Songs in their heads : music and its meaning in children's lives

The, idea behind Songs in Their Heads was percolating in my mind for a long while before I began to give it shape here on paper, spurred and stirred by my interactions with colleagues, students, and of course, children. In my ongoing observations of and discussions with education majors soon to be teachers, I had become uneasily aware of the times when we follow the recipes for teaching without considering the ingredients of our classes and individual students, when we prescribe antidotes for children's education without full knowledge of their conditions and symptoms. In music methods classes, in seminars on field observations, and throughout the student teaching experience itself, we discovered together that we may be most effective as teachers when we consider children less as blank slates for us to fill than as thoughtful minds?musical minds, already taking shape through the process of enculturation. We also learned together to view the children we teach less as some homogenized conglomerate whole than as musically inventive and expressive individuals. I thank my students for the occasions during which we developed these insights.