Reply To: Global music education in the 21st century

[nafmeadmin]

Sddogg, you are absolutely right. Nothing prepares a teacher like actually doing an unfamiliar music. Undergraduate course loads in traditional music education are already jam-packed, and universities distilled in western music theory and practices are reluctant to add to the course load in the effort to train pre-service teachers to teach non-Western music traditions. However, since most of us have to fulfill continuing education requirements, maybe we ought to be steering our students toward learning new musics through various summer programs like the Smithsonian World Music Pedagogy Course, or a session workshop like what Christopher Smith [Texas Tech] has done with Irish trad music, or for those of us who are able to get to Pretoria, South Africa: the kind of in-service training offered by the Centre for Indigenous African Instrumental Music and Dance – all these demand learning and DOING the music in a primarily aural tradition. More and more universities are offering courses in traditional musics from various regions of the world taught by insiders to the traditions. Until our undergraduate music education programs find a way to weave in methods courses for teaching multiculturally, we need to develop partnerships with community musicians and culture bearers [especially family members and friends of our students], get to know musicians at music festivals/performances, and take courses or lessons ourselves from culture bearers in our communities and further.