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Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School
2003 Music Events Among Four-Year-Old Children in Naturalistic Contexts, within Selected New Zealand Kindergartens Julie J. Jackson-Gough
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SCHOOL OF MUSIC
MUSIC EVENTS AMONG FOUR-YEAR-OLD CHILDREN
IN NATURALISTIC CONTEXTS,
WITHIN SELECTED NEW ZEALAND KINDERGARTENS.
By
JULIE J JACKSON-GOUGH
A Dissertation submitted to the School of Music In partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Degree Awarded: Summer Semester 2003 The members of the committee approve the dissertation of Julie J Jackson-Gough
Defended on July 7th 2003
______Judy Bowers Professor directing dissertation
______Charles E. Brewer External committee member
______Clifford K. Madsen Committee member
______Kevin Fenton Committee member
Approved
______Jon R. Piersol, Dean, School of Music
The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members.
ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am deeply indebted to my late husband Iain Jackson, without whose help and support this project would never have even been started. I am also very thankful for the support of my husband Michael Gough, without whose encouragement I would not be completing this study.
I acknowledge the teachers and children of the kindergartens of the three towns in the Central North Island of New Zealand who allowed me to come and put them under a microscope. Without their willingness to be examined in this way, there would have been no data.
I acknowledge colleagues and friends at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand, whose encouragement and support, including sharing my academic responsibilities, has allowed me to complete this project.
I am grateful to the many wonderful and outstanding faculty members at the Florida State University School of Music who have inspired me to explore and expand my experience and knowledge over the last 11 years.
iii TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF TABLES ...... vii
LIST OF FIGURES...... viii
ABSTRACT...... ix
Chapter I. INTRODUCTION...... 1
Research background ...... 1 Limitations of the Study...... 4 Clarification of Terms...... 5 Purpose of the Study ...... 6
II. REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Introduction...... 8
Child Development Stages Infancy...... 9 Early Childhood Physical Development...... 11 Cognitive...... 13 Social and Emotional ...... 14 Musical...... 16
Early Childhood Music Therapy...... 18
National Standards, Music: United States ...... 20
National Standards, Music: New Zealand The School Curriculum...... 25 The Early Childhood Curriculum ...... 26
Research Design...... 30
Music in Early Childhood Education Singing ...... 32 Creating...... 35
iv Early Childhood Education in New Zealand ...... 37 Teacher Training in Music for early childhood ...... 39 Profile of Current Early Childhood Music in New Zealand ...... 41
Summary…… ...... 42
III. METHODOLOGY...... 43
Pilot study ...... 43 Subjects...... 44 Procedure ...... 45 Data Collection ...... 46 Data Analysis ...... 47
IV. RESULTS
Introduction...... 49 Research Question One...... 50 Description of events ...... 53 Research Question Two ...... 54 Research Question Three ...... 55 Research Question Four...... 56 Research Question Five ...... 59 Observation Conclusions ...... 61 Summary...... 62
V. DISCUSSION
Introduction...... 64 Holistic Music Making ...... 65 Extra - musical music making...... 65 Informal, Self selected, Music Making...... 66 Pitch Modeling and Pitch Ranges ...... 68 The Achievement Approach ...... 69 Music Links to Primary School ...... 71 Implications for New Zealand Early Childhood Education...... 72
APPENDICES
A Te Whariki Introduction...... 74
v B Interview transcript ...... 82
C Kindergarten photographs...... 97
D Onsite researcher observations...... 103
E Video event qualitative descriptions...... 114
F Ethics & Informed consent forms ...... 133
G Children’s Notated Songs ...... 141
BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 143
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 153
vi LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Gallahue’s Phases of Motor Development ...... 12
Table 2: Summary of Greenspan’s six stages of ego development...... 15
Table 3: United States National voluntary content standards ...... 21
Table 4: United States Early childhood music experiences...... 23
Table 5: United States Pre-kindergarten music standards ...... 24
Table 6: Level One: New Zealand Arts Curriculum Strands and Content ...... 27
Table 7: The Principles of Te Whariki: Early Childhood Curriculum ...... 28
Table 8: Te Whariki: Strands and Goals...... 29
Table 9: Anticipated music events at a kindergarten ...... 44
Table 10: Quantitative data categories of analysis...... 47
Table 11: Quantitative data categories of analysis...... 50
Table 12: Frequency of Discrete Musical Events ...... 51
Table 13: Checklist of music and extra music events at each site ...... 52
Table 14. Checklist of Timbre Events ...... 55
Table 15: Highest pitch data during informal play activities inside ...... 57
Table 16: Highest pitch data during informal play activities outside ...... 57
Table 17: Teacher vocal range in formal singing & children’s response in matching pitch………………………………...58
Table 18: Teacher vocal modeling and children’s use of head voice ...... 60
vii LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: The reading alcove to the right of the main entrance door...... 97
Figure 2: The display of Learning stories, and children’s computer...... 97
Figure 3: The collage materials rack...... 97
Figure 4: Notice-board for parents...... 98
Figure 5 Children find their name...... 98
Figure 6: Parents’ lending library ...... 98
Figure 7: Children’s collage work and prints...... 99
Figure 8: Resource cupboard with math games and clothes...... 99
Figure 9: The science corner & fish tank...... 100
Figure 10: Dolls house...... 100
Figure 11: Kitchen corner ...... 100
Figure 12: Family corner...... 101
Figure 13: Book corner ...... 101
Figure 14: Music corner...... 101
Figure 15: The new grassed area...... 102
Figure 16: Shaded swing area ...... 102
Figure 17: The bench where puzzles and group activities happen...... 102
Figure 18: Water play tub, general purpose tables, and the sandpit...... 102
Figure 19: Covered verandah area ...... 102
viii ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to examine the current practices and ability of preschool children of New Zealand in musical events. Data was obtained on static, unmanned video cameras set up inside and outside the kindergarten building, along with observational notes by the researcher during the data collection. Video was analyzed for quantitative events under the areas of: sung speech, pitched phonation without words, sung chants, use of upper register (head voice), rhythmic speech, timbre play, and measure of highest note phonated during any minute of observation. As a result of the quantitative video analysis it became apparent that there were episodes of rich qualitative data that had been captured, and these were selected and described, taking one event from each kindergarten. Subjects were children enrolled and attending the eight kindergartens (n=331). They were all aged four years, from 4 years 3 months to one day before a fifth birthday. There was no data obtained about gender or ethnicity, but it is of note that 60% of four year old children in this area attended kindergarten, and three complete communities were included in the sample. Results include the discovery that, in these holistic settings, much music exploration was occurring. Much of the music making in the kindergartens was extra musical. Informal self-selected music making predominated and creative opportunities abounded. Pitch ranges exhibited by children did not reflect recommended ranges for pitch matching in the literature: their self selected singing range was more extensive, and consistently higher than the literature suggests. The role of teacher modeling, in use of singing and speaking voice, appeared to affect pitch choices and the accuracy of pitch matching of the children.
ix CHAPTER I
Introduction That children are inherently musical is far from a new concept (Wilson 1981). Rousseau wrote of it in his treatise Emile, in 1762, espousing a concept revolutionary when considered against the principles of child rearing of his day, where children were treated as miniature adults and expected to stay in line. One of the earliest educational reformers who echoed Rousseau’s theories was Johann Heinrich Petalozzi, who himself had great influence on Lowell Mason, the father of American Music Education. Wilson writes further “ A central tenet of Pestalozzianism was that education should develop innate qualities of students to think for themselves; thus teachers were to guide students in the careful observation of natural phenomena. In music instruction, according to Pestalozzianism, the student was always to experience sound before symbol”(p14). Blacking (1977) observed the children of the Venda people of South Africa and their musicality, and developed his position on the musicality of all children. He came to the conclusion that the natural encouragement of a child’s musical play led to consistent development of musical skills and awareness. Campbell and Scott-Kassner (1995) wrote that to a varying degree children all possess the capacity to become more musical: they naturally dance, play, sing and express themselves musically without any prior training or teaching. The educator’s responsibility is to meet them where they are, creating and helping them to grow. Research Background Children are born with established auditory facility and experiment with vocalization as some of the first experiences of life. Sound, sound manipulation and sound sensitivity are central to development of language and communication from birth. Stanley (1998) has demonstrated that pre- birth auditory skills are already functional. She writes:
1 Recent research reveals that the newborn infant is not a ‘blank slate’ waiting to be filled as previously thought, but is an avid and experienced learner equipped with the beginning discriminations and memory of language, emotional response, and awareness of cause/effect relationships (p.1). Thus it is well established that normal development for a new born child is to be sensitized to sound, sound discrimination, timbre and pitch, all being the qualities of language and language acquisition (Stasos 1997). Pre-language communication for a child is dependant on a parent or caregiver being able to decipher the sounds a child makes, from quality of crying to gurgles and coos. Normal adult response to a pre- language child is to be highly responsive to the vocalizations with their own verbal responses (Feierband 1992). Hall (1998) pointed out the importance of appropriate multi- sensory stimulus during the period of synapse development in the infant. So what happens in the next five years of development, that the normal expectation of the beginning school child is to be musically virtually illiterate and musically ignorant, despite having, at birth exhibited natural fluency with sound and manipulation of sound? Is it the problem of confusing competence with the vocabulary to describe the competence, or to fulfill tasks that are adult set that either confirm competence or otherwise? Virtually all children have the ability to sing in tune, although vocal quality will be different as each voice is unique, has its own timbre, and is naturally produced based on the vocal modeling during formative years (Wright 1991). Many researchers have noted strong connection with musical development and the home musical environment (Wright 1991). Wright cites Buckton (1983) who found that Polynesian children sing more accurately than children of European descent when they have been brought up in their cultural context that involves much singing. The same is true of Maaori children, but the difference disappears for Maaori children brought up in an urban setting away from regular involvement with cultural surrounds and experiences. Wright (1991) lists child initiated musical experiences as : individual songs or dances, (e.g. while engaged in other activities), group chants arising spontaneously,
2 exploration of instruments, improvised sound-making with unconventional materials during play, use of props for dramatic ideas, and sing and dancing during dramatic plays.
The New Zealand Scene In the New Zealand education system there is a definite gap in the expectation and practice of music in the kindergarten setting and the early elementary setting. There is much emphasis on pre-reading, pre-math and pre-science skills with accuracy, in preparation for school. However there is not a requisite understanding of the creative aspects of the arts, music in particular, and the inherent musicality of the child. Rather it is the scientific accuracy model that is applied all too often: keeping in time, getting it ‘right’. The literature supports the view that creativity is inhibited by teaching always leading to competency (Pond 1981, Campbell 1998). This by inference means that when the children make music, it can be got ‘wrong’ and become an inhibiting factor in children’s exploration and experimentation with sounds: their voice and sound producing objects, as well as musical instruments. There are different individual places where creativity and open play with music is being encouraged in the elementary school. Marimbas are being bought by many schools in New Zealand, since three children can play at once on the 4 octave marimbas that are being made locally. Some schools that have the facility for doing so are placing marimbas outside on a covered deck in the mornings, so that children can arrive early for school and play on them and play together. New Zealand children have a whole school simultaneous hour break for lunch. Children are required to sit for 20 minutes in most places to ensure that they do eat their lunch, but the remaining time is for free play, and this time is also used for sports practice and club meetings, and now marimba is part of that. It would be interesting to visit these schools after this practise has been going on for some time and test the musical knowledge and experience of these children. There is much international research on the use of music education in the early childhood setting, reflecting a planned use of music in preschool education for nearly 400 years. (Scott-Kasner 1992). However most of the research has been conducted on children
3 in the younger school years, rather than in any formal pre-school setting. These studies have focused on adult guided tasks, in which the children are required to respond to manufactured events (Moog 1976). An alternative model was the Pillsbury Project, where adults stepped back, and allowed children to direct the music making (Pond, 1981). A composer by profession, Pond writes of his intentions when being involved in the setting up of this music preschool as its musical director: I had no intention of trying to assess statistically in any way the comparative musicality of the children whose activities I was to observe… I had no intention of trying to compare and weigh individual achievements…I had no intention of trying to measure any child’s progress… I had no intention of trying to determine how soon and by the exercise of what methodology the children might be brought into the mainstream of traditional musicianship…I had no intention of teaching the children anything about music, except those things that their ongoing experience called for…I had no intention of inventing and administering any tests… to measure the comprehension of (music understanding).(p.1) Shelley (1981) supports the philosophy that was the basis of the Pillsbury school and encourages further research into children’s musicality. She suggests that, since a researcher attempting to study children’s natural musicality would be dealing with non manipulative variables and could not predict spontaneous occurrences, the use of direct observation would be an essential factor for research design in such a setting. The focus of such research studies yields valuable data when it is focused on identifying the music capabilities of the young child, inquiring into what already exists in the realm of the child’s spontaneous expression.
Limitations of the Study This study is an analysis of the data collected at eight kindergarten sites during a single visit to each site. It is not a comprehensive record of all music and extra-music events at each site, since the video cameras were not able to pick up all activity, nor was the researcher able to observe all musical events. However it is a record of a high
4 proportion of the music activity that occurred at each site, because the video cameras were set at optimal angles and the researcher was able to follow aural cues when music events were happening. Because the same conditions occurred at each site the comparison between the sites uses data similarly collected.
Clarification of Terms It is important at the outset of this study to clarify terms which have different meaning in the education systems of different countries.
Kindergarten. This research has been conducted in New Zealand, where the use of the word Kindergarten is used to describe a government funded universal pre-school education available to all children prior to attending primary/elementary school, which they commence on the date of their fifth birthday, whatever time of year this occurs. Kindergartens operate early childhood education for children from three to five years of age. In general, three year old children attend afternoon sessions for 2 ½ hours for three afternoons a week, while the four-year-old children attend five mornings a week. The kindergarten session normally runs for three hours in the mornings and two and a half hours in the afternoons. Mobile kindergartens are also available in some rural areas. Teachers in kindergartens, including the mobile kindergarten service, are trained and hold the Diploma of Teaching and must be registered teachers. Parent participation is encouraged in the kindergarten program. The kindergarten movement was the first early childhood service to be recognized by the New Zealand government in the 1890s. Each kindergarten has its own parent committee but management responsibility lies with regional kindergarten associations. This research was carried out in the Central North Island Kindergarten association. Over 95% of children begin school on their fifth birthday, although school is not compulsory until the age of six. School entry is flexible throughout the year, with children enrolled at any time after they turn five years of age. At the 1997 census (the latest census preceding the collection of data) 55% of 4 yr old children attended a public
5 kindergarten. The balance of the other 4 yr old children attended Childcare Centers (29%), Playcentres (7%) and Kohanga Reo (6%).(1997). The remaining children had home-based care (2.3%), or received kindergarten material via correspondence school (0.8%)(1997)
Mat time. Mat time is the formal whole class time in a kindergarten session. It will last for less than 10% of the time of the session, the other 90% will be spent in free play or self selected small group activity which is either teacher initiated or child initiated. Refer to the interview transcript (Appendix B) for a full description of how a representative New Zealand kindergarten session will take place.
Maaori. The indigenous people of New Zealand are Maaori. Traditional spelling of this term has been ‘Maori’, but the first vowel sound is long, which can also be indicated by the use of a macron. The more accurate spelling is the double ‘aa’.
Poi. A poi (in Maaori the plural is nga poi, but is acceptable in English usage as pois) is a traditional Maaori dance apparatus which also can be used in body percussion. It is a soft ball, about the size of a tennis ball, on the end of a thick cord about the length of a forearm, and is traditionally made of flax (harakeke). In the kindergartens there are sets of pois, made from plastic covering on soft filling.
Purpose of the Study This study describes current musically activities for four-year-old New Zealand children, in their play and in the teacher initiated activities occurring in the kindergarten preschool setting. It endeavored to find out what is current practice in the kindergartens, and to compare this with the requirements of Te Whariki, the nationally mandated curriculum document, and known theory of children’s musicality. The following research questions were asked: 1. What activities are taking place when music making is occurring?
6 2. Are there opportunities for informal music making? 3. What timbre exploration is evident in formal and informal settings? 4. What pitch range is exhibited in formal and informal settings? 5. What effect does the teacher’s vocal modeling have on the children’s singing? There is much written about pre-school children’s musical experience, but not in the New Zealand context. This project will contribute indigenous data to the existing body of knowledge.
