Music is mostly used for a pleasant moment or as a kind of auxiliary to develop other “important” skills.
And musicality is considered an innate talent.
But a new study shows that
aesthetic knowledge of young children can be developed.
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The art of teaching children aesthetics is a developmental pedagogical study of children’s knowledge in music, poetry, and dance, which came out in book form last year. The book is based on three years of study by Ingrid Pramling Samuelsson, Maj Asplund Carlsson, Bengt Olsson, Niklas Pramling and Cecilia Wallerstedt. But it was not for raising the status of music and other aesthetic subjects that the study became, says Cecilia Wallerstedt, a doctoral student in aesthetic forms of expression with a focus on educational science.
“The origin was simply that there was no developmental pedagogical research in this area. We wanted to introduce a new perspective on aesthetics and learning, which means that the teacher has an important role in developing children’s knowledge of aesthetic subjects.
Although it is stated in the curriculum that creation should be seen as both method and content, the content is something that has ended up in the cloud. Music and aesthetics are mostly used as something fun to do and that can develop other abilities and skills. For a music production service Best Music Production Company
Cecilia Wallerstedt says that not teaching music in the same way as language and mathematics may be due to the view of musicality as an innate talent. Whether you have the talent or not and you lack talent you should at least have some fun.
– If you have that opinion, you can put away all the learning. But we mean that aesthetics are something you learn. You learn to sing and to use aesthetic knowledge so that it works in a cultural context. And preschool is a place where everyone should get the chance to learn.
“You can compare it to writing,” she continues. You are not born to a writing person. It’s something you learn. In addition, most children have a lot of experience with the aesthetic even before they start in preschool.
Cecilia Wallerstedt says that there is also uncertainty among teachers that may come from teacher education and from the lack of research on music and learning.
– Many of the students I have talked to are not comfortable singing a song at all. Music is not something that has been printed in teacher education, she says.
Using music as a source of community and joy or as a method for learning something else can be difficult, says Cecilia Wallerstedt.
– As I see it, there is no contradiction between aesthetics such as joy and learning. But there is a danger in saying that you sing and play because it is fun because everyone does not really like it. Baking muffins or walking on forest walks can also be sources of joy and community. It is not obvious that you should choose music to have the most fun, but of course, you should choose music to learn music.
– When it comes to using music as a method for developing knowledge in other subjects, such as language and mathematics, there is fairly widespread research on it, but no evidence that it really works, says Cecilia Wallerstedt.
– Sure, you can work with music that way if you want, but there is a risk of forgetting the musical development.
Cecilia Wallerstedt says that she has been told quite often that children in preschool are too small to learn music in terms of content, but that few respond in the same way to other subjects. Then it is instead talked about the competent child.
– I don’t think there is any contradiction between learning and playing as long as you are at a reasonable level. It’s not about being right or wrong. Not once during my work with the study have I felt that we have pushed the target for the children, she says.
For example, working with the content of the music may mean paying attention to the children that there are high and low tones and fast and slow tempo by letting the children actively listen to music. And that you make the children aware that you can shape emotions by moving in different ways. It can also be about the children trying to make music in other forms, such as painting to music or trying to build the music with bricks.
It is no strange thing. What is most revolutionary is that, as an educator, you are at all thinking about what you want the children to perceive and get out of what you do instead of just doing it. And that you talk to the children and ask questions to them as you do with other topics. As a teacher, you should not have to go to advanced education to get started.
One of Cecilia Wallerstedt’s favorite examples from the study is when a group of smaller children, aged 1-3 years, would work with poetry and make their own poems. The teacher started by holding up a toy, a plastic airplane and let the children say things about it. “Aaa Ice,” said one child. “It’s cold on the airplane,” said another child. “There will be ice,” said a third child and so it went on. The teacher then read the children’s poems and put a picture on an airplane on the wall. When the children pointed to the picture, the teacher read the poem again. Here’s how it sounded:
Aaa
Ice
It’s cold on the airplane
It’s going to be ice
Ice
What happens to the airplane when it gets cold
When it’s out
Ice on the airplane
Watch
Wheels on the airplane
Holes on the airplane
Wings
Holes on the wings
Airplane
– The children had taken the whole idea that the teacher was listening to what they said and wrote it down and when she read it sounded funny. It was really cool, says Cecilia Wallerstedt.
Another example, taken from the book, shows a work session with children aged 6–8, where the teachers want the children to develop an awareness of movement: The
children dance to a song about a monkey. When the monkey is happy, the music is fast and goes fast. After that comes a lot in the minor when the monkey is sad and sits quite still. The children know the song before and make movements with life and desire, freely and according to the words in the song. One of the teachers presses pause on the CD in the middle of the song.
Teacher 1: Have you seen? Could you see what the monkeys were up to?
Teacher 2: One was happy.
Teacher 2: Can you see you’re happy? Can you see though you do not see the face?
The child: Yes.
Teacher 2: Can you show? How do you look when you are happy?
That particular child doesn’t want to show how, but she says you can dance when you’re happy. Another child wants to show and sit on the floor and move his hips back and forth. The teacher asks how to show that someone is sorry. A girl lies down and sucks her thumb. A boy shows how to walk with a bowed head. Another boy plays a smaller scene where he suddenly gets an angry mine and disturbed runs away. When the teacher puts on the CD again after a while, several of the children try the new joint movements and switch between stretched and collapsed bodies. The fact that one can depict different phenomena is an important insight in dance if you want someone else to be able to understand what you want to show with the dance, the authors note.
There are plenty of similar practical examples in the book, which show how teachers direct children’s attention to various things, such as the rhythm of music, and allow them to move about it and discussions with the children as they paint to music.
We emphasize the “object of learning”, the skill, ability or understanding that one wants the children to develop, and that one should talk to children about their learning in metacognitive dialogues.
Metacognitive dialogues or meta-conversations mean that you talk to the children about what you have done. How do children perceive learning and why? That conversation is often missing in the aesthetic activities of the preschool, the research group says.
The educators and teachers who participated in the studies were interviewed at the beginning and end of the study period. Their reactions have been a little mixed, says Cecilia Wallerstedt.
– At first, many were doubtful. They found it difficult to get a grasp of what the work was about and it was difficult to formulate even for us researchers. What is it like to be able to music and dance? What to teach? Introducing a whole new perspective on the aesthetic is difficult because there are no role models, she says.
Many felt that “I’m not good at this”, “it’s not my thing”. But after a while, they got more and more courageous and in the end, many felt that the work had gotten better.
Why is it important to learn aesthetic subjects?
“Because it is an important part of our culture and because you learn to express yourself in a way that more people understand. You can connect it to speech and writing language and to images. Learning to read and reading pictures will make it easier to keep up.
Before, I would probably have answered “because it’s so much fun” but now I avoid talking about it. It’s okay not to think it’s funny either. And in the world of school, I think it’s just as important to have fun in math lessons as in music lessons.
