Our analysis of music education in
England
Music education has not been funded by the former government
PetPeter Caswell told us in the interview that the former government’s attitude
towards music has been a great part of the reason that the music education in
Britain is rather poor today. The former government was Margaret Thatcher’s and
a lot of people had something to say about what she did to the school system. We
do not feel we have enough knowledge and experience about it so we will not
comment. However we got the feeling that people were not too happy about the
changes she made. Mr. Caswell said that the former government thought that music
was not essential but desirable, a luxury. If they had this attitude that would
mean that not every child would get the opportunity to learn how to play an
instrument or have music lessons. This we feel is a shame; music is essential
for children and a great way of learning. Some children even learn better when
listening to and using music.
Another reason that the music education is poor today is that the former
government, in an attempt to keep taxes low, gave the schools less money. The
schools could not then afford to have educated music teachers. This shows today
as the schools still does not have skilled teachers who only teach music. The
music lessons the children get are from their own class teacher. The quality of
the music lessons then seems to depend on the class teacher’s own skills and
interest in music. This means that the education varies from school to school
and class to class in terms of both quality and quantity. Some teachers might
know a lot about music and teach the children many things while other teachers
have other specialties and just put on a CD and let the children listen to it,
and that is the music lesson. This is something we noticed when we attended a
music lesson with a teacher who was a graduate in music. The lesson was all
about different skills in music. But what struck us the most was how advanced
the lesson was. We think that the things they learned were too difficult for
seven- and eight- year- olds. The children were very good but you could see that
they sometimes had trouble following, especially some of the children who were
then forgotten in a way. We felt we had trouble keeping up with the things they
had to learn which were to learn pitches and scales and distinguish instruments
from classical pieces of music, in this lesson it was the Nutcracker Suite.
We could however see that things were starting to change with the music
education; it is making its way up from desirable and luxurious to essential and
useful. More music projects are being created at the schools and we hope that
music teachers will be seen as necessary.
We think that all Swedish children get a good education in music and great
opportunities to learn how to sing or how to play an instrument. But we have
faith that all British children will get the same opportunities. We got a
feeling that Britain has great music schools but that there are only a few
talented children who can go there. We want all the children to experience music!
Peripatetics are self employed musicians but not educated teachers. They have
not read about how to teach so they might not know much about pedagogic. They
are experts on music and they do not have much time to get to know the children
compared to the class teacher. They often have choirs or orchestras with a large
group of children, but sometimes they teach children alone or in pairs. They
also work in the school for a short time in the week. In Sweden there are
sometimes untrained teachers in the schools, but music is a single subject for
primary teachers at University to learn, before teaching children in school.
The class-room situation that we saw in Britain is different from Sweden. The
nursery and first school years were full with corners for subjects and the music
corner had instruments to play with. The older children had a very good chance
to learn music in a practical and theoretical way. The interviews we did show
that music education is very different from school to school depending a lot on
the teacher’s enthusiasm. In Manchester there were two schools for children who
were really talented. But we believe that children in Sweden have a great chance
to learn music if they want to, both at a cheaper price and as an important part
of how to learn other subjects. So musical children can, for example, learn
better if they listen to songs. Today in Swedish schools we integrate different
subjects to benefit the children’s way of learning.
Pre-written lesson plans for a whole year and is music compulsory?
When we visited one of the schools we had the opportunity to attend a music
lesson. The lesson was prewritten and the school had pre-written lesson plans
for the whole year. We thought that the lesson plan did not give the teacher
much freedom and space while teaching. We feel she could not “let the children
in” and come up with their own ideas. She followed the plan very strictly and
the pace was very fast. The lesson contained a lot difficult things for the
children to learn in very little time. As mentioned above they had to learn
pitches and distinguish different instruments from the Nutcracker Suite. This we
found particularly difficult even for us…
We also tried to find out what the British curriculum said about the subject
music and what the teachers were supposed to teach the children and how many
lessons they were supposed to have in a year. But what we could find out was
that in stage 4 the music as a subject is an entitlement which means that the
school has to make courses in music available for the children if they want them.
The people we interviewed said that music could be taught in teams and sometimes
it could mean that the pupils just listened to CDs and maybe sang to them. It
was up to the teacher and head teacher of the school to decide how the subject
should be taught. The teacher’s own knowledge of music and of course her/his
interest in music, decides what the children will learn. This means that the
children’s education in music will vary from class to class and school to school,
which we feel is a shame. Not every child will get an education in music that is
satisfying for them. We think that every child should get the same opportunity
in all subjects.
We could not really find out if music is compulsory, different people said
different things and we could not find any straight answer in the curriculum
either. However we got the feeling that it is compulsory but many teachers
choose to ignore the subject, or just play a CD every once in a while since it
isn’t their speciality.