7 CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE Introduction
Children are inherently musical. They are born with fully developed auditory function, which has been demonstrated by Muir (1985) who showed that young infants responded differently to music played to them while still in-utero than they did to music previously unheard, in later listening recall exercises. With new methods of measuring response, it is possible to measure and analyze even the youngest infant’s reactions to music. Standley (1998) has ground breaking research that has highly significant implications for the quality of life and health of premature and newborn babies. Her work has resulted in data that confirms the positive efficacy of music on these tiny lives, including increased growth rate, improved oxygenation, and shorter hospital stays. She cites evidence of reception and discrimination of auditory stimuli on the fetus early in development, with fetal response to loud stimuli at 18 weeks gestation, movement response at 25 - 27 weeks gestation, and fully developed hearing at 29 weeks gestation, all of which point to the sensitivity of the pre-born and newborn child to sound in all of its parameters. This concept of the musicality of the newborn child is not new. Moog (1976) quotes earlier studies that noted the pre-birth responses of a baby to sound, and research that confirmed the accepted knowledge that a gentle tonal lullaby has a soothing effect on a baby, with a rhythm similar to the swaying of a cradle. Standley also notes this affinity the newborn has to the voice using ‘parentese’ (speech with songlike qualities) and the calming effect on the premature baby. Perry (1993), writing in the Handbook of Research on the Education of Young Children, makes strong statements about the inherent, and essential, nature of music in the lives of newborn and young children. He asserts that the elements of music reflect the organization of the child’s human central nervous system, and that music reproduces many of the behaviors and experiences necessary for human social and emotional
8 interaction. Children’s natural physical response to music is a further indicator of the centrality of music to the human psyche. Consequently, in including music naturally as part of a child’s world, the educator is assuming, and building, those links between the efficacy of music and the child’s neurological functioning and normal social communication. He cites Mead who stated that music is a “fundamental human need that bridges cultural diversity.” (Mead 1972 p. 208) Moog (1976a) further states the essential nature of music in the life of a child when he reflects on the musical behaviors noted in his research. He finds that the pleasure infants demonstrate when music is played indicates an emotional response, in addition to a kinesthetic response. Their affective response has been shown to be independent of basic functional needs of discomfort of wet diapers, or need for food or rest. It is related to something which brings pleasure simply from the perceived sound.
Child Development Stages Infancy The physical development of the new born child is rapid. The child’s body grows at a faster rate in the first two years than at any other time in their life, accompanied by quickly increasing physical dexterity. By the age of two, children can walk, run, jump in place, pick up small objects with their fingers, and build towers with blocks (Thompson 2003). The brain development is also exponential during this first two years and it is here that the synapses of brain function are being secured and the neural pathways being laid down (Stasos 1997). The senses develop as children are exposed to normal stimulation, which facilitates the brain development; the visual pathways are laid down as the child receives normal visual stimulation. (Thompson 2003). The cognitive development infants experience establish the pathways for future learning. After a few months infants show special interest in objects that look or feel different from familiar ones. Early in the first year they acquire object permanence, the
9 concept that objects and people continue to exist when they cannot be seen (Thompson 2003). By eight or nine months their memory abilities have improved, they can imitate behavior witnessed a day earlier, and by the time they are one year old can recognize the difference between an animal and a bird. They are fascinated with making things happen, i.e. learning about cause and effect and thus discovering the consequence of actions. Around one year old is the time that most babies start using comprehensible language. The preceding few months they are using speech sounds, babbling with the sounds of the language they are acquiring. Vocabulary growth at first is slow, but by 18 months of age it beings to grow exponentially. By the age of two simple sentence structure is normal e.g. ‘more juice’. (Thompson 2003) The infant’s social and emotional development establishes their growing personality and ego. Young children vary in their temperamental qualities. Inborn characteristics like mood, adaptability, activity level, alertness and responsiveness levels affect their response to situations, and tolerance of stress. Social relationships are the basis for managing and developing the emotional and temperamental individuality. Young infants exhibit a variety of emotions, including joy, distress, surprise, interest and sadness. By the end of their first year children have developed emotional attachments to their parents and other regular caregivers. Musical development of the infant has been researched and shows a continuum with the pre-birth skills babies evidence. Young infants are already sensitive to, and responsive to sounds (Muir 1975). They show fascination with sound making toys and objects, and show recognition for familiar music. Young children prefer consonance over dissonance, illustrating this by giving attention to the consonant sounds while looking away more quickly when hearing the dissonant sounds (Trainor and Heinmiller, 1998). Decaspar and Fife (1980) found that infants can recognize their mother’s voice. Kolata (1984) wrote that infants can recognize stories and songs heard in the last trimester of development, and Standley and Madsen (1990) reported that, within the first month of life, infants can associate sound and stimulus in ways that evidence discriminatory ability. Hodges (1994) asserted that the neonate infant cannot discover the outside world, but can
10 respond to sound. Nash (1997) wrote of babies ears, so tuned into sound that their hearts beat faster when their parents make eye contact and talk in a melodious voice. Shetler (1985) made some interesting discoveries with a longitudinal study, of babies who did or did not receive systematic musical stimuli before birth. He then interacted with the children every two month until they were six years old. He found that the infants who received systematic prenatal music stimuli imitated sounds accurately, and appeared to structure vocalization much earlier than those who did not have prenatal music stimulation. Wilkin’s (1993) study also examined pre and post natal music responses, and found that babies at 38 weeks gestation had memory for music heard via headphone on the mothers stomach. The four tracks were; white noise, a Beethoven piano sonata, a Palestrina Kyrie, and a rock instrumental from Emerson, Lake and Palmer. The babies showed positive response to the Beethoven and Palestrina, via heart rate deceleration and active response, and discomfort to the rock music, with easing of discomfort during the piano solo section of the rock music track
Early Childhood Physical development. As the body grows, the strength and coordination skills increase so that a child of four can reasonably be expected to throw a ball, ride a tricycle, and draw with a crayon. (Thompson 2003). Young children have the potential for mature skill development in most fundamental movement skills (Gallahue 1993). Approaching their second birthday, the struggle with forces of gravity have been mastered, they are able to move about freely, and they are involved in developing a wide variety of stability, locomotor and manipulative movements. Gallahue cites his own summary from a previous publication, of the phases of motor development for children. (see Table 1.) Gallahue further states that the development of mature fundamental movement skills is basic to the motor development and movement education of young children. A wide variety of movement experiences provide them with a wealth of information on which to base their perceptions of themselves and the world around them.
11 Table 1: Gallahue’s Phases of Motor Development. (Gallahue 1993)
Approximate age periods The stages of motor of development development 14 year old and up Specialized Lifelong utilization stage 11 to 13 years old Movement Phase Application stage 7 to 10 years old Transition stage 6 to 7 years old Fundamental Mature stage 4 to 5 years old Movement Phase Elementary stage 2 to 3 years old Initial stage 1 to 2 years old Rudimentary Pre-control stage Birth to 1 year old Movement Phase Reflex inhibition stage 4 months to 1 year old Reflexive Information decoding stage In utero to 4 months old Movement Phase Information encoding stage
Two year old children respond actively to rhythmic music (Wright 1991). She notes that young children’s body rhythms are often faster than the comfortable body rhythms of an adult, one factor being that their legs are shorter and they take faster steps. They tend to keep to one movement during a song, such as bobbing up and down. Three year old children’s motor skills have developed further and they enjoy moving through space for sheer pleasure. It is at this age that their movements show greater synchronization with music for short periods of time. Four-year-old children are ready to learn movement patterns, like actions to simple songs and simple dances. Because they are beginning to more clearly identify and express the beat in music, this enhances their movement responses. Careful listening of the young child is central to their ability to respond through movement to music (Campbell and Scott-Kassner 1995), and it is through movement that their understanding of rhythmic patterns and durations, of melodic rise and fall, of
12 phrasing and tempo can be demonstrated. The following of the musical pulse is one of the milestones in musical development. Moog (1976b) observed that, from the age of four to six, there is considerable progress in keeping time with music through movement, both for a short stretch of time, but also sustained for longer periods of time. He noted that the number of subjects that could keep time consistently doubled between the ages of four and six. Cognitive development. Young children are fascinated with what goes on in people’s minds. At age two they are aware that intentions guide people’s actions. At age three they can appreciate that beliefs and desires are unique to the individual and by age five they realize that thoughts may not reflect reality; people can be fooled. (Thompson 2003) Siefert (1993) notes four areas of information processing that can be considered when investigating the thinking processes of young children: the nature of short term memory, the development and effectiveness of thinking strategies, the origins and nature of long term memory, and the nature of basic mental architecture for processing information. However he further states that assessing cognition in young children is like the old story of the blind man describing the elephant. Although cognitive theorists are not blind, they do examine different parts of children’s thinking, highlight different cognitive processes and structures, and present different metaphors for cognition. The multiple meanings that result are not always consistent. But they are desirable for early (childhood) educators, provided that they stimulate broader, more flexible practices in teaching young
children.” (p.9)
Moog (1976) states that one of the most important characteristics of thought for a child aged four to five is the continuing need for thinking to be attached to an actual object or sense impression. Logical thought becomes more adept, as does the ability to analyze the environment, while at the same time the fantasy life exists side by side with this world of objective reality. The egocentric babyhood has been left behind,
13 and the child shows concern for other people, lived out in the fairy tales, but worked out in the social world of the child. Katz (1997), in developing her summary of research as foundation for an early childhood curriculum, notes that the normative dimension (what children can do) needs to always be balanced with the dynamic dimension (what children should be doing). She clarifies this by noting that the teaching of math and reading skills to young children, who may be ready for the skill but not the concepts, may lead them to be less inclined to be natural readers and users of numeracy later in schooling. She refers to the grade 2 ‘washout’ phenomenon. Social and Emotional Development. The three year old who insists on ‘doing it myself’ is revealing a developing self awareness. In the early childhood educational context, children correct themselves as they are drawing, tying shoelaces, and performing other skills, demonstrating their growing capacity for self monitoring and their motivation to be competent. As they develop their sense of self and learn to negotiate, resist and assert their own preferences, conflict arise with caregivers (the terrible twos). Simultaneously, caregivers set limits and expect compliance. Resolution of conflict can be valuable source material for social and emotional understanding for young children (Thompson 2003). Young children are more attuned to their internal state than to external reality, because they do not have the abstract principles that allow adults to interpret and structure their world (Wright 1991). Instead, they are extremely attuned to sensory and perceptual qualities of understanding. Consequently, the way in which young children respond to their surroundings often does not make sense in an adult’s mind. In the first five years of life critical ideas and perceptions of life as part of relationship are learned. In such relationships basic emotional stages are mastered, and these become the first cognitive lessons, as stated by Wieder and Greenspan (1993). They assert that healthy relationships throughout childhood are critical for emotional development, which in turn creates the basis for learning in several important areas.
14 Table 2: Summary of Greenspan’s six stages of ego development. (Greenspan 1998)
Homeostasis: During this stage ego organization, differentiation and Self regulation and integration are characterized by a lack of differentiation interest in the world between the physical world, self, and object worlds. Ego functions include global reactivity, sensory affective processing, and regulation. Attachment During this stage the functioning of the ego is characterized by (2 - 7 months) intentional object seeking, differentiations of the physical world and the human world, and global patterns of reactivity to the human world, through pleasure, protest, withdrawal and diffuse discharge of affects. Somatopsychological During this stage the differential use of the senses is most Differentiation: evident. The infant seems capable of almost the full range of Puposeful emotions, but needs the reciprocal signaling from parent to Communication learn the emotions are different. The ego is now able to (3 - 10 months) differentiate aspects of emotional experience but not in a representational form. Behavioral At this stage the infant is able to sequence together many cause organization, and effect units into a chain or an organized behavioral pattern. initiative and This is not so for emotions as yet, so when angry they lose sight internalization: a of the fact that this is the same person they love. During this complex sense of self stage ego structure formation is undergoing rapid progress, and (9 - 18 months) deficits of experience as well as conflicts between behavioral affective tendencies may undermine structure formation. Representational The capacity of the ego organization to now represent capacity experience in pretend play and words, and therefore go beyond (18 - 30 months) behavioral discharge, helps the toddler diminish anger and aggression without a sense of inhibition in order to still feel satisfied and gratified. Representational Representational elaboration and differentiation creates the Differentiation basis for internal life to be symbolized and categorized along (24 - 48 months) dimensions of self and non-self, affective meanings, time and space. The categorization of experience in turn becomes the basis for basic ego functions, new relationship patterns, more differentiated and internalized conflicts, higher level defenses and psycho-social advances.
15 These include the ability to communicate and use language, problem solving, and the development of self esteem. Since they consider these statements to have been well proven they state that parents, teachers and other care givers play a major role in a child’s healthy emotional development and therefore in his ability to learn. Greenspan’s developmental-structuralist theory proposes an integration of development and individual differences in a model which focuses on emotional experience. The theory observes six general emotional stages of early development, and they are summarized in Table 2 (1993, pages 78 -80):
Musical Development. Gardner (1992) records the prominence of song imitation qualities found in the speech of children in the first year of life, and an ability to match pitch with some degree of accuracy. In their second and third years he sees their vocal development as playing with pitch, which Gordon (1989) labels as musical babble, then moving into spontaneous song, also explored by Campbell (1991). Davidson (1984) described this playing with pitch as the beginnings of ‘contours schemes’ leading later to ‘outline songs’. Dowling (1984) described melodic contour as ‘gross features’ which developmentally led to the more precise pitches of tonality. Pond (1992)wrote of children’s natural musicality from his experience leading the Pillsbury Foundation School, a school set up for the express purpose of studying the spontaneous music and musicality of young children. Between 15 and 23 three to six year old children were enrolled in the school (1937 - 1944), with no preference given to musically gifted children. Through active involvement daily with the children, Pond concluded that children’s songs are either chants, using what Bernstein (1973) called the universal intervals, and songs, described elsewhere as spontaneous songs. More than just codifying, he found the children to be naturally highly creative. He wrote: (1981) I heard melodies that no music teacher I had ever met could refrain from ‘correcting’ to make them conform to her exiguous understanding of the nature of melody. I heard rhythm patterns and polyrhythmic inventions that no
16 conventionally trained teacher ever could teach a child to count - and if he could not count, what was it? Zimmerman (1968) viewed musical intelligence as an organized structure of musical concepts based on perception. The individual perceptions of the infant’s musical experience lead to recognizing the relational processes between perceptions and a growing comprehension of musical concepts. Gordon (1997) reported on audiation, the skill of hearing music internally that is not physically audible, and stated that it is a necessary skill in the musical development of young children. Moorehead and Pond (1978) summarized the findings of the Pillsbury Foundation School with four insights. For young children: music is primarily the discovery of sound, children’s time with music should include their deliberate and active involvement, planned music time should consider social and environmental factors, and spontaneous music making should be carefully observed. McDonald (1992) stated that the curriculum for early childhood music should be built around learning to sing, to move, to hear, and learning how to learn about music. Shelly (1981) duplicated the Pillsbury model and reached similar conclusions, finding that the sequence of skill acquisition matched, with concepts developed in the following order: volume, timbre, tempo, duration, pitch and harmony. Kesson (1979) described infants imitating pitch at age 40 days. Zimmerman (1982) suggested two ways of approaching music with children: using ‘building blocks” of the concepts and fitting the parts to the whole, or viewing the aesthetic whole before examining the parts. Peery (1986), Hargreaves (1984), and Bradley (1971) found that familiarity of music listened to, helps to establish preference in the young child. Montessori (1964), asserted that children learn from both people and a prepared environment, and designed specific musical activities and equipment to implement this theory, such instruments and activities would be found in every Montessori center around the world. Carbo-Cone (1971) followed similar principles in her classroom design, also along the lines of the Pillsbury project, where the equipment and the children‘s freedom of space allowed them the room and the freedom to experiment and play as they wished. She discovered that their natural creativity led them
17 to unique discoveries and compositions. Musical aptitude and ability appear to follow progressive development until age 8 or 9 when, according to Gordon (1984), the development stabilizes, and according to Petzold (1966) it plateaus. Feierabend, Saunders, Holahan and Getnick (1998) tested audiation skills in preschoolers and found that text made songs easier to recognize, when heard with or without the text, and that distinctly different melodies were easier to identify than similar melodies. That rhythmic behavior of infants is innate has been stated by Hodges, observing rocking and patting in response to music and in individual play(1996). Wolff (1967) ascribes early rhythmic behavior to the control of “…endogenous micro rhythms, which are the forerunners of the internal time bases that regulate motor co-ordination in older children and adults.” Moog (1976b) made detailed study of the musicality of young children and noted that “from the age of about two, children … begin to show a kind of behavioral response which is most unexpected in lively youngsters; it is motionless concentrated, attentive listening to music, extending over several minutes.” (p. 41) He also discovered natural singing ability, and noted that 80% of the children at age 3 could imitate pitch and words and rhythm, prior stages of singing having been words and rhythm, preceded by words only. Trainor (1998) found that infants to the age of six months exhibited similar reactions to consonance and dissonance as adults, showing sensitivity to harmonic sounds at a remarkably young age.
Early Childhood Music Therapy
There are strong links between the holistic nature of early childhood education and the extra musical functions of music therapy. Humpal (2001) has stated that music therapy can provide a variety of extra music experiences in an intentional and developmentally appropriate manner to effect changes in a young child’s behavior. The
18 aim of such activities is to facilitate such things as development of a child’s verbal, social/emotional, sensori-motor, and/or cognitive skills. Because music therapy is a non- threatening medium, with no musical outcomes, and so open to any achievement, unique outcomes are possible. Young children may be captured by the music, and be led to achieve or attempt things they might otherwise reject due to inhibition, fear, or pain . The tenets of music therapy, although extra musical in function, nevertheless serve as a perfect fit alongside the guidelines of the MENC School Music Program for early childhood education. The open ended nature of the music therapy session is what is appropriate for creative music making within the mainstream early childhood center. Wright (1991) agrees, commenting on mainstream education. For appropriate early childhood classroom music experiences, she believes that music should be viewed less as a subject to be taught and more as an experience to offer to children. In addition, if the teacher enjoys the music activities and actively participates in them, whether expert or not, children are likely to respond heartily and creatively. Music therapy with young children is focused on building relationships; with the music, with the therapist, with other children and with the child’s family. It is the working out of these relationships through the elements of music that set the occasion for successful growth (Humpal, 2001). The focus and content of a music therapy session are illustrated by the following example. Music therapist Mary Ellen Wylie described her work with young girls with Rhett’s Syndrome1. She met with each girl individually for 30 minutes a week to promote purposeful hand use and began the music therapy sessions by singing a song about clapping hands and tapping knees. A mix of familiar and new songs followed; each song had been composed or selected to be paired with a specific instrument…that would require hand usage. The songs were repeated
1 A progressive neurological disorder affecting only girls. After a seemingly normal infancy, girls with Rhett’s Syndrome deteriorate in cognitive function, social, speech and motor function. Clenching and wringing of hands is very common. Music therapy is mentioned as a therapy of choice for this condition (Hadsell and Colemann1988).
