Arts with the Brain in Mind


Book Description

How do the arts stack up as a major discipline? What is their effect on the brain, learning, and human development? How might schools best implement and assess an arts program? Eric Jensen answers these questions--and more--in this book. To push for higher standards of learning, many policymakers are eliminating arts programs. To Jensen, that's a mistake. This book presents the definitive case, based on what we know about the brain and learning, for making arts a core part of the basic curriculum and thoughtfully integrating them into every subject. Separate chapters address musical, visual, and kinesthetic arts in ways that reveal their influence on learning. What are the effects of a fully implemented arts program? The evidence points to the following: * Fewer dropouts * Higher attendance * Better team players * An increased love of learning * Greater student dignity * Enhanced creativity * A more prepared citizen for the workplace of tomorrow * Greater cultural awareness as a bonus To Jensen, it's not a matter of choosing, say, the musical arts over the kinesthetic. Rather, ask what kind of art makes sense for what purposes. How much time per day? At what ages? What kind of music? What kind of movement? Should the arts be required? How do we assess arts programs? In answering these real-world questions, Jensen provides dozens of practical, detailed suggestions for incorporating the arts into every classroom. Note: This product listing is for the Adobe Acrobat (PDF) version of the book.




The Oxford Handbook of Social Justice in Music Education


Book Description

The Oxford Handbook of Social Justice in Music Education provides a comprehensive overview and scholarly analyses of challenges relating to social justice in musical and educational practice worldwide, and provides practical suggestions that should result in more equitable and humane learning opportunities for students of all ages.




Vision 2020


Book Description

The Housewright Symposium on the Future of Music Education, held at Florida State University in Tallahassee in 1999, assembled 175 music educators, industry representatives, community arts leaders, and students to speculate about what music education might look like in 2020 and the directions the field might take. Participant presentations were published in 2000 as the book Vision 2020, and the current reprint shares the ideas of the likes of Wiley Housewright, Clifford Madsen, Judith Jellison, and other illuminati of music teaching and learning. The contributors to this book asked leading questions about the value of music education, its place in the curriculum, and its possible futures. Many preservice music teachers in the intervening twenty years read chapters like “Why Study Music?” or “How Can All People Continue to Be Involved in Music Education?”—questions whose answers are as relevant today as they were at the end of the last century. As music education moves into a new phase with the current pandemic, the topics considered in this publication are of increasing importance to the discussion. An introduction by two successive presidents of the National Association for Music Education, Kathleen D. Sanz of Florida and Mackie V. Spradley of Texas, place this places this reprint edition in the context of the present day and looks at future directions of the profession.




Music and the Child


Book Description

Children are inherently musical. They respond to music and learn through music. Music expresses children's identity and heritage, teaches them to belong to a culture, and develops their cognitive well-being and inner self worth. As professional instructors, childcare workers, or students looking forward to a career working with children, we should continuously search for ways to tap into children's natural reservoir of enthusiasm for singing, moving and experimenting with instruments. But how, you might ask? What music is appropriate for the children I'm working with? How can music help inspire a well-rounded child? How do I reach and teach children musically? Most importantly perhaps, how can I incorporate music into a curriculum that marginalizes the arts?This book explores a holistic, artistic, and integrated approach to understanding the developmental connections between music and children. This book guides professionals to work through music, harnessing the processes that underlie music learning, and outlining developmentally appropriate methods to understand the role of music in children's lives through play, games, creativity, and movement. Additionally, the book explores ways of applying music-making to benefit the whole child, i.e., socially, emotionally, physically, cognitively, and linguistically.




Policy and the Political Life of Music Education


Book Description

Policy and the Political Life of Music Education is the first book of its kind in the field of Music Education. It offers a far-reaching and innovative outlook, bringing together expert voices who provide a multifaceted and global set of insights into a critical arena for action today: policy. On one hand, the book helps the novice to make sense of what policy is, how it functions, and how it is discussed in various parts of the world; while on the other, it offers the experienced educator a set of critically written analyses that outline the state of the play of music education policy thinking. As policy participation remains largely underexplored in music education, the book helps to clarify to teachers how policy thinking does shape educational action and directly influences the nature, extent, and impact of our programs. The goal is to help readers understand the complexities of policy and to become better skilled in how to think, speak, and act in policy terms. The book provides new ways to understand and therefore imagine policy, approximating it to the lives of educators and highlighting its importance and impact. This is an essential read for anyone interested in change and how to better understand decision-making within music and education. Finally, this book, while aimed at the growth of music educators' knowledge-base regarding policy, also fosters 'open thinking' regarding policy as subject, helping educators straddling arts and education to recognize that policy thinking can offer creative designs for educational change.




Seeking the Significance of Music Education


Book Description

Noted music educator Bennett Reimer has selected 24 of his previously published articles from a variety of professional journals spanning the past 50 years. During that time, he's tackled: -generating core values for the field of music education; -the core in larger societal and educational contexts; -what to teach and how to teach it effectively; -how we need to educate our teachers; -the role of research in our profession; and -how to improve our future status. Reimer precedes each essay with background reflections and his position, both professional and personal, on effectively addressing the issue at hand. The opening 'Letter to the Reader' presents a valuable overview based on his deeply grounded viewpoint. The entire music education profession will benefit from Reimer's perspective on past, present, and future concerns central to the functioning of music education in Seeking the Significance of Music Education: Essays and Reflections.




Issues in Music Teaching


Book Description

Issues in Music Teaching stimulates critical reflection on a range of topics related to the teaching and learning of music in both the primary and secondary school, including: the place of music in the curriculum the nature of music and music education ICT and music education music education and individual needs continuity and progression in music education The book prompts the reader to be analytical and critical of theory and practice, and to become an autonomous professional and curriculum developer.




Teaching Music in American Society


Book Description

Successful professional music teachers must not only be knowledgeable in conducting and performing, but also be socially and culturally aware of students, issues, and events that affect their classrooms. This book provides comprehensive overview of social and cultural themes directly related to music education, teacher training, and successful teacher characteristics. New topics in the second edition include the impact of Race to the Top, social justice, bullying, alternative schools, the influence of Common Core Standards, and the effects of teacher and school assessments. All topics and material are research-based to provide a foundation and current perspective on each issue.




Music, Education, and Religion


Book Description

Music, Education, and Religion: Intersections and Entanglements explores the critical role that religion can play in formal and informal music education. As in broader educational studies, research in music education has tended to sidestep the religious dimensions of teaching and learning, often reflecting common assumptions of secularity in contemporary schooling in many parts of the world. This book considers the ways in which the forces of religion and belief construct and complicate the values and practices of music education—including teacher education, curriculum texts, and teaching repertoires. The contributors to this volume embrace a range of perspectives from a variety of disciplines, examining religious, agnostic, skeptical, and atheistic points of view. Music, Education, and Religion is a valuable resource for all music teachers and scholars in related fields, interrogating the sociocultural and epistemological underpinnings of music repertoires and global educational practices.




Foundations of Music Education


Book Description

Preface. Introduction: Why Study Foundations of Music Education? 1. History of Music Education. 2. Philosopbical Foundations of Music Education. 3. The Musical and Aesthetic Foundations of Music Education. 4. The Role and Purpose of Music in American Education. 5. Sociological Foundations of Music Education. 6. Social Psychological Foundations of Music Education. 7. Psychological Foundations of Music Education. 8. Application of Psychology to Music Teaching. 9. Curriculum. 10. Assessing Musical Behaviors. 11. Research and Music Education. 12. Teacher Education and Future Directions. Index.