Josh Heaston Prof. Gindin Research Assignment 2/17/2005 Jerome Bruner The Process of Education The Culture of Education Towards a Theory of Instruction Jerome believed in something called cognitive revolution. That is when psychologist shifted their studies from behaviorism to the processes involved with cognitive skills. He felt that intellectual ability is developed in stages through step by step changes in how the mind is used. Learning is an active process in which learners construct new idea based on their current or past knowledge. Bruner had three principles about students learning, the three are: Instruction must be connected to experiences that make the student willing to learn (readiness), Instruction must be structured so that students can easily grasp the concept of the lesson (spiral organization), and Instruction should be able to fill in the gaps that the students have (going beyond the given information). This would affect music education because the lessons would need to deal with the students cognitive skills and also deal with current or past events in their life. Jean Piaget The Child's Conception of the World
The Moral Judgment of the Child The Science of Education and the Psychology of the Child Piaget had a program of his own where he conducted naturalistic research that greatly affected the understanding of how a child develops. He called this work genetic epistemology. He named it this because he was very interested in how knowledge is developed in human organisms. Like Bruner, Piaget had principles of his own: Children provide different explanations of reality at different stages of their cognitive development, cognitive development is formed by providing activities that engage learner and also require adaptation, learning material should be appropriate for the level of mental and motor operation for the child s given age, and use teaching methods that involve and challenge your students. This would help us when our students are not recalling the information correctly and we can try to figure out a way to make adaptation(s) for those students who need clarification. Susanne Langer Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling Philosophy in a new key; a study in the symbolism of reason, rite and art Introduction to Symbolic Logic Susanne felt that language was about being symbolic. She was interested how it expresses relations among things that occur in our life. She also believed that language has a stable vocabulary and comes from animal language; the things associated with that are warnings
and warning, which are great uses of animal sounds and human speech. A form of expression, according to Langer, is language. Her philosophy would help music education because it lets us know that we all need to be individuals and should express ourselves in our own little way. Bennett Reimer A Philosophy of Music Education The Experience of Music, Developing the Experience of Music, Teaching the Experience of Music Silver Burdett Music Bennett believes that musicality is in everyone and the aesthetic experiences in music should not be just for the elite. He thinks that the educator should be thoroughly educated in the art of music so they can educate their students to the fullest on the subject of music art. Reimer s approach to music education is to include a wide range of musical literature that promotes exposure to different cultures. By doing so, this should bring a deeper understanding of you and have better relationships with people from other cultures. Like Bruner and Piaget, Reimer had some thoughts on the musical experiences people had which are his principles. There are five of them: Musical experience requires the perception of sounds as being artistically organized, musical experiences require affective responsiveness to the expressive nature of the artistically organized, musical experience includes a sensuous dimension, musical experience includes a creative dimension, and musical experience includes a social/contextual dimension. According to him, our music education is only as good as the educator is. This means that we need to get
music teachers who know what they are doing and can get the main points across to their students. David Elliott Music Matters: A New Philosophy of Music Education Praxial Music Education: Reflections and Dialogues Musical Understanding, Musical Works and Emotional Expression: Implications for Education David s view on music is on of a praxial philosophy. That means that he explains nature and values of music. He also believes that we need to look at the process along with the product. There are three points that the praxial philosophy is based on: musical works involve many kinds of meanings, musical understanding involves many closely related kinds of thinking and knowing, and that the significance of music in human life can be explained in terms of many important life values. Elliott urges music teachers to emphasize on the interpretive nature of music as performing and improvising art and then compose it. This would change music education by making it more creative. Students would be less discouraged to act out because according to David J. Elliot, they are interpreting the events that are going on in their life. I believe that aesthetic education is very important to students. This gives them the opportunity to express themselves in a way they want to, they can be themselves. Aesthetic education helps to widen the spectrum educational values that they can learn from other cultures.
They have insufficient interaction with other cultures and if this happens, could we have another Hitler? Art and music education programs are important also because they give students a hands on approach at learning, which some students need. By educating students about art and music, they could have a greater respect for it and want to learn more about it or even preserve some important events/symbols of great aesthetic education. It has also been proven that students who have art or music in their life, they tend to do better with academic issues. To make sure that the students get the right interpretation of music and art we need to make sure that the staff teaching the proper information. Before we start to teach our students we need to teach our teachers. I think that aesthetic education is very important to a student s education but I also think that we just need to restart by teaching the teachers and then moving on to the students.