XIII and XIV Colloquiums: June 19 - 22, 2003:
The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC
"Music Curriculum Challenges in Elementary and Secondary Schools
and Taking Stock after Ten Years: Next Actions for the MayDay Group"

Global or local initiatives for music curriculum implementation
in institutional, social, and cultural contexts
Wilfried Gruhn
University of Music Freiburg, Germany

Once upon a time, there was a bird, a cow, and a fish who wanted to learn a new song. For the singing lessons they enrolled in a music education program at the best qualified institution offering a music curriculum that was based on scientifically developed and generally accepted professional standards. However, the animals faced unexpected difficulties. The cow called for a meadow, the fish needed an aquarium, and the bird wanted to sit on a tree in the open air. After this could be arranged, the cow still lowed, the fish remained mute, and the bird sang the already learnt models of bird songs. This was really an educational disaster! Music specialists could not teach them what they always were used to teach, and the highly motivated students could not grasp the tunes they heard. Finally, the animals went back to the environments they had come from and continued to "sing" the way they were accustomed to.

What does this story tell us? Not every one needs to learn the same; not every one needs to be taught in the same way. Not all living beings are the same, not every mind works in the same way. We, therefore, need to take into account the individual differences rather than to apply the same approved standards to every one.

1. Global vs Local Initiatives

Although it is true that "an extensive and intensive consideration of curriculum for music education is needed as a foundation to greater professional unity" (Ideal 7), we have to define the function of curriculum implementation within and with regard to the learning process. In music education, students are introduced to the practical and theoretical conditions of music making as well as to the cultural values of music in history and society so that they can participate in the cultural life of their particular culture and society. Generally, education terminates in broadening the options for a self determined decision about social, intellectual, cultural, and political activities.

If there is consensus about the function of education as enculturation, curriculum necessarily is bound to local or regional cultural conditions. Therefore, the same curriculum cannot work in different environments such as those mentioned in the story of a fish, a cow, or a bird. Teaching and learning can only develop according to the particular conditions of each society or species.

However, general principles of learning are the same and comparable in all humans and follow a more global paradigm. If learning is referred to a neurobiological process by which neural networks and mental representations are established, the sequence of learning steps progress according to biological rules which are global in a sense.

A music curriculum, therefore, ought to follow general principles of learning theory which have to be adopted to the local traditions of learning attitudes, school systems, cultural traditions as well as to the cultural techniques and applied technologies. The intensive and extensive consideration of music curriculum includes global and local ingredients. It serves music teachers with a solid framework of scientifically and socially accepted norms.

A music curriculum results from implicit knowledge of educational practice and experience and explicit knowledge of learning theory. So far, it plays a fundamental and central role in the effort to strengthen and enhance music education. However, the best possible curriculum does not automatically guarantee success in terms of producing appropriate results in music education – no matter of what we will understand of success and appropriate results (e.g. buying tickets for a concert with classical music, taking violin lessons with the intention to play in a community orchestra, listening and enjoying classical CDs etc.). The most important agent in music education always is the music teacher. (S)he is his/her best curriculum (as Hartmut von Hentig has mentioned it). Of course, within a local culture, teachers should strive for a broad consensus of what is taught, but the strongest indicator of musical success is a professional, inspiring, and sensitive music teacher and his/her way of teaching.


2. Standards in Education

What is true for a curriculum in general is also true for the quality of curriculum standards. A set of generally accepted standards does not automatically produce qualified teaching. Moreover, binding standards produce the illusion that every student can learn the same and has to learn the same – disregarding his or her special aptitudes or needs. Standards normally call for comparison and measurement. There is a German proverb "Vom Wiegen wird die Sau nicht fett" (repeated measurements do not fatten a sow) which means that we can assess and compare, install standards and look for global criteria – the effect of teaching is not assessment but something what causes a process in the student according to his/her individual musical capacities and interests, musical aptitudes and cultural needs.

The ideal of objective assessment follows the model of a "trivial machine" (Heinz von Foerster 1985;1994; 1996) which responds to an input in always the same way (like a coffee machine which spends a cup of coffee if you insert the right coin), whereas learning as the process of acquiring knowledge and experience should be seen as a "non-trivial machine". Here, the input causes an unpredictable process of activities within a mental network so that we cannot predict a distinct outcome. In view of the non-trivial machine model, education supports the production of knowledge and cognition, whereas the trivial machine model relates on resources and objective data collected in students' minds.

