the aesthetics of algorithms; and fifth, the need for resistance to algorithms. In concluding, the author calls for maintaining a balanced approach when employing technology—moving beyond approaches that mythologize cyberculture.     

Book Design and Illustration

In the years between the world wars, music education in Germany prospered, because successful policy made constructive cooperation among relevant institutions and representatives possible. The situation today is very different. Many music educators and researchers are not aware that policies affect them; nor do they see themselves as active participants in policymaking. This article discusses the conflicting forces in society and in the education system that are responsible for this: the precarious relationship of youth music culture and music education; the continuing decline of music education in the schools, which is concealed by media-supported events; the seeming irrelevance of music education content and methods to students; a lack of consensus in society about the core content of music education; and the ineffectiveness of the argument for the educational benefits of music education in policymaking. As a result of these forces, Germany lacks both theories and research on music education policy. This article argues that music is a diverse practice that manifests itself as many different practices in various contexts. Thus, the center of music education policy must be the people dealing with music and their varied musical practices, rather than musical works and their dissemination. As a consequence, music education policy needs to be shaped in ways appropriate to the diversity of musical practices and the various contexts of music education.     

Early American Stoves

The curricula for preparing music specialists has remained largely unchanged for decades. In this time, most professions have moved toward preparing specialists while the music education profession has moved toward preparing generalists. The author examines how this is unrealistic and out of touch with the times and the future. Furthermore, the author argues that it is demeaning to our art form, teaching profession, and most important, future students. He proposes a plan for change to update music teacher training.     

Catalogue

The author presents reviews that identify success factors in music and arts education partnerships between cultural institutions and K-12 schools. She incorporates the evaluation of one Massachusetts partnership, Arts Can Teach (ACT), to examine the connection between partnerships and K-12 arts-program policy decisions. ACT is a collaborative effort among Boston's Wang Center for the Performing Arts, the Lynn Public Schools, and LynnArts, which matched music specialists and teachers in other disciplines with practicing artists for oneyear partnerships. Success factors of the ACT partnership are considered in terms of their similarity to success factors from the literature on music education partnerships. The author discusses implications for increasing and sustaining music and arts education programming and local arts education policy development.     

Action Research as a Professional Development Activity

Reflective teachers are always searching for ways to improve their teaching. When this reflection becomes intentional and systematic, they are engaging in teacher research. This type of research, sometimes called action research, can help bridge the gap between theory and practice by addressing topics that are relevant to practicing teachers. This article synthesizes literature within music education and general education to address (a) the conceptual underpinnings of action research, (b) characteristics of action research and teacher research, (c) action research critiques, and (d) implications for teacher research as a form of professional development.     

Intersections between music education and music therapy: Education reform,arts education,exceptionality, and policy at the local level

In this article, a music teacher educator and a music therapy clinician and educator discuss special education policy and arts instruction at the district level. To illustrate the gulf between federal and local policies with regard to exceptional learners and arts instruction, we examine the intersections of music therapy and music education with regard to self-contained classes of students with moderate to severe disabilities. Our discussion focuses on provision of services and opportunity to learn, and results in specific policy suggestions, including: (a) increasing administrators' understanding of music therapy, adaptive music education, and music education, so that decisions regarding arts instruction can be better-informed and more child-centered, (b) treating music therapists as allied health professionals who do not need to be certified teachers to practice in schools, and (c) improving initial music teacher preparation and providing opportunities for professional development to increase awareness of necessary information and effective strategies to improve music teaching and learning for students with special needs.     

Hints for Beginning China Painters

The need for music educators to become more actively involved in policy issues, including analysis, design, implementation, and research, is critical to the future of music education. Bridging the gap between policy and practice requires a collaborative effort among music professionals. This article explores the inclusive use of policy studies in a music teacher education curriculum within a school-university partnership context. The process of creating a secondary instrumental music partnership is used to illustrate specific examples of how policy can be included in music teacher education programs. I demonstrate how the partnership created a curricular opportunity for preservice music teachers to investigate policy in an authentic context. Planning time, curricular scope and sequence, and the negative impacts of the curricular incorporation of policy on the self-efficacy of the preservice music teachers emerged as concerns for future consideration and review. Recommendations to address these concerns are included.     

The Gentle Art of Criticism

Although much has been written about professional development in general education and music education literature, little has addressed the benefits of music-making as meaningful professional development for music teachers. For music teachers, music-making and meanings of music-making have been connected with teachers' identity, well-being, beliefs, and effectiveness, as well as being a powerful pedagogical tool and a way to develop presence in teaching. Presence in teaching is linked with self-awareness, attentiveness, and pedagogical knowledge. The purpose of this article is to explore the benefits of music-making for music teachers in order to convince policymakers of the value of music-making as a professional development activity for music teachers. This article explores theories from psychology and education that link engagement, well-being, and identity to lay the foundation for a justification of broadening professional development policies. Then, literature is presented that connects teachers' art-making experiences (past and present), identity, teaching, and student learning. The third section draws on my previous work to illustrate the intersections between teachers' music-making and teaching. Then, suggestions for implementing professional development programs with music-making components are made. Although there are many ways music-making could be included as professional development, I offer four suggestions: including music-making in departmental or district-wide meetings, granting professional development credit to music teachers who make music outside of the classroom, setting up in-classroom reflection opportunities/action research based on integrating music-making and music teaching, and initiating a collaborative teacher study group that includes chamber music collaboration.     

Ninth National Annual Ceramic Art Exhibition at Syracuse Museum

This article addresses accountability issues that affect music education policy and implementation in the neoliberal education system. Using examples from education reform in Ontario, Canada, the author argues that two forms of accountability imbalances fostered by the neoliberal state—hierarchical answerability over communicative reason and top-down over bottom-up policymaking—allow the use of music curricula for political ends, to the detriment of curricular integrity and classroom delivery. The article also discusses how central governments that are responsible for developing standardized music curricula and allocating resources in an accountability vacuum may tacitly establish that "basic" subjects such as literacy, numeracy, and science are "more mandatory" than a mandated music curricula. The article concludes by recommending ways in which the centralized development of music education policy and resource allocation can be made more equitable both for those who encounter the curriculum at the local level and for the subject.     

Alleviating praxis shock: Induction policy and programming for urban music educators

An integral part of a teacher learning continuum ranging from preservice education to professional development for experienced educators, new teacher induction holds particular potential to effect change in urban education. Accordingly, this article offers recommendations for induction-related policy and programming capable of supporting beginning music educators' professional growth in urban settings. Four programmatic components well-suited to addressing urban music teachers' distinctive learning needs are discussed: professional development tailored to urban settings, collaborative communities of practice, mentoring, and school-university partnerships.     

Reflections on music teacher professional development: Teacher-generated policies and practices

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to make policy recommendations based on the authors’ experiences with, and research about, reflective, differentiated, and teacher-generated music teacher professional development (PD). By doing so, we argue for a bottom-up process that capitalizes on our music teacher and music teacher educator expertise along with the research literature in music teacher PD. We explore music teachers’ PD needs considering four career stages to explain how knowledge generated at each level informs our understanding of differentiated PD. From preservice music teachers and music teacher candidates, to in-service and veteran teachers, our discussion explores meaningful and effective ways to engage in deep, reflective thinking about the music teaching and learning process. Accordingly, we provide specific policy recommendations for music teachers at each career stage so that they might take greater ownership of their own learning, growth, and development through local, reflective, self-initiated, and differentiated PD opportunities.