Sara Stevens Zur, Ed.D. Music Education–specializing in early childhood, elementary, and world music
11 Nov 2011 4 Comments
What is “Time for Music?”
The feeling that there is never enough time in the day to do everything one wants—or needs—to do has not only increased, but also begun to manifest itself in the lives of children. Western culture seems to allot less and less time for play, fearing that an academic focus is most essential. Children’s learning, however, is not linear and may develop more effectively when given the time and space to evolve within the context of their play. The tendency to emphasize achievement, reaching goals, and competition typically yields schools that are profoundly unmusical and that give increasingly less free time to their students. Conversely, child culture is highly musical, embedded with the microrhythms of family and the pulse of local community. Child culture is filled with spontaneous play, driven by curiosity. The spontaneous musical behavior that occurs in children functions as a natural, essential, and central element of play. Bjørkvøld, who wrote The Muse Within states that “learning needs play” (p. 103). Musical play is transformative and complex, sustaining the highest levels of creativity and social and cognitive development, which take time to unfold. When we make time for music, and honor children’s need for time and space in their musical ideas and responses, we allow their learning to reach highest potentials!