Description
Book SynopsisThe Children We Teach places children at the center of music learning and teaching. What we understand about children determines how we teach them: the music learning environments we provide and decisions we make about music content and skills. Unexpressed, but no less meaningful, is the interdependent relationship between music teacher and children. Recent trends in music education emphasize what children should know about music more than what music educators need to know about children. This book offers insight into the innate traits of children such as goodness, kindness, needs, spirituality, playfulness and wonder. Each essay is supported through research and features data from music teacher-participants. When we engage children musically, we have opportunities to nurture children's hearts, minds and spirits as well as our own.
Trade ReviewIn this book Danette Littleton and Meryl Sole explore the nature of chlldren: their worlds of imagination, creativity, spontaneity, play, care and resilience and the many musical experiences that contribute to these worlds. Drawing on an interdisciplinary array of literature and on the testaments of multiple teachers, Littleton and Sole develop a child-based framework for music teaching, with attention both to the characteristics and needs of children of varying cultural and musical identities and social attributes. Throughout the essays, vignettes illustrate the ideas being discussed in a highly accessible way. The insights from this book provide a unique perspective on teaching that is valuable to music teachers and teacher trainers alike.
-- Kathryn Marsh, Emeritus Professor of Music Education, University of Sydney
Table of ContentsPreface
Essay 1. Born to be Good
Essay 2. Music and the Aesthetics of Care
Essay 3. What Children Need
Essay 4. Music and the Spiritual Child
Essay 5. Children’s Play with Music
Essay 6. Wonder-filled Knowing and Learning
Essay 7. Knowing Those Who Teach
Essay 8. Toward a Pedaogy of Hope
Conclusion
Appendix
References
About the Authors