Figure 1

Christian Winkler: Die Kunst der Stunde. Ein Modell zur Vermittlung von Musik aus systemisch-konstruktivistischer Sicht. Augsburg 2002, p126 f (according to Heinz.v.Foerster: Sicht und Einsicht, Braunschweig 1985)

Furthermore, there is another aspect that supports the idea of diversity rather than uniformity of standards. According to Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences (MI-Theory; Gardner 1983; 1999), every human being is excelled by an individual intelligence profile consisting of several intelligences (linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, spatial, inter- and intra-personal, naturalist, spiritual or existential) which are differently developed and exhibit individual strengths and weaknesses. As a consequence of the individual diversity we must recognize and submit to the differences of intellectual dispositions and, therefore, address different learners by teaching individual differences. General standards in education contradict and undermine the individual support of learnings strengths and weaknesses in education.

Therefore, one may conclude that criteria of effective teaching and learning do not derive from curricular standards or from a greater consensus on desirable outcomes, rather they should be deduced from the individual disposition of any learners. "Education works most effectively if these differences are taken into account rather than denied or ignored" (Gardner 1999, 91).


3. Institutional Priorities and Local Conditions

If an administration, a school board, or an individual school implements a new curriculum in music education, all decisions are infected by and depend on many items defined by a given situation. In general, students bring their own anthropogenic and socio-cultural prior conditions which can be ascribed to genetic and environmental factors. The students and their musical abilities function as the very agents in music education. Learners are instructed and guided by contents, which are selected and presented by teachers. However, curriculum construction should place the learner and his/her potential in the center and take objects and objectives as methodological means to stimulate and facilitate the learning process. If the content of the curriculum is mainly concerned with culture and history (as in many European countries), then social and geographical conditions play an important role. If, however, musical practice builds the center of the curriculum, then institutional priorities and local conditions become more influential. Finally, if the learning of music (learning music musically, learning the genuine fundamentals of music) represents the main purpose of music education, then learning theory serves as a vital base for developing appropriate learning sequences. But in any case, it is the given context that defines or promotes the substance of what is taught. An isolated musical content itself (a scale, a chord or chord progression, a tune, a piece of music, a structural model like a sonata or fugue) cannot function as an educational value without the integration into a given or explored context.

4. Conclusion

1. It is extremely difficult and dangerous to generalize from abstract concepts like "music" or "curriculum". It is always the context that makes the meaning of a concept. And even "music education" is totally different in different cultures and countries depending on philosophical ideals, cultural believes, and educational traditions.

2. Generalizations of the importance of curriculum implementation in local or global terms make only sense, when we define the particular meaning of "curriculum" and its social and cultural functions. We have to turn our implicit understanding of music education into an explicit conscious theory. We must be aware of our own traditions and basic pre-assumptions referring music education to aesthetic education (MEAE), to performance based practice, or to a more comprehensive (general) music education.

3. We live in a global world and face all problems stemming from globalization. Therefore, it seems appropriate and reasonable to call for local (geographic, idiomatic, colloquial) determinations for curriculum development which, nevertheless, should be performed in accordance with global (or: general) principles of music learning.

A greater consensus on objectives and functions of music education and its final outcomes would be very supporting for the implementation of a new, better, attractive music curriculum. But good (and successful) music teaching and learning does not depend on a curriculum rather than on teachers' commitment to music and to students, on their professionalism as music teachers, and on their enthusiasm and engagement. The teacher always is his/her best curriculum.

However, this does not mean, that consensus between music teachers and policy makers is useless or needless. It is not. But curriculum decisions are performed on different levels:

* on a very general level of politics supported by a society,

* on the level of activities in a community

* on the implicit consensus between music teachers, and

* on the level of student activities and parents' interests.

The lower the level, the more influential become local resources for institutional priorities; the higher the level, the more apparent become general or global statements as often formulated by National Standards (which, however, tell us nothing about the learning of an individual student or in a particular context).

Therefore, we need a great consensus on the general direction of music education and also on the freedom to react individually: to think globally, and to act locally depending on the subjective and objective premises of teachers and learners.