{"id":14062,"date":"2015-08-02T15:06:07","date_gmt":"2015-08-02T15:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.societateamuzicala.ro\/societateaculturala\/?p=14062"},"modified":"2016-01-10T20:25:36","modified_gmt":"2016-01-10T20:25:36","slug":"some-musical-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.societateamuzicala.ro\/societateaculturala\/some-musical-education","title":{"rendered":"Some musical education"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nowadays, the educational system faces multiple challenges regarding pupils\u2019 education, whether socio-human or professional education. Attempting to offer as much information and broad knowledge, school tends to inhibit the students\u2019 harmonious development. Subjects are increasingly numerous and complex, and children are less willing to learn and at risk to abandon school and learning, because of information overload. If you stop to watch pupils on their way to school, something strikes you, wherever you are: most of them are listening to music! Music is a constant presence in youth life, it has practically grown into a social phenomenon. But does school teach them about music? What do youngsters know about the art of sounds? What relationship do they form with music? Music is a way of expressing oneself, but to have access to its language one needs a facilitator, a teacher and some classes, just as one does in the case of art \u2013 literature, for instance. Music is not a lesser art than literature, an art studied for several hours a week, from primary school to the end of high-school! Paradoxically, few pupils still read nowadays, but all listen to music, in what seems an attempt to compensate for the disinterest of the educational system in a very valuable subject, an important part of universal culture. From the 2nd<\/sup> to the 7th<\/sup> grade, there is a music class a week in the curriculum, and this class lasts for just half an hour (!?!) in the 8th<\/sup> grade. In primary school, music is taught by the primary school teacher, who does not have special training in teaching music. As a consequence, the result of teaching is practically null. In the 5th<\/sup> grade, pupils do not even have elementary knowledge of music. In high-school, music is a compulsory subject in humanistic studies only, for half an hour a week, in the 9th<\/sup> and 10th<\/sup> grade, and this is where the study of music stops. And yet \u2026 Music education is the oldest component of Romanian pedagogy, highlighting values which have been structured throughout the years and represent not only cultural and historical facts, but the elements of a world outlook. It is then compulsory to present the real, correct aesthetic education within the educational system.<\/p>\n

Education has been an essential part in society, and art has been a fundamental, irreplaceable means for ennobling humans. Since ancient times civilizations have developed ideas and concepts about art and the relationship between art and humans. The pervasive idea is that without using art\u2019s educative value there can be no moral improvement in man or society. Music, visual arts, literature or the performing arts have always have educational impact and have been strongly influential in consolidating and developing human qualities, such as sensibility or conscience. In the same time, those are important factors in balancing and improving one\u2019s personality.<\/p>\n

The history of Romanian musical pedagogy has not have a smooth ride, but the important landmarks for the future of this teaching sphere are there. Music teaching has had serious, acknowledged impact on artistic, humanistic, moral, civic, intellectual education. The importance of these aspects requires broader historical and cultural investigation. Music teaching has been heavily supported by great European and Romanian pedagogues, philosophers, historians, writers and men of letters in general. From this perspective, it is desirable that the result of research be not only a contribution to Romanian pedagogical history, but our culture\u2019s history, in general. Harmonizing music pedagogy with general pedagogy, through enterprises of general pedagogy prominent figures in aesthetic and music education, through promoting its representatives among education researchers and theoreticians, are some of the steps in developing this field. In support of the idea of complementarity of various music fields, let us give the example of children\u2019s folklore study by ethnomusicologists and educators but also by composers writing children\u2019s scores. The study of children\u2019s folklore has been seen as an important part of Romanian folk music and as introduction to various other folk genres and species. There have also been attempts to establish a relationship between Romanian children\u2019s musicality and what Constantin Br\u0103iloiu called \u2018the previous life\u2019, and George Breazul, \u2018the musical psychology of the Romanian child\u2019.<\/p>\n

Great representatives of Romanian musical pedagogy started from children\u2019s need for music and the necessity to pay attention to this education, in the spirit of millennia-long traditions. In the same time, music pedagogy offers specific data for getting to know children, psychology and pedagogy receiving valuable input into otherwise intangible spheres.<\/p>\n

Geoge Breazul, a great pedagogue, does not propose to teach a kid about music, but to introduce the child to this wonderful world and get him interested in listening and making music. A preoccupation with teaching music to all pupils, from pre-schoolers to high-schoolers, confirms the cultural and social importance of this field of pedagogy.<\/p>\n

Authentic education requires communication between educators and the pupils. The teaching-learning relationship between a pupil and his teacher is a two-way process, at a conscious level (interpersonal communication) and unconscious (affective) level. Asking questions in class, looking for answers, saying where they can be found, directing pupils to explore new tracks, all suppose teachers\u2019 availability and flexibility.<\/p>\n

An important request in contemporary teaching is group work. Pupils know what this approach means in relational terms: words addressed to every single one of them, time given to all of them. A constructive approach supposes dialogue making the pupil aware of the intellectual or material means he will have to employ to reach a certain objective. Mediation and interaction are fundamental to this process. The pupil builds knowledge himself, but he can only reach that knowledge by building a relationship with others. In this way is created in a small group socio-cognitive conflict, the driver of true learning.<\/p>\n

Within aesthetic education, music education has an important role, and so does the one guiding children towards acquiring good taste, valuing arts and great creations. It is only by direct contact with the most authentic values of religious, popular and universal music that young generations can be helped against pseudo-cultural or kitsch phenomena, and this is especially true in moments of aesthetic, axiological, moral crisis, which must be counteracted through spiritual order, where music has a major part. This is only possible by changing the merely decorative role of this subject, after centuries of due consideration in school. If history is to cast light on the future being born of the past, if our history of pedagogy is to be reconsidered, then the history of music pedagogy has to contribute to acknowledging and retrieving the most valuable traditions in order to create culture. These traditions have confirmed major preoccupations and results acknowledged theoretically and practically, didactically and methodologically, in order to contribute to the development of a complex spiritual life in the youngest generations.<\/p>\n

Education, like other sectors, tends to change its technology, following trends in industry, Nowadays school faces an explosion in learning means, starting with the simplest, traditional ones, and moving on to the most complex, which have started a new teaching revolution, together with content and didactic strategies.<\/p>\n

Teaching and learning means represent the set of auxiliary, traditional and modern set used by teachers and pupils to transmit and acquire knowledge and skills, but also evaluate results obtained in the teaching-learning process. They support teachers\u2019 explanations and demonstrations, contributing to the increase in the efficiency of teaching and the solidity of acquired skills. They evolve with the development of science and technology and their evident results contribute to the improvement in education. Let us remember the functions of education: cognitive, formative, aesthetic, professional orientation and training, teachers\u2019 training through teaching methods in the Romanian school.<\/p>\n

The following are used in the music lesson:<\/p>\n