19 several time per session, and each girl was able to expand the length of time she was able to play purposefully. (p.12) Davis (2001) notes that music therapy is not curriculum driven, rather it is tailor made to fit the strengths and needs of the client, in this case the early childhood education child. Davis worked in a mainstream early education program with special needs children attending. She designed and implemented her own program over a twelve year period. A music session would typically include singing and chanting, playing instruments, moving, composing or creating, and listening. During each class music session the children are involved in individual decision making, in what instrument to play and which child to chooses as a partner. Every session also will include a gross motor activity, particularly important with the younger children. One of the places where music therapy is practiced is in the children’s hospital, and it is here that efficacy of music reaching the child of any age can be evidenced. Robb (2001) writes about the verbal and language cognition skills of young children and the fact that this can lead to misconceptions about the hospital and the treatment they are going to receive. Because the child’s perception is characteristically egocentric, and they have limited ability in abstract thought, the music therapist will design activities that build on imagination and play as the vehicles for relieving stress, and gaining some comprehension of what is happening to them.
National Standards: United States
In 1994 the first national, voluntary standards for K - 12 education in The Arts was published. This was a result of national consultation and consensus between organizations and individuals representing all sectors of the Arts: educators, parents, artists, professional education and arts associations, educational institutions, philanthropic organizations and leaders from government, labor and business. The development period
20 was 24 months and was guided by the Consortium of National Arts Education Associations. The arts are defined to include dance, music, theatre and visual art. This was part of a larger effort to develop national standards for k-12 education in other curriculum areas: history, science, language arts, geography, civics and government, along with other disciplines. The publication of The School Music Program: A New Vision (MENC 1994) is the discipline specific document for music education, which supercedes the 1986 document: The School Music Program: Descriptions and Standards. The purpose of this document is threefold: (1) to create a coherent vision of what it means to be educated in music; (2) to provide a foundation for building a balanced, comprehensive and sequential curriculum in music, and; (3) to provide specific assistance in improving the music curriculum. For the k-12 levels there are nine national voluntary content standards, and these are set out in three broad grade bands: k - 4, 5 - 8, and 9 - 12. They are set out in Table 3.
Table 3: United States National voluntary content standards.
Skill Descriptor Singing Alone and with others using a variety of repertoire Performing On instruments, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music Improvising Melodies, variations and accompaniments Composing & Music within specific guidelines Arranging Reading & Music Notating Listening To music, live and recorded, analyzing and describing it. Evaluating Music and music performances Understanding Relationships between music, the other arts, and the disciplines outside the arts Understanding Music in relation to history and culture
21 For pre-kindergarten education, there are four content standards, accompanied by a set of achievement standards. The content standards are: (1) singing and playing music; (2) creating music; (3) responding to music, and; (4) understanding music. The procedure for formulating these early childhood standards was not part of the process for the development of the National Standards for Art Education, but the writers of this document recognized the importance of pre-kindergarten music education, and it’s part in preparedness for school. A set of statements, first published in 1992 as MENC Position Statement on Early Childhood Education, constitute the underlying beliefs for this set of standards: 1. All children have musical potential 2. Children bring their own unique interests and abilities to the music learning environment 3. Very young children are capable of developing critical thinking skills though musical ideas 4. Children come to early childhood music experiences from diverse backgrounds 5. Children should experience exemplary musical sounds, activities, and materials 6. Children should not be encumbered with the need to meet performance goals 7. Children’s play is their best work 8. Diverse learning environments are needed to serve the developmental needs of many individual children 9. Children need effective adult models. Activities that should be included for infants and toddlers in early childhood education are set out in table 4.
22 Table 4: United States Early childhood music experiences.
Experience Descriptor Singing and chanting .. to, and with the child, using songs and rhymes representing a variety of meters and tonalities Imitating ..the sounds that infants make. Exposing ..the child to a wide variety of vocal, body instrumental and environmental sounds Providing exposure ..to recorded and live music Rocking, patting, ..with the children, to the beat, rhythm patterns and melodic touching and moving direction of music they hear. Providing safe toys ..that make musical sounds that the children can control Talk ..about music and its relationship to expression and feeling
Music for two, three and four-year-old children should be in an environment that includes a variety of sound sources, selected music and opportunities for free improvised singing and the building of a repertoire of songs. It calls for an exploratory approach, using a wide variety of appropriate materials such as music instruments and found sounds, and provides a rich base form which conceptual understanding can grow. The Pre-kindergarten standards, and their accompanying achievement standards are found in Table 5. The document emphasizes that performance is inappropriate at this age, as being counter productive to the exploratory play basis of learning. Children in such a program are expected to initiate both independent and collaborative play with musical materials, and demonstrate curiosity about music.
23 Table 5: United States Pre-kindergarten music standards.
Content Standard: Achievement Standard Singing and Playing Children will: use their voices expressively as they speak, chant and sing, Instruments sing a variety of simple songs in various keys, meters and genres, alone and with a group, becoming increasingly accurate in rhythm and pitch, experiment with a variety of instruments and other sounds, and play simple melodies and accompaniments on instruments. Creating music Children will: improvise songs to accompany their play activities, improvise instrumental accompaniments to songs, recorded selections, stories and poems create short pieces of music, using voices, instruments and other sound sources, and invent and use original graphic or symbolic systems to represent vocal and instrumental sounds and musical ideas. Responding to music Children will: identify the source of a wide variety of sounds, respond through movement to music of various tempos, meters, dynamics, modes, genres and styles, to express what they hear and feel in works of music, and participate freely in music activities. Understanding Music Children will: use their own vocabulary and standard music vocabulary to describe voices, instruments, music notation, and music of various genres, styles and periods from diverse cultures, sing, play instruments, move, or verbalize to demonstrate awareness of the elements of music and changes in their usage, and demonstrate an awareness of music as a part of daily life.
There is some commonality between the national standards in the United States and the newly implemented Arts curriculum in New Zealand. To better understand the New Zealand education system, a brief synopsis follows. Unlike the United States, there is a nationally mandated curriculum, issued by the Ministry of Education, which applies to every educational institution in the country that receives government funding. There is
24 no voluntary aspect to this, and the implementation is monitored by the Education Review authority who conduct regular assessments across all educational levels.
National Standards: New Zealand
The school curriculum Education in New Zealand has been going through reform since 1989 and the introduction of ‘Tomorrow’s Schools’ a government initiative giving more autonomy to schools via bulk funding and self government. It led to the formation of a board of trustees for every elementary middle and high school, who have governance and responsibility for all the aspects of the school, from appointment of staff, and care of plant, to the philosophical direction of the school. Every curriculum has also being rewritten under a new curriculum framework, which has seven subjects: Language and Languages, Mathematics, Science, Social Sciences, Technology, Health and Physical Well-being, and The Arts. The Arts curriculum was the last document to be rewritten and was released as a trial in 2000, released as a final document in 2001 and is gazetted to be fully implemented by 2004, with current contracts being run for teacher professional development in the new document, both in the new emphases for Music and Visual Art, and the new Arts curriculum subjects of Dance and Drama. Prior to curriculum reform, music was one of twelve subject areas, as was visual art. Following curriculum reform, music is now part of the Arts strand which is one of seven learning (curriculum) areas. The full list of curriculum areas is: language and languages, math, technology, science, social sciences , health and physical well-being, and the Arts. Previously visual art and music were distinct disciplines, however they have now been combined along with drama which has been taken out of (although still part of), language, and dance which has been taken out of (although still part of), physical education. Government mandates require that visual art, music, drama, and dance are to
25 be available as distinct disciplines in the schools up to Year 10, but the practicalities of timetabling, and dearth of multi discipline teachers make the implementation road ahead fraught with difficulty in the school system. The Arts Curriculum has been structured so that each art is delivered under the same guidelines. There are four strands: developing practical knowledge in the arts, developing ideas in the arts, communicating and interpreting the arts, and understanding the arts in context. The four learning strands in each arts curriculum area are not expected to be applied in isolation. In the body of the document the appropriate strands are noted beside the learning examples. The Achievement objectives are written out specifically for each art form from the content of the strands, and then applied to eight levels. Levels one through four are expected to be covered in elementary school, level five at intermediate/middle school, and levels six through eight are the specialist senior high school levels. To illustrate the functioning of this document, the following table (Table 6) is presented, showing the wording of the strands for level one across the arts:
The Early Childhood Curriculum
The Early Childhood Curriculum, Te Whariki, was released in 1996. It is to be implemented in early childhood situations that are government approved and funded. The main focus is on the kindergartens which are the designated early childhood educational institution, but is also implemented in other early childhood settings. There are four broad principles at the center of the early childhood curriculum as stated in table 7.
26 Table 6: Level One: New Zealand Arts Curriculum Strands and Content
Dance Drama Music Visual Strand Arts Level Students will Students will Students will Students will Developing 1 explore through explore explore and explore elements practical movement the elements and respond to the and principles of knowledge dance elements of techniques of musical elements the visual arts using body awareness, drama of beat, rhythm, a variety of space, time, energy pitch, tempo, techniques, tools and relationships dynamics and tone materials, processes color and procedures Level Students will use Students will Students will select Students will Developing 1 personal contribute ideas and organize express visual ideas Ideas experiences and and participate sounds, and in response to a imagination to in drama, using express ideas, variety of express ideas in personal drawing on motivations, using dance experiences and personal imagination, imagination experience and observation, and imagination invention with materials Level Students will share Students will Students will share Students will Communicat 1 movement through share drama music making with express ideas about ing and informal through others through their own work and Interpreting presentation and informal informal respond to objects respond personally presentation and presentation, and and images made to their own and respond to ways respond to live or by others others’ dance in which drama recorded music tells stories and conveys ideas
Level Students will Students will Students will Students will Understandi 1 demonstrate an identify drama identify music as identify objects and ng the arts awareness of dance as part of part of everyday images in everyday in context as part of everyday life life and recognize life and recognize community and recognize that it serves a that it serves a that it serves a variety of purposes variety of purposes variety of purposes
27 Table 7: The Principles of Te Whariki: Early Childhood Curriculum
Principle Descriptor Empowerment The early childhood curriculum empowers the child to learn and grow. Holistic Development The early childhood curriculum reflects the holistic way children learn and grow. Family and Community The wider world of family and community is an integral part of the early childhood curriculum. Relationships Children learn through responsive and reciprocal relationships with people, places, and things.
Strands and Goals
The strands and goals arise from the four principles. The whariki (mat) is woven from these four principles and the following five strands, or essential areas of learning and development. The principles and strands together form the framework for the curriculum. Each strand has several goals. Learning outcomes have been developed for each goal in each of the strands, so that the whariki becomes an integrated foundation for every child’s development. Any subject specific curriculum content is subsumed under these strands, with creativity and expressiveness being seen as a direct part of Strand 4: Contribution and Strand 5: Communication, with extra musical application in the other three stands. (Online source: Te Whariki 1996)
28 Table 8: Te Whariki Strands and Goals
Strand Goals Well-being – Mana Atua Children experience an environment where: The health and well-being of 1 their health is promoted; the child are protected and 2 their emotional well-being is nurtured; nurtured 3 they are kept safe from harm. Belonging – Mana Whenua Children and their families experience an environment Children and their families where: feel a sense of belonging. 1 connecting links with the family and the wider world are affirmed and extended; 2 they know they have a place; 3 they feel comfortable with the routines, customs, and regular events; 4 they know the limits and boundaries of acceptable behavior. Contribution – Mana 1 there are equitable opportunities for learning, Tangata irrespective of gender, age, ability, ethnicity, or Opportunities for learning background; are equitable, and each 2 they are affirmed as individuals; child’s contribution is 3 they are encouraged to learn with, and alongside valued. others. Communication – Mana Reo 1 they develop non-verbal communication skills The languages and symbols for a range of purposes; of their own and other 2 they develop verbal communication skills for a cultures are promoted and rage of purposes; protected. 3 they experience the stories and symbols of their own, and other cultures; 4 they discover and develop different ways to be creative and expressive. Exploration – Mana Aoturoa 1 their play is valued as meaningful learning and The child learns through the importance of spontaneous play is active exploration of the recognized; environment. 2 they gain confidence in and control of their own bodies; 3 they learn strategies for active exploration, think and reasoning; 4 they develop working theories for making sense of the natural, social, physical, and material worlds.
29 There is much national and international support for Te Whariki as a positive document to implement effective early childhood education in various settings, as well as ongoing research to examine how it is being used as a curriculum across the different early childhood education providers (Carr and May 1996). Willberg (1999) states that, for music, the advantage is that it can be justified for any strand on any level, but a musical hat needs to be worn in order to see how this can be implemented. She sees many ways in which music can play a central part in the implementation of Te Whariki. She suggests for ‘belonging goal 1’ that songs that are sung in the home can also be included as part of the repertoire of the early childhood center. Singing songs of the indigenous people of New Zealand the Maaori, as well as songs from Samoa and Nuie and Tokelau, extends the children’s experience of the range of cultures that are part of the country. She notes that it is difficult for the generalist early childhood teacher to have access to such resources, since there is not time in their training to familiarize them with the possibilities of wide ranging music listening and performing possibilities.
Research Design
Many writers have noted the difficulties of conducting research on young children, particularly when the data sought are child initiated and involve spontaneous actions. In writing about the strictures of researching children in their own setting, Walsh, Tobin and Graue (1993) listed three requirements: that the research is conducted in a natural setting, that stress is placed on the importance of understanding participants perspectives, and that questions and methods emerge in the process of fieldwork. They cite Spindler (1982) who adds two further attributes: observations are contextualized, both in the immediate setting and in the larger contexts within which the immediate setting is placed, and observation is prolonged and repetitive. The priority of qualitative research with children is to get to know them and see their world through their eyes. Such
30 research assumes that the children have knowledge, and insight can be gained by seeking that knowledge. Shelley (1981) reflected on the work of the Pillsbury school, and the unique data that example of early childhood music education engendered. She reflects on how current research can be carried out to discover the natural music making of children. She observes, as does Pond, (1981) that the researcher must be looking at the children’s music making with open ears and eyes, not looking for tonality or recognizable western art music traits, rather observing the rich variety of musical behaviors, and fascination children have with sound. Furthermore, since a researcher attempting to study these phenomena would be dealing with non manipulative variables and could not predict spontaneous occurrences, the use of direct observation would be an essential factor of research design. The focus of such research studies should be on identifying the music capabilities of the young child, and enquiring into what already exists in the realm of the child’s spontaneous expression. Shelley further notes that it is difficult for a generalist early childhood teacher to allow unlimited freedom to explore sound, since the expectation is that it will be constant chaos, and so children are discourage from prolonged playing and sound exploration. Pond (1981) reflected on his ten years of work as the composer in residence at the Pillsbury early childhood music school 1937 - 1944, during which time he carried out the type of research as described above. Between 15 and 23 three to six year old children were enrolled in the school (1937 - 1944), with no preference given to musically gifted children. At the outset of the establishment of the school he established the philosophy which valued the children’s music making as valid and of inherent worth. He states this in terms of what he was not going to do, emphasizing the philosophy of non interference and recognizing the children’s ability to structure their own creative learning. I had no intention of trying to assess statistically, in any way, the comparative musicality of the children whose activity I was to observe... I had no intention of trying to compare and weight individual achievements... I had no
31 intention of trying to measure any child’s progress…I had no intention of trying to determine how soon and by the exercise of what methodology the children might be brought into the mainstream of traditional musicianship…I had no intention of teaching the children anything about music, except things that their ongoing experience called for…I had no intention of inventing and administering test of any kind for their comprehension of (elements of music) (p.1) Through active involvement daily with the children, Pond concluded that children’s songs are either chants, using what Bernstein (1973) called the universal intervals, and songs, described elsewhere as spontaneous songs. More than just codifying, he found the children to be naturally highly creative.
