Music education

Specific Foundation / Core

The course is also offered to exchange programme students.

The course “Introduction to Music Education” intends to help the future music educators of the Department of Music Studies, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki: 1) Get acquainted with the philosophy, research and interdisciplinary discourse of music education, in order for them to develop their critical thinking with regard to this academic knowledge and cultivate their own philosophical approach to the nature of music, in general, and music education, in particular, as well as to their importance for people’s lives, 2) Relate theory of music education to their own music educational experiences and aspirations, so that they stop feeling that the academic teaching of music education keeps the “real world” at a distance, 3) Exercise the pedagogical values of socio-musical collaboration and responsibility through their own music teaching in “learning communities” that have limited access to public music expression, creativity, and education, and 4) Get prepared to face the multiple music educational problems of the complex and continuously changing professional, socio-economic, and cultural realities.

The course “Music Education” familiarizes fourth and/or fifth-year music students—future music educators— of the Department of Music Studies, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, with the philosophy, interdisciplinary research and music educational practices. Τhe course “Music Education,” encompasses the interdisciplinary, sustainable (since 2000), and widening-participation program C.A.L.M. (Community Action in Learning Music http://calm.auth.gr) in the kernel of its syllabus which aims towards the active teaching of the students of the course at “high risk” elementary or secondary public schools and communities in order to explore musical and pedagogical pathways that engage all participants in meaningful music-making. C.A.L.M. was given the "Αward for Academic and Scientific Excellence" in Greek Universities by the Greek Ministry of Education and the "Research and Innovation Award" by The Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. The course is also the forum for 4th and/or 5th-year music students to participate and show their music and educational knowledge, judgment and competence not in fictive problems and lessons, but by exercising pedagogical responsibility in the “real world,” in response to multiple hidden sociocultural and political practices that lie ahead in their future professional lives as music teachers (for more details about the course, see The Oxford Handbook of Music Education (Volume 2, pp. 371-388). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Topics to be discussed throughout the semester are the following: 1) Music education and the role of music in people’s lives, 2) Review of philosophies and theoretical approaches to music education, 3) Interdisciplinary approaches to music education (Music Psychology/Cultural Studies), 4) Music teaching/learning processes as collaborative, social, and democratic action, 5) Music programs in new contexts, 6) Music improvisation and composition as music educational practices, 7) Music creativity as practical socialization.

12-06-2020