William M. Anderson

Rethinking Teacher Education: The Multicultural Imperative

What can music teacher educators do to help prospective teachers deal with the multicultural imperative in todays schools and society? William M. Anderson offers some ideas and a plea for broad-mindedness while encouraging the inclusion of materials from multiple cultures at all levels of music teaching.

Toward a Multicultural Future.

Teaching students the music of other cultures is increasingly important. William M. Anderson reports on advice given by presenters at MENCs multicultural music education symposium.

Music Education in India

American music educators have increasingly set out to explore systems of teaching music in countries outside the United States. Their interest in comparative systems of teaching music has paralleled the growth of the field of ethnomusicology, which continues to document that the world contains many highly developed music systems and that there are many different but equally logical ways of constructing music. After many years of studying Indian music, I was convinced that India supports one of the worlds most intricate music traditions. In the summers of 1975 and 1976 I traveled to India to study music and the system of teaching music in their education institutions, particularly in their primary and secondary schools. The schools of India are organized within three basic levels: primary, grades one through five (approximate ages five to ten years); middle or lower secondary schools, grades six through eight (ages ten to thir-

Sweet success stories in related arts: Approaches to Allied Arts

School curricula today emphasize specialization. Students learn about many subjects in compartmentalized cl.isses from teachers skilled in discreet specialty areas. There is a need for—and convenience to—this kind of structure, but might we not be cheating students and the arts by relying on it tcx) heavily? It is easy to see why teachers have felt compelled toward programs of study based on specialization. There has been an enormous acceleration in the growth of knowledge during this century accompanied by a greatly expanded opportunity to receive information. The media allow us to sit in our homes and see pictures seal by spacecraft passing distant planets, listen to scientists commenting on the latest theories about the evolution of our universe, and read about polititians and economists discussing the ramifications of space flight. In how broad an area can one person feel he or she is expert? The result in secondary education has been a movement toward specialization throughout the century, in elementary schools, there has also been a rise in specialists in such areas as art, music, and physical education. Although specialized programs are important, such educational curricula often fail to integrate different subjects. Students tend to learn infor-