Music in Early Childhood Education
Singing Along with the general aspects of early development advantages of music are the specific skills associated with singing and matching pitch. There are many different perspectives on the singing of preschool children. Werner (1948) studied spontaneous singing in the preschool setting and reported on levels of achievement in the invented songs of preschoolers: using the ‘soh me la’ intervals, followed by an ascending and descending motif of three tones, then expansion of the range to a fourth or fifth, and then the ability to end on a note other than the lowest. Dowling (1983) reported similar findings, noting that the repetition of two or three phrases using these intervals, and an optional closing phrase is characteristic of much of the repertoire for this age group. Davidson (1984) reported the difficulty of studying the use of vocalized pitch with young children, measuring intervals depends on recognizable intervals being vocalized. Ortmann (1934) suggested that viewing vocalized melodic motion as conjunct or disjunct could function as measurement, while Drexler (1938) suggested that there is a
32 developmental order for pitch perception with smaller intervals first and larger intervals later. Davidson (1984) suggested a solution for the difficulty of tonal analysis of pre tonal songs as contour, notating on lines and spaces different pitches without assigning any name or frequency to the notes. Andress (1987) warned of the responsibility of the music practitioner, warning against forcing, and consequent damage, to young voices. She wrote of musical babble, leading to more accurate pitch phonation, and a young child’s predisposition to spontaneous song improvisation. Children tend to imitate vocal style as well as learning the melodies and words, thus it is crucial that an accurate vocal model be given to develop good singing (Campbell and Scott-Kassner 1995). Goetze (1985) found that five year old children sang more accurately by themselves than they did in a group, and that the children’s singing to a neutral syllable was more in tune than their singing with words. She also found that the greatest contrast in pitch accuracy was between five and six year olds, agreeing with Gordon’s observation that this age is the optimum time for developing pitch matching skills. Levinowitz (1989) came to the same conclusion about singing on a neutral vowel leading to better intonation in four and five year olds. Additionally language development was not affected whether the children learnt songs with or without words. He wrote that, if there was a musical effect on language development from singing, then it was independent of use of language in the singing.
Pitch range. In looking at the history of research on the child’s voice, Rutowski (1985) writes that different studies in different times have elicited significant changes in perceived vocal ranges of children, with some advocating an octave range or less, others discovered more extensive vocal ranges. A survey of music education resources showed that the pitch of published music for children was being lowered. He quotes a study by Smith (1963) where the vocal rage of boys was found to be higher in unstructured setting and lower in structured settings. He note that Nye and Nye (1970) in their research indicated the use of higher vocal ranges, while in their published resource Music in the
33 Elementary School 4th edition (1977) presented lower and more restricted voice range songs. Ries (1982) studied fifty one children aged six months to thirty two months. They were sung to, by parents and siblings over a two day period, and their responses were recorded and measured for accuracy of imitation, melodic contour and pitch range. Overall the average range was two octaves that began at A below middle C and went up from there. Campbell and Kassner (1995) note that the vocal range for four-year-old children in play is over two octaves, but that their ability to sing accurately and in tune is over a much lesser range suggesting that it is the five pitches from d to a.
Problems of Pitch Matching. Many studies have addressed the problems associated with lack of singing competency and pitch matching ability, and have suggested remedial treatments and methods. One of the common solutions is to give the children time to develop the skills during the appropriate stage. The majority of studies point out that a higher proportion of children match pitch at age six than at age four (Apfelstadt 1984, Atterbury 1993, Flowers 1990) In examining the problems of matching pitch, many of the requisite skills have been discussed, such as ease or lack of ease of vocalization (Welch 1979) undeveloped singing skills both in practices and in technique (Roberts 1972), inadequate vocal control (Jones 1993) or ranges selected that are outside the comfortable range of singers (Cleall 1970). Yarborough, Green, Benson and Bowers (1991) explored the use of different vocal models and methods of response, and the effect that these had on the pitch matching accuracy of kindergarten through eighth grade poor pitch singers. The results found no significant difference between response modes, but difference between male and female modeling, and difference between kindergarten and first grade children. Sims, Moore and Kuhn (1982) reached similar findings, incorporating tonal patterns into their study.
34 Roberts and Davies (1975) suggested that pitch modulation in language may be a factor, in that ‘tone deafness’ is unknown among people such as the Vietnamese, whose language is substantially pitch. Chen-Hafteck (1992) agreed, stating that, using the Chinese language, young children learn songs more successfully when the melody responds to the contours of the language. Addo (1998) added to this theory, finding similar results among the children of Ghana. Richner (1980) reported that the greatest improvement in pitch matching skill resulted from remedial vocal training in small groups taught by a music specialist. Sheehan-Campbell (1991) suggested the most appropriate songs for early childhood are folk music songs. In a study of the effect of teaching a song to second graders phrase by phrase, or by immersion (whole song repetition), Klinger, Campbell and Goolsby (1998) found that children, taught through the immersion method, performed the songs with fewer errors than those taught phrase by phrase. Rupp (1993) discovered that teacher modeling is significant in children’s use of their vocal range. She worked with children perceived to be non-singers, who were assigned to four different treatment groups. The children were then asked to sing one of the songs they had been taught, which they did at their own chosen pitch level. The children whose singing teaching was all modeled in head voice were significantly more likely to utilize their head voice than the children whose vocal modeling had all been in chest voice. The effect of accompaniment on five-year-old children’s singing accuracy was investigated by Atterbury and Silcox (1993). They taught fifteen different kindergarten classes, some using piano accompaniment and some with no accompaniment, weekly singing classes for a year. After a year they found no significant difference between the singing accuracy of the children who had been taught singing with piano accompaniment and the children who had been taught singing without piano accompaniment.
Creating The children’s inherent musical inquisitiveness and exploration lead to a wide variety of experiences of music and music making, that often follow recognized patterns,
35 but more importantly come from an innate curiosity and facility with sound and sound exploration. Campbell’s book Songs in their heads. Music and its meaning in children’s lives (1998) starts from her discovery of the children who would tell her of the songs that they would hear in their minds and then sing to her, as a familiar face around their school or preschool, who was interested in their music. She discovered that the children displayed a natural creativity with music, particularly, but not exclusively, singing. Campbell (1991) wrote, prior to the publication of the aforementioned book, a paper which included some of her findings from observations in seven school playgrounds, observing kindergarten, first and second grade children (ages 5 to 8). She reaches some tentative conclusions about the nature of children’s song compositions: Songs by children do not exceed an octave and are contained within an interval of a fifth, in three quarters of the sample. Songs by children tend to make a great use of repetition. While defined as such by children, some songs are rhythmic chants, or may be a combination of song and speech rhythms. Songs by children are often more rhythmically complex than general repertoire of songs for children. Songs by children tend to incorporate a greater use of movement, including gestures, handclaps and dance, than do traditional songs for children. Pond(1981) describes the creative play the Pillsbury School children did. They expressed wonder at new sounds, they explored how to change and develop them. Comparing sounds was an early activity, and the children constructed games around the comparing of sounds. Children became intrigued with the nature and properties of the sounds. Children started their duration exploration with a regular steady beat, changing tempo, but keeping the beat. Next was experimentation with accentuation, but not on regular pluses. They would play rhythmic dialogues with Pond and with each other, discovering new rhythms, divisions of the beat and repeating them and developing them. They would get two instruments and go from one to the other, they experimented with vocal chant, mentioned already in this chapter, and also with highly expressive melodic inventions. Pond’s research led him to draw three conclusions: firstly, that young children
36 have an innate awareness of the function of formal procedures in structuring sounds, secondly, that improvisation (vocal as well as instrumental) is the central in the development of the innate musicality they evidently possess, and thirdly, that their sound construction preference is for polyphonic texture, that the free use of polyphony is the style that is most consonant with their musical instincts, and that the conception of organized harmonic procedures is completely alien to them. Young children are makers, their spontaneous improvisations are acts of making; they are not, nor are they meant to be about anything - they simply exist as things that have been made, and the pleasure is in the making. (p.11)
Early Childhood Education In New Zealand
Early childhood education and early childhood education services are defined in New Zealand in specific ways. An introduction to the meaning of terms as they are used in the New Zealand context will provide a clearer understanding of the context, diversity and breadth of New Zealand's early childhood education system.
Early childhood education In New Zealand the term 'early childhood education' refers to the non-compulsory provision of education and care for young children and infants before they begin school. Over 95% of children begin school on their fifth birthday, although school is not compulsory until the age of six years. School entry is flexible throughout the year, with children enrolled at any time after they turn five years of age. Government funding is provided to a number of early childhood education providers, as a consequence 90% of New Zealand children have had some form of pre-school education prior to entering primary (elementary) school at age 5.
Kindergarten. Over 60% of New Zealand children attend Kindergarten at age four.
37 Kindergartens operate half day early childhood education for children from three to five years of age. In general, younger children attend afternoon sessions for three afternoons a week while the older age group attend five mornings a week. Mobile kindergarten services are also available in some rural areas. These consist of a teacher with a van load of kindergarten equipment who will spend one or two days in smaller towns, using a community hall or church building to provide a kindergarten service to local children. Typically they will serve between three and five different communities each week. Teachers in kindergartens, including the mobile kindergarten service, are trained and hold the Diploma of Teaching and must be registered teachers. Parent participation is encouraged in the kindergarten program. The kindergarten movement was the first early childhood service to be recognized by the Government, in the 1890s. Each kindergarten has its own parent committee but management responsibility lies with regional kindergarten associations. Accountability for the programs lies with the regional managers and is monitored by the Education Review Office of the Ministry of Education. A 1999 report by the Education Review Office of the regional association where the research was carried out, stated that ‘…music and drama are a regular part of all learning programs. Drama props and creative resources provide many opportunities for children to initiate their own play and learning. Mat times are part of formal group times and include story reading, discussion time, music and shared singing.’ (p.9)
Other early childhood education providers. There are a number of other providers who work under government guidelines and receive government funding. These include: Playcenters. Playcenters are parent run organizations established in the 1940s, with a philosophy of play being the child’s mode of learning. Parents provide staffing and organization, and over the time the movement has been in existence, they have moved more towards training for those providing leadership within the educational context. Kohanga Reo. (Language nests). Kohanga Reo are Maaori immersion early
38 childhood centers, run by local iwi (tribes) for the education of their mokopuna (lit. grandchildren, but used to mean all of the young children). They run a full early childhood program based on Te Whariki , with all teaching in te reo (the language). Language nests have also been established for the learning and preservation of other pacific languages, and these are dependant on local initiatives, established where there is need and motivated community leaders. Childcare. Childcare caters to the next biggest group of children after Kindergartens, and would also run the closest parallel educational programs. Childcare is the term used to describe half day, all-day or flexible-hours early childhood education services . Services may describe themselves as childcare centers, kindergartens, infant centers, crèches, preschools, or by a name that indicates their particular philosophy or purpose. Childcare services may be privately owned profit-making businesses; non profit-making, e.g., an incorporated society or charitable trust; or may operate as an adjunct to the main purpose of a business or organization, e.g., shoppers or sports crèches, campus crèches or factory childcare services. Some childcare centers have all trained staff while others may have a mixture of trained and untrained personnel.
Teacher training in music for early childhood in New Zealand. Because teachers in kindergartens have to be registered, (a requirement for pay and employment) they all have had systematic training in a School of Education, currently a three year full time course. By law this course must include curriculum study in music. At the University of Waikato School of Education in 1999 this took the form of one semester (fourteen weeks) one hour per week course of vocal confidence, pitch matching, and singing principles for preschoolers, as well as a one semester, three hours per week integrated arts course, where music is effectively one quarter of the course. However with the new curriculum Te Whariki, and its holistic nature, there is less perceived need for understanding or expertise in any of the specific arts disciplines. Classes in the early childhood teacher training program in 1999 were with a music education specialist. Because of restructuring and staffing, in 2003 that input is given by a generalist early childhood faculty member without specific music training.
39 Government is now requiring that all early childhood education centers must have a trained and registered teacher as head of their teaching. The requirement was notified in the late 1990s with a grace period of five years for people to train and attain teacher registration. Kelly (1998) investigated the problems associated with preschool music education from the perspective of the teachers. He surveyed current teachers in relation to their training both pre-service and in-service, and found that the practical skills were the ones most valued, but few teachers were aware of, and further more none had read, ‘The Performance Standards for Music: Grades Pre K - 12’. Nardo (1996) surveyed 257 early childhood teachers in California asking them about their competence and confidence to include music in their programs. She found that classroom teachers and caregivers are the ones giving the music instruction rather than music specialists, that the variety and scope of music activities is narrow, and that only 19% of community colleges who offered early childhood education as a major were meeting their music education needs. This means that 80% of those training for early childhood teaching in community colleges are not receiving music training as part of their course. Willberg (1999) writes of the changes in New Zealand, where qualifications in early childhood education have become more academically structured, which has resulted in improvement in status and quality outcomes, but has reduced student’s exposure to classes to gain personal skills or understanding of children’s musical development.
40 Profile of Current Early Childhood Music in New Zealand
There is little research that has been completed and available in the public arena in the area of early childhood music research in New Zealand, although there is much activity in encouraging musical activity in the age group. Willberg has carried out a number of studies, but few have been published, and those that have tend to be in conference proceedings and not widely available. Buckton (1982) surveyed six year old children’s vocal abilities and found similar results to other researchers: a spectrum of ability level, including higher accuracy for girls than boys. A search via email to music educators in Universities in New Zealand did not get a response about people conducting current research in early childhood music, prior to the data collection, however research was being conducted in the elementary school music area, and projects are planned by two music education colleagues. Buckton has been pivotal in the establishment of our first scholarly indigenous music education journal ‘Sound Ideas’ (1997), now issued quarterly. It will be through forums such as this that future research will be encouraged and disseminated nationally. Willberg (Sharman 1999) is now working on a project observing children in a New Zealand daycare center , looking at themes and patterns of musical behavior, notably spontaneous singing and pitch range while Bodkin (1998) is continuing surveying music selection for use in early childhood settings, both as listening material and as song repertoire. Julie Wylie (1999) was central in the establishment of an organization called Music Parenting which aims to foster creativity and musical confidence in children, and in their parents, in the Canterbury region of New Zealand. Mainly Music is another organization which has been established and runs through church groups nationally, where parents, or caregivers, bring young children for a once-a-week 30 minute session. The program was established in 1990 under the vision and leadership of Jo Hood (online source: Mainly Music) and there are now 242 groups functioning through-out New Zealand with between 30 and 60 children and their caregivers attending each group (some groups run two sessions for a maximum of 30 children per session, with a morning coffee
41 break in between for parents caregivers and group leaders to socialize and fulfill the group‘s extra musical support function). Sessions are lead by enthusiastic volunteers from the local church, using prescribed material from the umbrella organization.
Summary
Music is important in the lives of children. It is part of their first stages of independent life, and a significant aspect of their development as human beings. It is prominent in their lives as Campbell and Scott-Kassner (1995) state, that children choose their own involvement with music. They may choose to listen to it through headphones, sing it, hum it chant it, play it, dance to it, create it with their voices or with musical instruments or with sounds they find during their exploratory playing. What is not in question is that music is central in children’s lives, and so in the educational setting its implementation is important. What we do know is that Early Childhood trained teachers have music as part of their training in New Zealand, albeit a small part. We know that music is expected to be woven into the delivery of the early childhood holistic curriculum documents and this is supported by the literature. What we do not know is how this is currently being implemented in the kindergarten settings. Therefore the purpose of this study is to determine what role music plays in New Zealand Kindergartens (early childhood settings), and to examine whether it is unique to each setting, or if some commonalities exist. Research questions to be answered include: 1. What activities are taking place when music making is occurring? 2. Are there opportunities for informal music making? 3. What timbre exploration is evident in formal and informal settings? 4. What pitch range is exhibited in formal and informal settings? 5. What effect does the teacher’s vocal modeling have on the children’s singing?
42 CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGY
The purpose of this study was to find out current practice in New Zealand kindergartens and to line this up with the requirements of Te Whariki; the nationally mandated curriculum document, and known theory of children’s musicality. This study set out to examine what is currently happening musically for four-year- old New Zealand children, in their play and in the teacher initiated activities that occur in the kindergarten early childhood setting. Five specific research questions were asked, as stated at the end of the receding chapter
Pilot Study To ascertain perceived current practice an interview was held with an expert kindergarten teacher of thirty two years experience, recommended by an early childhood colleague at the University of Waikato School of Education. (see full transcript as Appendix B) During her career she was a head teacher for four years, including setting up two kindergartens which involved being responsible for buying the equipment, and setting up all the administration and committees, along with educating and informing parents of responsibilities. She is involved in ongoing study, and is currently a teacher with student teacher guidance responsibilities at a city kindergarten, which itself is part of ongoing research as part of their normal practice. Her kindergarten was not one of the sites for the main project. During the interview she talked about her own practice, the practices of her teaching peers, and the children’s practice, in relation to formal and informal music making events. Data extracted from that interview suggested that musical events that occur during a normal kindergarten session including activities as set out in Table 9.
43 Table 9: Anticipated music events at a kindergarten.
Singing Playing responding Teacher led Group formal Percussion music Recordings as singing skill sessions background Teacher led Singing during Percussion with Recordings used to extra musical extra music teach songs activities activities Teacher led Singing Piano or guitar Teaching instructions, and accompaniment to movement conversations group singing to music, dance, poi, brain gym Child led Singing learnt Percussion Dancing briefly or songs improvised alone for extended time Child led Improvising Percussion Selecting songs improvised as group recordings to listen and dance to Child led Sung Sound explorations communications on other musical instruments Child led Vocal sound Sound exploration painting with other sound sources Guest led Guest performances by invited individuals or groups
Subjects The subjects of this study were four-year-old kindergarten students (n=316), in eight different kindergartens, covering three full communities in the central north island area of New Zealand. In using complete communities it was more possible to have a spread of socioeconomic groups and ethnic groups. While these variables were not included in the data collection, and were not available to the researcher because of New
44 Zealand privacy laws, this was central to the core objective of measuring and identifying normal musical events of four-year-old children. However it is possible to use a parallel set of data to ascertain a spread of socioeconomic groups. Elementary schools in New Zealand are funded on the basis of their socioeconomic status and consequent perceived ability to generate additional funding from their community. Decile 1 schools are the 10% of schools with the highest proportion of students from low socio-economic communities, whereas decile 10 schools are the 10% of schools with the lowest proportion of these students. Children move from kindergarten to specific schools and in taking the decile rating of such designated schools it is verified that one decile 1 school and two decile 10 schools are part of the sample, as well as decile 2,3,4,5 and 7 schools (New Zealand Ministry of Education source). This sample size is the enrollment total from the morning sessions of the eight kindergartens. The sample actually observed may have been less by a total of up to five because of normal absences. Kindergarten is not compulsory, so parents may keep children home or plan other activities with them instead of attending kindergarten. It is also not necessary for the children to arrive at the start of the kindergarten session, or to stay for the completion. Thus it is not unexpected to have a child attend for an incomplete session. However, this is not usual as children invariably look forward to their time at the kindergarten, as do care giving parents who then have respite time from the kindergarten child. The number of children present during the observations was supplemented by younger siblings present with parent helpers during the observation events. Because of the presence of their parents, it was generally possible to identify these children and exclude them from data collection.
Procedure Initial contact was made with the General Manager of the Central North Island Kindergarten Association, who contacted the head teachers at the kindergartens that the researcher requested access to. Following their positive response to the manager,
45 appointments were set up to visit and brief the teaching staff at each kindergarten on the project, approximately a week before the observations were to take place. This was structured so that the least amount of time was available for any change in their teaching events likely to influence the data collected. Faxed confirmation of the date for data collection was sent immediately following the briefing day, confirming the verbal agreement between the head teacher, associate teachers and the researcher. Because of the enrollment form used in the kindergartens of the Central North Island Kindergarten Association, that includes signed permission for children to be videoed or photographed while at kindergarten, it was not necessary to seek specific permission from parents for this event. (see Appendix F) However all of the kindergartens posted a chalkboard, or whiteboard message to parents as soon as they had agreed to the project , notifying them of the date for the data collection, general reason for the data collection, and a reminder that they were at liberty to keep their child home from kindergarten should they not wish their child to be part of the project. The parents were also given a letter of explanation (see Appendix F) which was available on the day of the data collection, to be read when they dropped their children at the kindergarten, or was distributed using normal kindergarten procedures for getting notices to parents. The teachers at each kindergarten reported that they were unaware of any children who were kept home to avoid being part of data collection.
Data Collection Two video cameras (model: Panasonic hi-fi stereo S-VHS-NVMS4) were set up before the start of the morning session and children’s arrival at the kindergarten. Some children asked questions, both of parents who were delivering children for the session, and of the teachers about why the cameras were there. The majority of children made no noticeable response to the presence of the cameras. It became apparent on analyzing the video film that some children occasionally moved in awareness to the camera, with sidelong glances, stopping and staring at the lens, walking backwards and forwards in front of the camera. However, this behavior was
46 short-lived in each incident, none measuring more than 8 seconds. It is surmised that, because nobody was operating the camera, and they were not receiving feedback on their behavior, it soon became of little use and they moved on. The researcher moved about the site and took observational notes during the session as well as intermittently checking camera angles. This was in order to capture as many events as possible. These notes form Appendix D. In addition, the researcher notated children’s improvised songs at pitch and these songs form Appendix H. A total of forty eight hours of video footage was filmed, consisting of two three-hour videos from each of eight kindergartens.
Data Analysis Initial analysis of the videos was quantitative, on a total per minute basis, using the guidelines of the data produced in the interview, and counting discrete events and codifying them under the following categories:
Table 10: Quantitative data categories of analysis.
Category Definition Sung speech pitched phonation, without repeated words, used to communicate, get attention. Phonation without use of voice with varying pitch, including sirens, and words engine and toy noises. Sung chants similar to sung speech but with repetition. Use of upper vocal occurring in the preceding three categories register (head voice) Timbre play with musical instruments, or found sound sources. Highest frequency requiring a sustained sound to establish the pitch (vocal range):
Reliability was established at 85%, as calculated by the standard formula (Madsen & Madsen 1998, p 270). A qualified music education colleague was trained in the categories and given three ten minute excerpts of video to analyze from three different
47 kindergartens. Because a large amount of the video footage contained minimal, or no data, it was not appropriate to have 10% of the actual footage tested for reliability. The reliability testing was carried out with video footage that contained significant quantities of data. In analyzing the videos two factors became apparent. The quantitative data. Reliability established with a music education colleague resulted in 85% reliability. In addition self reliability was tested, and over two ten minute segments of video resulted in 90% reliability. The explanation for this is twofold, and predicted in the literature (Shelley 1981). First: the video is capturing both visual and audio data from every direction, including in some cases the other video camera area, because of the physical setup of the kindergarten. Second: the counting of discrete simultaneous events with the number of children involved in free play activities is problematic. Some events occurred but were obscured because louder events were happening. In addition some events occurred that were too quiet for audio capture. If they did not appear on the video, the events were missed. The first problem was dealt with by keeping data sheets side by side, as inside and outside videos were analyzed so that individual events were not counted twice. The second problem could not be dealt with, and as a consequence, the quantitative data cannot reflect with detail the actual number of events that occurred, while at the same time it does give a picture of general quantity of events at each kindergarten. The Qualitative data. It became apparent, during collecting the quantitative data off the videos, that there were formal and spontaneous musical events that had been captured that were not reflected adequately, so a subsequent decision was made to select one observation from each site to use as a descriptive event in order to give added dimension to the quantitative analysis and observational notes. (Walsh, Tobin, Graue, 1993) Thus four sets of data were produced: the video quantitative data (Table 10), the video qualitative events (Appendix E), the onsite researcher observational notes (Appendix D), and the onsite transcript of children‘s improvised songs (Appendix G).
48 CHAPTER IV
RESULTS
Introduction
This study examined the usage of music by four-year-old children in nationally run kindergartens in New Zealand. Recent documents clearly define kindergarten expectations, but actual practice had not been examined. Data were collected through videotaping eight representative kindergarten sites in three communities. The first set of data was two video films at each site, one capturing picture and audio data from inside the kindergarten site, and the other capturing picture and audio data from outside, in the kindergarten playground. Analysis isolated formal and informal music making frequencies. (Table 12) Additional detail was provided through observational notes (see Appendix D) collected simultaneously with the video. A third analysis provided pitches sung by the children in free play (self selected pitch range) and these are found in Appendix H. A fourth analysis provided one time period per kindergarten, that included multiple musical events, described in detail from video observations (Appendix E). These data provided information to address the research questions. Research Questions
The following research questions were asked: 1. What activities are taking place when music making is occurring? 2. Are there opportunities for informal music making? 3. What timbre exploration is evident in formal and informal settings? 4. What pitch range is exhibited in formal and informal settings? 5. What effect does the teacher’s vocal modeling have on the children’s singing?
49 Research Question 1. What activities are taking place when music events are occurring?
Data will be drawn from all sets to answer this question. Firstly, the frequency of event analysis on Table 12, which summaries all of the video captured events under the categories in Table 11: Table 11: Quantitative data categories of analysis.
Category Definition Sung speech pitched phonation, without repeated words, used to communicate, get attention. Phonation without use of voice with varying pitch, including sirens, and words engine and toy noises. Sung chants similar to sung speech but with repetition. Use of upper vocal occurring in the preceding three categories register (head voice) Timbre play with musical instruments, or found sound sources.
The majority of the events that are recorded on Table 12 are individual children’s events. Because of the structure of the kindergarten session there is less than 10% of each session spent in whole class activity. This will almost always include group singing, and can include other musical activity such as listening games and brain gym. The rest of the musical events happened as extra music events which is consistent with the holistic nature of the kindergarten. Table 13 gives an overview of the activities that are taking place while music events occur.
50 Table 12: Frequency of Discrete Musical Events
Location Sung Phonation Sung Use of Speech Timbre speech No words chant head rhythm play voice Site 1 69 57 18 25 49 4 outside Site 1 19 35 45 7 22 11 inside Site 2 88 76 21 16 16 9 outside Site 2 52 51 30 3 5 159 inside Site 3 84 187 76 70 40 12 outside Site 3 26 52 23 7 17 42 inside Site 4 49 118 29 58 67 19 outside Site 4 29 49 28 10 40 85 inside Site 5 29 129 20 12 35 4 outside Site 5 41 67 18 17 2 18 inside Site 6 86 113 34 149 69 45 outside Site 6 71 188 18 78 68 71 inside Site 7 56 216 1 31 7 7 outside Site 7 11 119 7 41 6 82 inside Site 8 24 86 52 32 23 23 outside Site 8 16 71 16 19 5 22 inside
51 Table 13: Checklist of music and extra music events at each site.
Site 1 Site 2 Site 3 Site 4 Site 5 Site 6 Site 7 Site 8 Mat time: Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Formal singing Mat time: Brain Action Listen- Action Action Other music gym songs ing songs songs activity game Small group: Math Para- Extra music game chute activity games Small group: Teacher Teacher Teacher Music Activity outside plays outside with piano @ with guitar child’s guitar request Small group: Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Teacher sings Children do not sing Small group: Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Teacher sings, children sing Children initiate Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes singing known songs Children improvise Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes songs while playing Teachers initiate Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes instrument play
Children initiate Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Instrument play Children initiate Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes timbre play Water play songs Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Sandpit songs Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Swing and fort Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes songs Children request Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes recordings Children dance Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Children request yes Yes Yes Yes Yes songs to sing Total minutes 123/175 50/162 116/175 66/185 64/182 62/183 63/182 46/176 recorded music is played/total minutes of video data
52 moves on a track that seemed to be new to them. The dancing became more and more exuberant, and as this happened the boys added vocalizations on a wide pitch range. The teacher moved away during this part of the activity. When the tape concluded, the boys provided their own music for about two more minutes, and then over a period of five more minutes the activity ceased and they moved to o
Description of events for research question 1 The music center. The area where the percussion instruments, piano, guitar and sound equipment are kept, is a venue for semi formal music events. Three of the kindergartens had a piano which children had free access to during free play time. The music center was also the venue for semi structured music making initiated by the teachers. Some kindergartens allowed children to select recordings, but none allowed the children to put the recordings on for themselves. They occasionally sang along with the music, but more often just listened, they danced to it, they played instruments in time with it, they play instruments with no apparent relation to the recorded music, they spun pois to recorded music, and perform in other dramatic ways, involving visually expressive responses. The children can play the instruments that are freely available to them, in most situations it is the normal percussion instruments, but in some situations they have access to the piano and a guitar as well, with greater or lesser freedom. The instruments can be carried elsewhere in the kindergarten and be played along with other activities, such as small group extra music events like math games. The Activity Areas. In each kindergarten there are specific activity areas set up for the children to access as they choose. (refer to photographs in appendix C and information in Appendix B) The choices varied from site to site, with much in common as well. There was a lot of musical activity in many of these areas at each site, including timbre play in the carpentry areas, many own songs on the swings and the fort areas ,
53 celebratory songs at two different sites when children perceived that they had mended trolleys. The sandpit was another area where own songs were heard, and Duplo and Lego construction areas resulted in sing-song speech, and own songs, when constructions were completed, and children were telling stories to each other about them.
Research Question 2. Are there opportunities for informal music making? See Tables 12 and 13 for categories and frequencies of activities in common between kindergarten sites. Children at Kindergartens one, three and six had extended periods of sound exploration with musical instruments, percussion piano and guitar. Teachers had differing levels of input in each situation, and the children’s response to that was such that, when the teachers moved away or had their attention diverted, the children were more adventurous in their play, and their time of playing was extended. There were obvious efforts by teachers to encourage the children’s exploration, but these tended to be things like: encouraging them to keep the beat or play the instrument ‘properly’, in both of these instances, the children’s experimentation became inhibited when compare to their solo play without teacher input. Kindergarten eight had an extended dance response to a series of tracks on a tape designed to promote movement. The teacher initiated the event, and sat on a chair beside the tape deck as the dancing commenced, but kept a low profile. She followed the instruction of the group of boys who responded as soon as the tape started playing, who requested repeats of song tracks, and requested other tracks on the tape. The dance moves showed ongoing development during the twenty two minutes of the excerpt, and the teacher’s only input was to encourage them to use more space, and then to teach them the moves on a track that seemed to be new to them. The dancing became more and more exuberant, and as this happened the boys added vocalizations on a wide pitch range. The teacher moved away during this part of the activity. When the tape concluded, the boys provided their own music for about two more minutes, and then over a period of five more minutes the activity ceased and they moved to other things.
54 Research Question 3. Are there opportunities for timbre exploration?
Table 14. Checklist of Timbre Events
Site1 Site2 Site3 Site4 Site5 Site6 Site7 Site8 Percussion Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes instruments available to children Other Yes Yes Yes instruments available to children Teacher Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes initiated instrument play Child Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes initiated instrument play Child Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes initiated timbre play
Timbre exploration principally occurs in the music area with the instruments. The children can play them in whatever way they choose, and show multiple evidence of experimenting to find different ways of producing the sound, using repetition to illustrate a sound that they like. Teachers are most likely to intervene when they perceive ‘inaccurate’ playing of an instrument, or if the sound level is too high, or if they have had enough of listening to the activity in which the child or children are engaged. Timbre play also occurs outside of the music area, two specific incidents were noted during the data collection. One was the child playing the complex rhythmic pattern on the top of the cupboard in Kindergarten three. The other was the child in kindergarten four who was playing alone in the science corner, and used polystyrene blocks and a magnet handle and an animal jawbone, during a minute of sound exploration.
55 At the kindergartens where there were pianos, children would access them frequently for brief playing times, as well as numerous events where children stayed and played for more extended time periods of up to three minutes: chord clusters as well as melodic material, showing dynamic contrast, and use of a range of the keyboard. They played the piano individually, as well as in groups of two or three. At kindergarten two, children incorporated home made percussion instruments into their dancing. The quantitative data summary gives number of discrete timbre play events at each site inside and outside. The kindergartens that have high numbers indicate that extended sound exploration events happened during the kindergarten session, whether they are included in the quantitative data or not. There were numerous small incidents of timbre play elsewhere in the kindergartens as well. For example: a child banging in a nail with no apparent beat pattern then banged on a piece of wood a 7 beat and rest pattern, and repeated it showing intent, and then repeated it again on a different piece of wood showing sound exploration. He then went back to his construction with no more evidence of sound being the motivator. A child wearing wooden clogs from the dress-up box stomped up and down deliberately on the wooden verandah. A child in the water play area who is mixing an imaginary recipe, bangs the spoon on the bowl, repeats the action, then puts the bowl in the water and bangs it again, selects another bowl and bangs it, repeats the second sound, then goes back to water play as the focus, the whole incident being less than ten seconds. A boy at Kindergarten five banged pegs through a peg board keeping the beat over an extended time period with the music, during three song tracks.
Research Question 4. What pitch range is exhibited in formal and informal settings?
The high frequency quantitative statistic was gathered by assigning a pre- determined number system, based on half steps, to each high pitch as it was heard on the video tapes. 1 was C1 , one octave above middle C, 13was C2, and 23 was C3. At the conclusion of the video analysis, the numbers were averaged, and turned back into a note
56 to give an overall idea of where the children’s voices are being used in play. This is also dependant on the number of events, which varied from kindergarten to kindergarten, as seen in Tables 15 and 16. Table 15: Highest pitch data during informal play activities inside.
Site One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Number 6 12 8 7 3 23 30 12 of events Averaged A2 A1 C2 G1 D2 C#1 B1 C2 Note
Table 16: Highest pitch data during informal play activities outside.
Site One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Number 18 39 37 43 16 23 30 13 of events Averaged D2 Bb1 D2 C2 D2 A2 G2 Eb2 Note
These two tables show that the children at some kindergartens used their voices in their very high vocal range more frequently than at other kindergartens. In kindergartens one through five, there was much more upper use of voice outside than inside, but in kindergartens six through eight the frequency of events was similar between inside and outside. These data need to be considered alongside the frequency of the use of head voice in Table 18, since both sets of data give a picture of the children using a wide vocal range in play.
57 Table 17: Teacher vocal range in formal singing & children’s response in matching pitch
Site 1 Site 2 Site 3 Site 4 Site 5 Site 6 Site 7 Site 8 Teachers F1- C-C1 G1-E B1- F1- B1- A1-B Bb1- vocal range D C1 C1 D1 C Children no yes no yes no yes yes yes match pitch?
Table 17 shows the singing range of the teachers and the children’s singing in the formal group sessions. The singing events at all of the kindergartens where pitch matching occurred demonstrate the pitch range that is predicted in the literature of under an octave for formal singing. While not all of the children matched pitch, the majority do in sites 2,4, 6, 7 and 8. It is not clear if this is their capability, or if this is limited by the modeling that they are following. When teacher led singing is pitched with a tessitura sitting below middle C, the children tend to sing without matching pitch and without melodic contour. When the teacher modeling is within the children’s predicted pitch range, the children evidenced a high level of pitch matching. This can be attributed to regular singing practice, evidenced by familiarity with the songs being sung. The children use solely their lower vocal register in formal singing situations on the mat, and most of the time sit on the floor. The one occasion when the children were asked to stand and sing, they were also encouraged to sing louder, which resulted in out of tune sharp singing, as shouting. None of the teachers sang higher than the recommended children’s range, some of the teachers sang lower than the recommended children’s range. Teachers chose to sing in their lower register at all sites. The children’s improvised songs, a sample of which form Appendix H, evidence a much wider vocal range. With high vocal range being recorded in play (Tables 15 and 16), they also chose to pitch their improvised songs higher, using the upper register and pitches easily produced up to G1. Notated songs gathered during the onsite observations
58 show a preference for the pitch range of G - F1 in own selected pitch range. There was a balance between good teacher pitch models and inappropriate teacher pitch models in the sample, the qualitative descriptions have two examples of unaccompanied singing in tune and two of inappropriate models and out of tune children‘s singing. Teachers use a higher part of their vocal range in informal settings, when they are vocalizing with children, doing call and response, making up little phases to amuse the children. Kindergartens four and seven in the quantitative data give examples of good vocal modeling, unaccompanied singing that is in the vocal range of the children and resulting in a high level of pitch matching. Kindergarten five shows enthusiastic leadership, but the restriction of the keys that the teacher can play in on the guitar and piano mean that the appropriate pitch range is a matter of chance. Consequently even when it is in the children’s pitch range the level of pitch matching is minimal. Kindergarten one has an example of an extra musical activity with singing that was not pitched appropriately and when the activity occurred while the recorded music was still playing, the children made minimal effort to sing, producing weak monotone sounds on the words. When the recording was completed, there was some singing, following the melodic shape, but a fourth or fifth above the teacher who was singing almost exclusively below middle C.
Research Question 5. What effect does the teacher’s vocal modeling have on the children’s singing? If the teacher’s tone was easily produced and without tension, then the children’s tone was easily produced and had some resonance. If the songs were pitched in the children’s vocal range, they were more likely to match pitch when they were familiar with the song. If the teacher’s singing is confident then the children’s singing is more likely to be confident, if the teacher’s singing lacks confidence then the children’s tone will be harder and less resonant, and the singing will be weak and pitch will be uncertain. The
59 one example of getting the children to stand and sing was compromised by the teacher asking them to sing louder, and then commending them for a tone that was tense, hard and out of tune. Kindergarten six has a teacher with a wide vocal range in her speaking voice, it is very expressive, and during the parachute games her speaking vocal range was over two octaves. It is interesting to note in the quantitative data that this kindergarten had a noticeably higher incidence of use of head voice (upper register) than the other seven sites. Table 18 sets out this data so that teacher’s singing and speaking range can be compared with the children’s practice of pitch matching and use of their head voice.
Table 18. Teacher vocal modeling and children’s use of head voice
Site 1 Site 2 Site 3 Site 4 Site 5 Site 6 Site 7 Site 8 Formal F1- D C-C1 G1-E B1-C1 F1- C1 B1-D1 A1-B Bb1-C vocal
Children no yes no yes no yes yes yes Formal match pitch? Informal Higher Normal Higher Normal Low Two Normal Normal speaking speaking speaking speaking adult octave speaking speaking vocal voices to voices voices to voices speaking range voices voices model children children voices speaking voice Children’s 32 19 77 68 29 227 72 51 quantitative use of head tone
60 Observation Conclusions After observing the activities at eight kindergarten sites, analyzing the quantitative and qualitative video data, some conclusions can be drawn about what structured environment is most conducive to encouraging the creative aspects of the children’s play, particularly in relation to music and sound exploration. The location of percussion instruments affects more than just instrumental play. Where instruments are placed in a partially separate area, or corner area it is possible for children to explore without intruding aurally on the rest of the activities within the open plan room. Children are less likely to wander through the music area and therefore the children who become absorbed in sound play can be undisturbed. Additionally teachers find it easier to leave the children to play and explore, rather than taking a specific path to the music area and giving guidance, which may be inappropriate in the creative exploration model. Where sound recordings are played for lengthy periods of unstructured activity, only teacher can ensure that the use of recordings is purposeful, rather than without intent. Songs and instrumental music are played for function, and when the function is completed, the recording should be turned off so that there is aural space for the children to create their own sounds. The highest incidence of sound creativity by the children happened at sites where the time of use of recorded music was less than one third of the total session time. Children enjoy playing the piano, and those kindergartens that have pianos can set procedures in place to facilitate this, such as fitting an acetate/perspex front so that the children can see the piano action as they play. They can establish guidelines so that the children treat the instrument with respect and enjoy their exploration. The same can be true of guitars, where children can explore the timbre of the strings and the body of the instrument. When group formal singing occurs, using an appropriate pitch range gives the children a much better opportunity to match pitch and sing in tune. For the teachers who are vocally inexperienced this can be a challenge, but a greater understanding of the child’s vocal range can be ascertained simply by listening to the children’s play songs,
61 and determining which pitch range they choose to use. In the kindergartens observed, the most confident in-tune singing occurred when the songs were unaccompanied. In informal and small group music settings where instruments were used, children listened as teachers performed. If teachers want to encourage children to sing, perhaps they need to consider leaving the instrumental work for separate activities. Teacher vocal modeling, both in singing and speaking, appears to affect the children’s use of their voices. Teachers are encouraged to use their speaking voices in interesting ways, using modulation (using a wide pitch range, from lower to higher) when speaking with the children. Teachers who can accept children’s creative sound exploration with affirmation, whatever the quality of the sound produced, are setting that child up to continue exploration and find out more about sound and sound qualities, and elements of music. Summary
There is a wide variety of music making occurring in the kindergarten setting in New Zealand. Instruments are available for children to use, and recorded music is used for varying proportions of time. Most music events occurred during extra musical activities, when the children were playing, used sound exploration in conjunction with other play, and used their voices to communicate, celebrate, and just play. Formal music sessions are most effective in accurate singing by the children when the teacher modeling is using appropriate range, and a relaxed easy vocal production. A majority of the kindergartens in this representative sample had teachers using good vocal modeling. Informal music sessions using musical instruments and movement to music were a regular occurrence, and were child initiated as well as teacher initiated. When teachers gave passive leadership in informal situations, giving advice or help only when asked, the children’s play and exploration was extended. When teachers gave active leadership in informal situations, giving advice or help when they thought it appropriate, the children’s play and exploration was curtailed. Vocal range data showed that children use a wide vocal range in play as well as in
62 their own improvised singing, demonstrating vocal capability wider than the literature suggests. Pitch range in formal singing was dictated by the teacher’s choice of range, and children generally matched pitch when the range was within their tessitura. Their pitch matching was more accurate without words than it was with words, supporting the developmental data. The effect of the teacher’s vocal modeling, in singing and speaking, on the children’s use of voice is evidenced. This showed in range and in ease of vocal production. An interesting correlation was found in kindergarten six, where one of the teachers had a speaking voice with a very wide range, and the children used wide range in their voices frequently in play, significantly more often than in the other kindergartens observed.
63 CHAPTER V
DISCUSSION
Introduction Results of this study provide some insight into the role of music in the current implementation of the recent New Zealand National Standard for the Early Childhood Curriculum (Te Whariki). In the kindergartens the national curriculum is mandated, so the data reflects current kindergarten practice, observing four-year-old children in morning kindergarten sessions in three communities. Data were collected by video tape, onsite observations, pitch range analysis, and rich descriptions of representative events. Findings include the discovery that, in these holistic settings, much music exploration is occurring. Much of the music making in the kindergartens was extra musical, informal self selected music making predominated and creative opportunities abounded. Pitch ranges exhibited by children did not reflect recommended ranges for pitch matching in the data, and the role of teacher modeling appeared to affect pitch choices and the accuracy of pitch matching of these young children. The practice at these kindergarten sites gives much encouragement in seeing the implementation of the musical aspects of Te Whariki. There was more good modeling than inappropriate modeling, there were multiple events of sound exploration at each site, at some sites the children were left to their own devices in their explorations, choose how long they would explore and experiment, and how they chose to develop their ideas. Consequently the video data show exciting events of musical exploration evidencing critical awareness of the sounds, through development and knowledge of the elements of music, use of dynamics, rhythmic and beat aspects, and structure of their creative pieces. It is highly doubtful that the children would have been capable of verbalizing any of this musical understanding content, but this did not stop them implementing the concepts.
64 Holistic music making The literature suggested that children use all senses and modes of expression in their music play and this factor was evident in the data. To list each individual event when music making was occurring would have been impossible, as there was as much variety as there were children. From a two-second distraction by sounds during water play, to the fun of banging wooden clogs on a wooden deck, to extended absorbed play on a glockenspiel, to the constant call and response of higher pitched, easily produced young voices, playing on swings, and slides, and forts, and in sandpits. There was the child who improvised a song for her whole class during formal mat time, about the rain the previous night and how it kept her awake but she didn’t want to sleep in and miss kindergarten. The boys who were absorbed in listening to the taped music and dancing, showed remarkable development in their chosen movements. Further, they were an excellent example of the free play exploration possibilities of children given the freedom from adult active guidance to discover for themselves. While the rich data episodes were frequent, as were the individual shorter musical events, there were still extended time periods when no measures for musical events were collected from the videos. During these time periods the children were still at play and still being creative, using other modes of expression, including language, and visual arts materials, and sand and water, and hammer and nails and tools, and so on.
Extra - musical music making Teachers used music in teaching other skills, such as math and reading readiness. They also used music in physical co-ordination activities, with parachute and ribbons. They sang to the children when they were doing puzzles, and playing outside. What was interesting to observe in these situations was that the children did not engage with the musical side of the activity, but became absorbed in the main function of the activity. Seldom did the children join the teachers in singing, during these extra musical events. It was only as they lost interest in the main focus of the activity that they noticed, or took cognizance, of the musical aspect of the event. Then they were more likely to sing along,
65 with the teacher, but this was uncommon. Recorded music was used as mood setting at some kindergartens, with quiet instrumental music when it was calming down time, lively children’s songs when the children had just arrived for the morning session, instrumental music when the children wanted to dance. At some kindergartens it was simply background sound that was not taken into account by the teachers, such as the incident when the teacher was singing a math game with a tape playing beside her, and trying to get the children to sing along with her. The children did not attempt to join her until the taped music stopped. There was a wide variety in the amount of time that music was playing at different kindergartens, and the amount of intent involved in make such decisions. In two of the kindergartens, recordings were put on to play and then left until they had finished. This resulted in music playing for over 60% of the time in these two sites. In the other six kindergartens there was more intent involved in the use of recorded music, with less of the session time having music playing, and teacher input into selecting how long each recording was left playing, and what function it was serving in the running of that day‘s program.
Informal, self selected, music making At every kindergarten venue, there were children who selected to go to the music area and play with the instruments for a period of time. Some were brief visits, others were more purposeful and developed as the children took the instruments and experimented with them. It was good to see wide ranging play, using various techniques to make discoveries about the instruments. An example was the boy at kindergarten one, who found all sorts of ways to make sound with the triangle, but was inhibited from extending his exploration by the teacher who wanted him to do it the ‘right’ way. A further example was the girl at kindergarten six, who played on the glockenspiel for several minutes, using fast random notes, glissandos, two note chords, steady beat patterns, rhythmic patterns, joyous enthusiastic loud sounds, gentle tapping sounds. Her absorption in this activity
66 was only broken by the event of a boy being sat next to her to play a guitar. The two girls at kindergarten three experimented widely with the choice of percussion instruments. They then made choices and set up a drum kit on the floor. They sat down, one on each side of the lineup of drums and played, alternately singing along, or ignoring the tape that was playing beside them. Children at the kindergartens with pianos available to them visited them regularly, often in groups of two or three, playing chord clusters, individual notes with alternate hands, and picking out melodic type patterns. Their play on the pianos was non-intrusive into the general kindergarten activities, showing that guidelines had been established and the children were aware and acceding to them, while enjoying the exploration. A special needs child with his own teacher, at kindergarten two, spent several minutes with a wooden rope ladder and another piece of wood, ‘playing’ the steps on the ladder, listening, and playing, and choosing patterns of order in which to play them, then playing the whole ladder as his teacher held it for him. The boys at kindergarten eight showed an ongoing delight in responding to music with movement, and over a twenty minute period of time they danced in time with the music and followed the instructions for when to move within the music. During the course of this event the movement showed development, in complexity and combinations. Movements that were single limbed to start with involved two limbs as they progressed through the event. They copied each other, taught each other and developed each other’s ideas. Towards the end of the event their enjoyment of the experience became heightened, energy levels and extent of movements increased, and they vocalized as they danced, using wide pitch ranges. The teacher was present during all of this event, rewinding the tape as the boys requested it, playing with pois while sitting and watching. Her guidance was generally passive, making safety comments at one point, and then teaching the movements to a song with which the boys were not familiar. When the excitement level continued to rise towards the end of the event, she waited until a sound track was completed, and then turned the tape off and left the area. The boys provided their own music for a few minutes, vocalizing and continuing to
67 dance, but gradually they calmed down and moved to other activities. There did not appear to be any inhibiting effect from the teacher on the boys’ dancing choices, they were free to move and develop movement patterns as they chose. This was a very good example of uninhibited creative music response exploration.
Pitch modeling and pitch ranges
The kindergarten students who had good vocal modeling sang songs in the pitch ranges recommended by the literature, and the children showed accuracy at matching pitch on the songs that they knew. As predicted by the literature, they sang more accurately and strongly when they were not thinking about words. Kindergarten four had two illustrations of this aspect of matching pitch. A song about rain was sung by the whole group in which one of the lines was sung to a repeated ‘ah’, and this line resulted in the strongest, clearest, and most consistent matched intonation of their singing. The second illustration was the child who improvised the song for the group. The first part of her song was repetitive and showed good awareness and security of tonality, then she improvised more complex words and her tonality became more flexible, before she finished the song in the same key she started. The kindergartens who did not have good modeling invariably sang in ranges too low for the children, resulting in the children singing in virtual monotone, or following the melodic shape of the song with little accuracy. One example captured on video was pitched considerably higher than their usual formal singing range, which effectively made it too high, at a site where pitch matching was haphazard at best. An interesting finding was an apparent link between one teacher at kindergarten six, who had a highly modulated speaking voice, and the children’s use of head tone at the same kindergarten, where the children sang considerably higher than at the other sites. The teacher used an over two octave speaking range while running the parachute activities. Much has been written about singing modeling affecting children’s singing ability, but not the use of the vocal range in speech modeling as influencing the
68 children’s use of their singing voices and vocal range. The children’s own songs, examples of which are notated as Appendix G, raise questions about the recommended pitch ranges suggested in the literature for children’s singing. Their chosen pitch range is considerably higher than the literature suggests when they improvise their own songs. It would be reasonable to assume that they are singing where it is most comfortable in their own voices. This does not mean that they can match pitch in this vocal range, that was not part of this study to examine. However their consistent use of their own voices in the vocal range up to G1,with easily produced head tone in play and improvised song, leads to the hypothesis that their normal, formal, tonal singing range is more extensive than previously thought. The high incidence of use of head tone in Kindergarten six supports this hypothesis as normal practice for children who have occasion, opportunity, or modeling. The number of events at many of the sites in the quantitative data could possibly be explained, in some incidents as the ‘musically capable children’, who are doing what they have always done, with the ‘non musically capable children’ finding their creativity in other ways, and therefore not being part of the data. However this high incidence of head tone at kindergarten six was in common across this kindergarten, with the majority of children using their voices this way.
The achievement approach The literature and the curriculum, Te Whariki, call for holistic personal development, with the learning outcomes listed as knowledge, skills and attitudes. In addition, it is clearly understood that the kindergarten is literally a pre-school, preparing the children for the expectations, behaviors, and learning, of the formal primary (elementary) school setting. Pre-reading skills of letters and punctuation and words and writing their names are standard practice in kindergartens, as are pre-math games of counting, classifying, subtracting, etc. This leads to children having the experience and understanding of the concepts to move into more formal learning situations of reading competence and math competence, where getting it ‘right or wrong’ is more
69 consequential. It may be inappropriate, or even counterproductive when this pre-school readiness ethos flows over into the creative areas of the children’s endeavors when teachers are giving guidance. The descriptive event from kindergarten one illustrates the problems inherent with the achievement approach being applied across all aspects of the kindergarten activities, and its effect on a child’s creative explorations. A child was playing with a triangle, his preferred method of playing was to hold it firmly and strike it. He showed this by continually returning to this sound. He experimented with a number of other ways of playing the triangle: tapping it on the floor, circling the striker inside it like a dinner gong sound, threading the triangle onto the striker and running it backwards and forwards. However he always returning to his preferred mode of play, which was playing beat patterns and random patterns, while grasping the triangle itself. The teacher joined him on the carpet, and began to play another triangle the ‘proper’ way, holding it loosely so that it rang. He continued with his preferred sound, so she skillfully questioned, asking him to compare his sound with her sound. She asked him to try her sound, so he did and the triangle swung and was not in control, so he went back to his preferred style. Then she told him to make sounds and she would copy him, which he did, playing on the outside of the triangle on different sides. Then she asked him to imitate her. He did with the same effect; the triangle rang, but it was not in control. A girl got a triangle off the shelf and sat down with the two on the mat and held the triangle as the teacher was, and played a ringing sound. The teacher commended her. The girl did not play any more, or do any exploration of the instrument. When the teacher was distracted by other activities, she put the triangle away and left the area. The boy sat and looked at teacher and triangle briefly, and did the same ( put it away and found something else to do.) There were many other incidents where teachers in kindergarten settings and their expectations allowed for sound creativity to be more uninhibited. An ongoing example of this was the piano play at the three kindergartens with a piano. Children visited the pianos all through the morning session, alone or in small groups, for time periods of a few
70 seconds, up to more than a minute. They used the full range of the keyboard, playing chord clusters, fast note patterns, and melodic material, they showed awareness of the piano’s ability to show different dynamics, they showed instinctive understandings of pulse and rhythms and tempo. Perhaps the piano is easier to make available for the children to explore in their own ways. A kindergarten teacher, whatever the piano ability, is not likely to intervene and model for the children the proper way to play, or where middle c is, etc. One of the kindergartens had an acetate (perspex) front on the piano, and the incidents of casual piano play at this kindergarten were constant.
Music links to primary school. The interview with the expert teacher, which resulted in the categories for the quantitative analysis, also highlighted a problem that exists with the transition to school and the children’s kindergarten music experiences. The kindergarten teachers keep records of the individual children’s progress in different areas, with examples of their work. When a child is preparing to start school, that file is made available to the new entrant school teacher. There are visits made by the new entrant teacher to the kindergarten, to meet children who will soon be starting school, and visits by the children, in groups, to the school classroom to see what it is like, often meeting up with children who were previously in kindergarten with them. It is an excellent transition program with high rates of success in having children settle into the more formal setting of primary school. Despite the excellent transition program, there is no facility to transition the children’s pre-school music to the schools new entrant music. There are problems inherent in trying to address this gap. How does a teacher collect examples of children’s music exploration to put in their personal folio? How does a generally trained kindergarten teacher with minimal awareness of the content of creative exploration write a note about a child’s experience, such as the triangle story? Efforts are being made to address the fact that written records are an incomplete reflection of the child’s kindergarten experience, and ongoing research is currently being carried out with the use of Learning Stories as a method for expanding the depth of record
71 keeping on a child, as well as informing parents of the child’s activities and achievements in the course of the kindergarten day. These learning stories can contain digital pictures, allowing the children and the parents can see what happened during the learning event, and read the teacher’s descriptions and links to the curriculum and skill development. These Learning Stories are proving to be a powerful instrument in encouraging parent understanding and knowledge of their individual child’s progress, as well as their understanding of where this fits with the curriculum and general learning. The story is printed and sent home with the child for parents to read, comment and sign, and then is put in the child’s personal portfolio, which is available for the children to peruse whenever they like. It is a very time consuming method of record keeping for the teachers, and is still under trial, but the results are suggesting that it is very effective in terms of the holistic development of the child’s self image and attitude to involvement. It is possible to write about musical experiences, and this is done, but no sound recordings are part of this record keeping as yet. Teachers involved in the main data collection of this study reported that they had become more aware of the music that the children were experiencing during their time at kindergarten between the initial visit of the researcher and the date of the data collection. Because the researcher visited each site and had extended conversation with teaching teams a week prior to the data collection, they were sensitized to be aware of music incidents they had previously not noticed, particularly in the areas of vocal improvisation and timbre play with found sounds rather than instruments.
Implications for New Zealand Early Childhood Education
This study set out to examine current practice in early childhood music in New Zealand as it happens in the kindergarten setting. However, as is often the case, along with some answers this study has raised many questions, and opened up areas that need more exploration before even tentative conclusions can be drawn.
72 Areas for action include: 1. Teacher training for early childhood educators must include some of the finding of this study: that children’s vocal range is more extensive than they suppose, that their speaking voice range can have an effect on the children’s use of their voices in speaking and singing, and that organization of the structured environment can have a positive effect on the children’s music making opportunities. 2. Kindergarten associations will be invited to use the researcher to present findings of this study to their teachers, inviting discussion and clarification, so that they can become more aware in their own kindergartens of how to facilitate creative sound exploration, and good vocal modeling. 3. Teachers and children who appear on segments of good practice on the current video material will be contacted, with a view to collating a good practice video to be used in teacher training.
Areas for further research include: 1. More research needs to be done to investigate the children’s preferred singing range. 2. More research is needed to investigate the effect of the teachers speaking voice range on the children’s use of their voices. 3. More research is needed to find out how to effectively set up musical sound exploration in New Zealand kindergartens that children can safely do, without intruding unduly on the other activities of the kindergarten (sound intrusion), while having the freedom to creatively explore.
73 Appendix A
Te Whariki Early Childhood Curriculum
Introduction
74 Te Whariki Early Childhood Curriculum
This verbatim copy of the first pages of the document uses New Zealand spellings of English words. The hyperlink for the complete document can be found in the bibliography
Glossary:
Nga Kohanga Reo:- Maaori language immersion pre-schools
Te Whariki:- lit woven mat, denoting the interwoven aspects of the principles and strands which build the holistic curriculum
Te Tiriti O Waitangi:- The Treaty of Waitangi, founding document of modern New Zealand, signed between Queen Victoria and a proportion of the Maaori chiefs in 1850.
Other text, such as the naming of the principles and strands, are equivalent in English and Maaori verbatim copy of pages 7 – 16
Foreword
This curriculum statement provides the basis for consistent high quality curriculum delivery in the diverse range of early childhood services in New Zealand.
Over the past century, early childhood care and education services in New Zealand have been established to meet the particular needs of children, parents, and communities, as well as those of society as a whole. Today, early childhood services are jointly involved with families in the socialization, care and education of children.
It is especially significant that this curriculum has been developed in response to initiatives from the early childhood sector. While services are diverse in terms of structure and philosophy, early childhood education personnel have worked together to develop a common curriculum on which to base their programmes. It has been developed from, and builds on, experience of curriculum development within the different early childhood services, together with findings in research, international literature, and the shared knowledge and agreed understandings that have emerged in New Zealand over the past two decades. Feedback on the draft document has clearly demonstrated that the many and diverse services in the sector have accepted the general principles and the framework of this document. This curriculum statement takes into account the many responses to the draft document that were received, as well as findings from exploratory studies and the pilot professional development programmes.
This is the first bi-cultural curriculum statement developed in New Zealand. It contains curriculum specifically for Maaori immersion services in early childhood education, and
75 establishes, throughout the document as a whole, the bi-cultural nature of curriculum for all early childhood services.
The importance of the social context within which children are cared for and learning takes place is on of the foundation stones of the curriculum. It is clearly acknowledged that the relationships and the environments that children experience have a direct impact on their learning and development.
This curriculum statement covers the education and care of children from birth to school age entry. Coverage of this age range is innovative and clearly reflects the concept of learning as a life long process that begins at the very start of life.
I am grateful to all who have contributed to this exciting and challenging development, especially those who acted as consultants, writers, members of reference groups, and members of the Minister’s advisory group, all of whom gave freely of their time, experience and expertise.
Kia kaha ki a koutou mahi (Lit: be strong in the working you all do)
(signature) Lyall Perris Acting Secretary for Education
Introduction
This curriculum is founded on the following aspirations for children:
To grow up as competent and confident learners and communicators, healthy in mind, body and spirit, secure in their sense of belonging and in the knowledge that they make a valued contribution to society.
This curriculum defines how to achieve progress towards this vision for learners in early childhood learning environments. It is about the individual child. Its starting point is the learner and the knowledge, skills and attitudes that the child brings to their experiences. The curriculum is also about early childhood settings. Learning begins at home, and early childhood programmes outside the child’s own home play a significant role in extending early learning and in laying the foundations for successful future learning.
Each community to which a child belongs, whether it is a family home or an early childhood setting outside the home, provides opportunities for new learning to be fostered: for children to reflect on alternative ways of doing things; make connections
76 across time and place; establish different kinds of relationship; and encounter different points of view. These experiences enrich children’s lives and provide them with the knowledge, skills and dispositions that need to tackle new challenges.
This is an early childhood curriculum specifically designed for children from the time of birth to school entry, and it provides links to learning in school settings. The learning environment in the early childhood years is different from that in the school sector. This learning environment, the constraints of age, and the special nature of the early childhood years are elaborated on in this curriculum.
This curriculum emphasizes the critical role of socially and culturally mediated learning and of reciprocal and responsive relationships for children with people, places, and things. Children learn through collaboration with adults and peers, through guided
participation and observation of others, as well as through individual exploration and reflection.
This is a curriculum for early childhood care and education in New Zealand. In early childhood education settings, all children should be given the opportunity to develop knowledge and an understanding of the cultural heritages of both partners to Te Tiriti o Waitangi. The curriculum reflects this partnership in text and structure.
The Purpose and Structure of the Document
The purpose of this document is to provide a curriculum framework that will provide the basis for consistent curriculum and programmes in chartered early childhood education services. This curriculum applies to all children in chartered early childhood educational settings. It sets out the principles, strands and goals which are distinctively appropriate for the early childhood years, and provide examples of the links between early childhood years and the school years.
The term “curriculum” is used in this document to describe the sum total of the experiences, activities, and events, whether direct or indirect, which occur within an environment designed to foster children’s learning and development.
These experiences, activities, and events may be based on forward planning or may evolve in response to a particular situation.
This document is divided into four sections. It is important, however, that it is read and used as an integrated whole. The principles, strands and goals are common to all early
77 childhood services. The ways in which they are put into practise, however, may differ from service to service.
The English and Maaori texts parallel and compliment each other. The Mäori curriculum is designed specifically to provide a basis for appropriate practise in ngä köhanga reo. It is also applicable within other Maaori immersion programmes. The Maaori curriculum is an integral part of the document and provides a basis for bicultural early childhood education in New Zealand.
Part A of this document describes the curriculum Whäriki and the early childhood context in New Zealand. Part A outlines the importance of meeting the needs of specific groups, such as children with special needs and those in Tagata Pasefika early childhood centres. It also outlines the background to the development of this curriculum.
There is a summary of the principles, strands, and goals of the curriculum in Part A. These are further developed in Part C. Part A includes some indicators of broad stages in children’s learning and development, and identifies processes of planning evaluation, and assessment and the ways in which these are related to the principles of the curriculum.
Part B establishes the particular emphasis for curriculum in nga kohanga reo. This section will also be of use to other Maaori immersion services.
Part C expands on the principles, strands and goals and forms the framework for implementation. The four key principles are described. The strands are explained, both in general terms and in how they relate to the principles of the early childhood curriculum. Implications for adult responsibilities for management, organization, and practice in early childhood settings are set out for each strand. Some of the expectations for children as they move from early childhood settings to school are also described.
Each strand has associated goals, which in turn have specific learning outcomes. These learning outcomes are identified in Part C. Examples of experiences that will help meet the needs of, and achieve the necessary learning outcomes for; infants, toddlers, and young children are suggested in this part. These examples are intended to promote discussion and assist services in developing programmes that are closely related to the principles, strands, and goals of the curriculum. Examples of reflective questions designed specifically for each goal provide a further basis for discussion. Supporting resources will provide further assistance in planning, evaluation, assessment, and implementation.
Part D demonstrates the links each strand has with the essential skills and essential learning areas of The New Zealand Curriculum Framework for schools. Terms used with specific meanings in this document are defined in the glossary, which is also in Part D.
78 The Curriculum Whariki for New Zealand Children
The curriculum is provided by the people, places, and things in the child’s environment: the adults, the other children, the physical environment, and the resources. The curriculum integrates care and education and includes both specifically planned experiences and activities and interactions that arise spontaneously. The early childhood curriculum has been envisaged as a whariki, or mat, woven from the principles, strands, and goals defined in this document. The whariki concept recognizes the diversity of early childhood education in New Zealand. Different programmes, philosophies, structures, and environments will contribute to the distinctive patterns of the whariki.
Distinctive patterns will come from:
1 cultural perspectives, such as in kohanga reo or various Pacific Islands early childhood centres; 2 structural differences, such as in sessional or full day programmes; 3 organizational differences, such as in kindergarten or child care centres; 4 different environments, such as in home-based, or center-based programmes; 5 philosophical emphases, such as in Playcentre, Montessori, or Rudolph Steiner programmes; 6 different resources which are available in urban and rural settings 7 the ways in which the local community participates; 8 the age range of children in the programme.
[Section on Including Children with Special Needs. Section on Distinctive Contexts, specifically Maaori Immersion curriculum, and Tagata Pasefika: Pacific Island early childhood centres.)
THE PRINCIPLES, STRANDS AND GOALS FOR THE EARLY CHILDHOOD CURRICULUM
The Principles
There are four broad principles at the center of the early childhood curriculum.
Empowerment: The early childhood curriculum empowers the child to learn and grow.
79 Holistic Development: The early childhood curriculum reflects the holists way children learn and grow.
Family and Community: The wider world of family and community is an integral part of the early childhood curriculum.
Relationships: Children learn through responsive and reciprocal relationships with people, places, and things.
Strands and Goals
The strands and goals arise from the four principles, The whariki is woven from these four principles and the following five strands, or essential areas of learning and development. The principles and strands together form the framework for the curriculum. Each strand has several goals. Learning outcomes have been developed for each goal in each of the strands, so that the whariki becomes and integrated foundation for every child’s development.
Strand 1: Well-being – Mana Atua
The health and well-being of the child are protected and nurtured
Goals Children experience an environment where:
1 their health is promoted; 2 their emotional well-being is nurtured; 3 they are kept safe from harm.
Strand 2: Belonging – Mana Whenua
Children and their families feel a sense of belonging.
Goals Children and their families experience an environment where:
1 connecting links with the family and the wider world are affirmed and extended; 2 they know they have a place; 3 they feel comfortable with the routines, customs, and regular events; 4 they know the limits and boundaries of acceptable behaviour.
Strand 3: Contribution – Mana Tangata
80 Opportunities for learning are equitable, and each child’s contribution is valued.
Goals 1 there are equitable opportunities for learning, irrespective of gender, age, ability, ethnicity, or background; 2 they are affirmed as individuals; 3 they are encouraged to learn with, and alongside others. Strand 4: Communication – Mana Reo
The languages and symbols of their own and other cultures are promoted and protected.
Goals 1 they develop non-verbal communication skills for a range of purposes; 2 they develop verbal communication skills for a rage of purposes; 3 they experience the stories and symbols of their own, and other cultures; 4 they discover and develop different ways to be creative and expressive.
Strand 5: Exploration – Mana Aoturoa
The child learns through active exploration of the environment.
Goals 1 their play is valued as meaningful learning and the importance of spontaneous play is recognized; 2 they gain confidence in and control of their own bodies; 3 they learn strategies for active exploration, think and reasoning; 4 they develop working theories for making sense of the natural, social, physical, and material worlds.
81 Appendix B
Interview Transcript
82 Colleen, would you like to tell me about your kindergarten, and any things about your children that you want to?
Our kindergarten is a very friendly place to be in, the children seem to enjoy coming to the kindergarten. Some times it is not as relaxed as it should be, but on other occasions its very relaxed, we had a very good day today. (this is the forth day of the New Year ed.) Being the first week of term I think that’s quite something. Our children are responsive; they love to be involved in group work, they respond beautifully to any kind of music, and stories. They’re good learners, they’re good listeners, and they’re very eager to learn. They seem to be very teachable.
What sort of group work do you do?
We do stories, music, math games, parachute games, board games, science in the sand, science everywhere, threading, singing games, physical large motor movement, e.g. forward rolls, climbing, ball games, skipping, puzzles, block play and baking. Last year we took groups. Each teacher has 15 children in each group (3 teachers) whose portfolios they are responsible for. Last year it was the morning children only (4yr.3mth to 5yr 0mth), this year it is afternoon children as well (3yr.6mth to 4yr. 3mth). We divide them in those groups and each teacher takes their group on a Monday and a Friday. They can choose what activity they do with the children. We are very strong on numeracy and literacy, and my belief is that music teaches both these skills very quickly, and easily. So we do an activity with our group. We can do anything in small groups. You might do baking, you might do a math game, you might take a music group centering on percussion. There may be all sorts of things happening in that group. I often, as a teacher, sing instructions to the children.
Why do you do that?
Because children stop and listen. For example this morning on the mat (circle time) everyone was noisy. (Colleen sings: I need you to listen) everyone stopped talking, ok? And then also there’s a fascination about it and their eyes light up and I get these beautiful grins from ear to ear from the children when I do that too. The group work, lets get back to what we are talking about. We’re doing it with our afternoon children as well this year because we found that we had a lot of unsettled children and a very big group is quite frightening for a new child to go into. My first group was Wednesday. I had a cush ball. We were singing and calling the names as we threw the ball to one another so that the children would learn one another’s names.
This was the morning or the afternoon group?
The afternoon group, their first session of group work. Their response was amazing. They were so so settled and listening and, well… if you can use good, they were! Today I
83 was outside and I sang and we sang (Colleen sings let’s march around the tree, let’s jump up and down, let’s fly in the air….) before we settled down and had a story.
So you make up your songs?
Oh I do, I do that a lot, because I enjoy it, you see, and the children love it and they respond immediately. Today they were laughing, but they were doing everything that I said as I taught. I really think that the group work for the afternoon is perfect
How much of the morning session or the afternoon session is in group work
Usually 15 – 20 minutes in the afternoon, in the morning it could be 30 minutes or maybe longer. We did puzzle skills the other day and I just got the children to continue doing a series of puzzles increasing in complexity as they completed their puzzles. But I was taking the whole group this morning (all 45 children) I wanted to do something active, so I put on ‘High Five’ (adult singing group who perform specifically for early childhood settings, based in Australia, three women and two men) and the children danced. They either dressed up, or took the percussion instruments, or they just pumped about, they danced! I always make an effort to do something with music. I used to do percussion with guitar. It’s quite fun but I haven’t yet this year.
Why do you always try to do music?
It completes a session. For example if I take a whole mat (circle time) [on the days that we don’t have group work this happens early in the session. However on every day we have a mat (circle time) at the end of the sessions, morning and afternoon]. End mat (circle time) is a time for notices and a time for singing and a time for story, but at that time we always do a math game using counting, and we’ve become increasingly aware of how important it is to have the digit, the word and talking the numbers through. The whole thing pictured. You’re singing the word and you’re showing the numbers. (Counting games with fingers and toes, addition and subtraction)
Tell me about all of the music that you can think of that happens in your kindergarten.
Singing, dancing percussion, poi, rakau (claves), action songs, musical stories with tapes and big books, spontaneous group singing, planned singing with guitar, parachute, lycra. Well, the children will sit on the swing and I will sing. Whenever I push a child on the swing I sing. I sing anything that comes into my head. I might sing a nursery rhyme, or if I’m counting (Colleen sings One two, buckle my shoe…) or I might sing twinkle twinkle little star, or I’ll say “Old Macdonald had a farm, how many cows did he have on his farm?” and we’ll sing that or I might just make up a song, like (Colleen sings Sophie’s on the swing she wants me to give her a push. One push two pushes three pushes four pushes I’m only giving you ten. Six pushes seven pushes eight pushes nine pushes ten pushes. Now you have to do it yourself) Why are you only giving me ten? Because I get
84 tired arms. They shake their heads. No you don’t get tired arms. You’re a big person. (laughing) In the sandpit I might sing, I make up lots of ditties. I don’t do it always, it depends on my mood. I don’t know why that is but some days I don’t sing as much. But I do know that if suddenly things go array and I sing, I can get much more focused attention, I’ve found that over a number of years.
So there’s the informal singing that happens during the play and the more formal singing that happens during the mat (circle time) times when you’re working on specific songs
And the spontaneous group that happens. You might have a bus (drama activity where children line up, perhaps with chairs) or a train. [Colleen sings ‘We’re all going on a train, where are we traveling to.. do.. do. I’ll get my guitar we might sing some songs as we go along] [Giggles]. So I get my guitar and they go and get percussion instruments because if I have my instrument then they must have their instruments too. They love the bus too. [ song: The wheels on the bus go round and round] We sing that. Then I might go off into a reverie of making up the song, because I’m out in the playground nobody knows what I’m playing, so I make it up with the guitar. I play my guitar and I sing and the kids think it’s fun. ‘Now sing about me!’ I get that from time to time. I must say that I’m doing less of it than I used to, but near the end of last year I thought ‘Why aren’t I doing this?’ So I started doing more of it again, and I’m going to make sure I keep it up this year because the response from the children is amazing, they love it!
Could you talk more about the children’s response. I’d be interested in hearing about them making up songs after hearing you making up songs. But first give me the children’s response to your singing.
Well they’ll laugh sometimes, they’ll say ‘oh Colleen you’re silly’, and I say ‘did you enjoy it?’ and they say ‘mmmm’. Then I’ll get the ‘sing about me’ because I might have named a few children. I love the smile that I get when someone is doing a puzzle and I will just talk at first and say ‘you’re doing a very good job (Colleen sings ‘In fact I think you’re clever’) and the face beams, big smile and the eyes light up, and I might get this little coy look about them. With Maddison (child) in particular, she will walk about the kindergarten singing away, just anything. I will join in with her occasionally, then she will make something up and then I will make something up. I used to do this more. We had another teacher at our kindergarten, Sina, and she and I would sing together. If I started singing on my way into the kindergarten, sometimes I do crazy things like that and come in skipping and singing, and she would start singing with me, cos she loved it you see. ‘Come on Colleen, let’s do that again’. We might dress up (laughter) sometimes I’ll actually dress up, I don’t do it a whole lot. Sharon was walking around the kindergarten today in dress-up. Then I’ll act out silly things. I think it’s part of my heritage, my mother did fun things. She sang all the time. She always sang around the house. Whenever I think of my mother (deceased) I think of someone singing. So I think she released in me that feeling that music is healthy and good and it’s fun and you can relax
85 with music too. I believe children need music to grow, otherwise there is a part of the brain that is not being serviced, a part of the mind, a part of the being. It’s definitely a soul thing, and definitely something that needs attention. It gets to the heart of the child because that’s where the ear to ear smiles come from.
I talk about the wairua when I am speaking of the power of singing on a person. It touches the depth of the being, the spirit, the soul, but using a word that doesn’t have the religious overtones for those for whom those words are uncomfortable, wairua is more acceptable.
A merry heart doeth good like a medicine. This is where the music comes in, a merry heart could be laughter, but it could also be music.
We’ve covered a lot of activities and experiences, but all so far have been focused on singing, using the voice, guitar with singing, percussion with singing. Are there any other triggers for music making?
Children ask for a c.d. or tape to be put on. They ask for High Five, or ‘Who let the dogs out’ (laughter) even if it’s only got one line in it. The other thing that happens is that there will be a beautiful spontaneous … one or two children get all the drums out and play the drums and play the percussion, and I will say ‘wow, that’s brilliant stuff’. I love watching you do that. I’ve got a photo of one of the children. I did a learning story. We had Matua Barry and Whaea Paki come in to work with the children for two weeks, they brought into our kindergarten a lot of the Maaori culture and included in that were stories and music as well. This was a really deep learning experience for all involved. It was also lots of fun. We don’t use the piano very often, so we had to clear it of papers etc when the Waikato Children’s Choir came and sang for us . When we can, I get Rosalind (Colleen’s daughter) to come and play her cello. I read stories also. Do you know The orchestral animals. In this story each animal plays a different instrument. It is a video- tape with book illustrations. In that way the children get exposed to other instruments
Can I give you some cues? When the children ask for c.d.s and tapes to be put on, what do they do?
They boogie sometimes. We have a danceathon and they do boogie, but they might just go into a swooning mood, and just dance, and dress up and just dance…. I might put Kids Classics on. That won’t be requested, that’s usually a Colleen initiated one. If I put on Feeling the Beat, or Pukeko Stomp or something, or maybe Dancing to the beat, that has songs on, I might go in and do songs and movement with the children. I might just put on a tape of my choice that I like and set the movements that I choose for the children to do, like free dance, creative dance, but then on other occasions we will follow what the words tell us to do. But then you’ll leave it on and that’s when it happens. The children just pick up the scarves, or ribbons, or dress-up, and they’ll dance. It can be free dance of if it is High Five, they will follow the instructions. Everything is out for the children to take.
86 I might take a scarf music group and put on maybe a kids choir or I might put on Toffee Apple and then I’ll …we’ll have a fast one and then a slow one so we unwind. If we have a music group and we’ve had about four fast tracks, I’ll put it on a very quiet one, so that we’re doing slower, quieter movements with our scarves . Without wind-down the children might go crazy haring round the kindergarten after music has finished. Another thing that I do with the children is to have all the children at the mat (circle time) with a percussion instrument, we do some marching and we make a band.
How well do the children respond to beat at that point?
This morning for example we had the Beach Song (Colleen sings ‘I went down to the beach and what did I find, I found some rocks to play in time. Playing a rock sound loudly mmmmmmm’.) And so on….
It has specific instructions
Of beat yes, and time, and we make sure we stop the tape and say you need to listen to the music and when the person is saying five, let’s do it together, 1,2,3,4,5,.
You have a rehearsal?
Yes that’s exactly what we do. The song has fast slow and soft and loud. We also have another one that plays a beat (Colleen claps simple 4 beat pattern) and the children have to echo the beat. We do lots with the rakau you know Music Music? (remembering a song, she recites) Sticks are banging in the air, sticks are banging way down low, way up high, sticks going end to end. It’s a Kids Music Company song, from Wendy Jensen and Janet Channon., we do a lot of that. So it’s rhythm that is being taught and beat and keeping in time with the music. There’s not a day that passes where there’s not some form of music done. That may not be true for some during group work, but there is always spontaneous singing or something happening outside. I will take outside percussion instruments, the tape recorder, a pile of tapes to play. Maybe I’ll take the rakau (clave), maybe I’ll take the poi. It doesn’t matter what I take, the tape will be playing and a child will walk past and they will pick up a poi and spin it for a while and they’ll walk on by, and the music is always there.
You have music playing all the time?
Not all the time but outside I will often have tapes on. I will play unless I take a story and then I’ll switch it off, or maybe I’ll want to do a ball game or something. If I’m over on the grass then the music can still play. Usually I put it on as a set activity for me to have a music group, when I’ve finished I’ll leave it on and say to the children ‘you can continue on if you would like to, I will leave the tape on’ and they will say Colleen can you put such and such a tape on, we want to listen to this or we want to listen to that. They know
87 the tapes, and they have particular favorites. We have musical books as well, big books and normal size books with a tape that sings the songs or has background music while the story is read. (Colleen recites, trying to remember the story ‘I love the springtime rock and roll. That’s a nice dance, the ladybird sings. The cow danced and the green grass sings….. The farmer says…. well bless my floppy hat and bless my soul, I’m doing the springtime rock and roll) I love it, you’ve got to get that one! I do find music quite helpful if I have the presence of mind. Sometimes you don’t always use the skill that you have, and you need to! For example, if a child is having trouble with hammering a nail I might go with them and sing (Colleen sings Hammer hammer hammer hammer bang bang bang. We’re going to get this nail in and make…. whatever we’re making) I find it as a helpful thing for a child who’s having difficulty and feeling like giving up. I do tend to revert to the music if things aren’t working out, if things look difficult I will revert to music to help them. It works, of course it does. Cuddles and music are great too, for guidance and encouragement.
What can you tell me about songs that the children make up?
If I’ve been singing, for example I’ll sing a song, and one will say ‘I’d like to sing a song’. I’d love to record them but of course they are just gone. But you get the most amazing song and you think it should be finished but it isn’t cos it goes on and on and on for a long time. Another time it will be a short ditty but someone who has listened to me will decide that their song should be long (laughter). It’s the little boys that do it, not just the girls, you see. Interesting isn’t it. In the sandpit will be mostly boys, and if I start singing about somebody’s toy that they’re working very hard with, and they’re digging in the sand and (Colleen sings cf recitative They’re making a road to somewhere, or maybe it’s a river, I’ll never be able to tell) or something like that, and the child will laugh at me and say ‘of course I know’. Then you get the backlash after that, someone humming after that, and what they’re singing we often don’t catch, when somebody else has decided that they want some attention of some sort, be it a song or whatever. But usually in a group thing when everybody’s working together and if you start this singing it’s quite funny what happens. The group all sort of laugh for a while and then get into it, you’ll start getting a few hummings and things like that. I think we could get more spontaneous singing. You’ll go into areas in the kindergarten and the children will be singing as they work, e.g. puzzles, art. I have observed children happily singing as they play, in most areas. Often it occurs when play is solitary. With no teachers anywhere near by?
Is that a learned behavior? Is there something, maybe that happens that home or someone at home sings, do you think that’s why that happens?
Children have music all the time, they have radio, TV., they got to shopping malls. They hear music all the time, even if parents don’t sing. They get a chance to sing at kindy,
88 then of course they use those songs as well. Maaori children with marae experience, Mainly Music, parents who love Rock n Roll etc
I am sure that some of these children who line the drums up, hear their fathers play the drums at home. If we are learning a new song that a child knows, we give that child an opportunity to lead at the front of the group. For instance we have just started with a karakia One of our children knows it so he always gets called up the front to lead us. He sings it out really well, at times. (laughter) What we say when they’re singing really loudly and not in tune, is ‘you need to listen to the person beside you and in front of you, so that you can hear and keep in time with everybody. If we all sing a little more quietly we can all hear what a great sound we can make’.
You can also say ‘How many ears have we got? Two. How many mouths have we got? One. So we need to listen twice as much as singing.
There’s quite a lot of child-initiated music because the children ask for music. It’s a very busy kindergarten so that’s why often if they haven’t asked for music I will put something on.
Let’s go back to your kindergarten. Can you describe for me what your kindergarten looks like. Close your eyes and walk around your kindergarten and tell me what you see.
From the gate you see a lovely green patch, which we’ve just acquired, newly grassed where the children can actually run. We used to have a rule that the children could not run because it wasn’t a very big area, but now they can run and play ball and play a lot of games that we didn’t have room for before. Then you walk forward a little more and you have the swings and next to the swings is a shed. Further forward along the path is the climbing equipment, then a lovely big tree which provides wonderful play for water activities. Just across from that is the slide. At the bottom of the slide is bark. If you walk about a meter forward from that there’s a platform, which goes into a very large sandpit which takes up quite a lot of space, so it’s a very big sandpit and lots of activities can happen there. Baking is a favorite activity, there is also a lot of music. The sandpit is a place where a lot of co-operative play happens. Now you move back across to the driveway/pathway we’ve been walking on and you’ve got another big tree with a seat around it. Around that tree are tarpaulins, mats and tables, and on the tables there are puzzles, paints or some other activity. There will always be a pile of books, there’ll be some manipulative equipment (cog sets, Mobilo, a train set or Duplo or Connect, etc), perhaps some large (jigsaw wooden) puzzles (gestures a metre size for the puzzle), perhaps some poi or rakau, and a tape deck and music. You move a little further down the path and come to a concrete area where we have just had a new overhang put on the eastern side of our kindergarten building. It is clear Perspex. Under it is a carpentry bench and in cupboards; tools, wood and nails. The next thing down the drive are the stairs up onto a big verandah, which has sides that can be rolled up when it is sunny or down when it is raining, as well as different doors into the kindy. Go back down the
89 stairs and walk past the carpentry area, turn left and walk up another set of stairs into the main area of the kindergarten building. Immediately to your right are the percussion instruments, the piano, the tape deck and the c.d.s. Beside the tapes there’s some bean bag turtles, some shells, stones, sand, feathers and puppets. You name it, we’ve got it….scarves and a big wall display because we’ve just done a where do our children come from with two big maps on the wall and a picture by each child and wool thread linked to the country they come from.
How many different countries?
12 – 20 possibly? We are a very multi-cultural kindergarten. All around the walls are Learning stories, or Child’s Voice. A Child’s Voice is what the child has said about what they have done, or what has happened to them, or what they think about something. Learning stories are up on the wall as well and we are starting to laminate the value of each area. For example, the value of the music area is on a wall chart and this is put up for the parents to read. On the other side of the door there is a little platform, like a low landing and you go up the stairs and there’s a sofa and shelves and heaps and heaps of books. Underneath the little landing are the puzzles shelves. The puzzle table is put up for mat (circle time) time, because on the floor is the big mat (circle time) area just inside the door where the children sit at mat (circle time) time. Over the other side is a teacher’s chair and heaps of big books (shared reading, large print versions that are available in normal size books as well). Then you walk along and there is a lot of manipulative equipment. This sounds full but actually it gives a lovely feeling of freedom and openness because as you walk along from the puzzles…. Let’s go to this side of the kindy, we’ve worked down to where the division is so then I’ll work down further. Then we have a table with information for parents. Then there’s a computer desk and children can use that computer. Backing onto that is another computer. Grandma and Me is playing on one side and Kindercarten (sp). They have all sorts of math and music and interactive story programs. Immediately across from that there’s another information area with the portfolios which are all out on display and the parents are allowed to pick them up and read them whenever they like, they can actually take them home if they want. Children take them out all the time and thumb through them they are their portfolios they are welcome to use them anytime.
This is a Waikato association initiative or your kindergarten?
This is our kindergarten since we’ve done our project with Wendy Lee, and it is a Waikato thing actually, because it’s supposed to be being incorporated into all the Kindergartens. This has come into being since the beginning of last year we made them very available for the children. They take them out and they sit on the floor and the thumb through it and they chat about it: ‘Well, that was when I did this, and that was when I did that, and look at this, look at this painting’ and it’s wonderful. Then we’ve got a little wooden doll house that they can play in, and then we have the large blocks. Well, some are large some are not. That’s the block area. We then have
90 the office, we have a hexagonal table with computer keyboards, telephone, pens and pencils and writing paper, and also we photocopy off letters so they can copy them, telephone book, and books are there too, you always have books to read while you’re at the office. (laughter) I’m going to take you down the right hand side now except I’m facing the other way. That merges into the family corner, where a good supply of dolls, clothes and dress-up are available. This merges then into the dough corner. The play- stove, and the refrigerator and the microwave are with the play-dough, and so is the sink. The dough is the cooking area so you can play bake. Then if you continue moving down there is another little room and that’s the science area and there’s fish in an aquarium in there, and plants and shells, and the canary who is outside all day, gets put in there at night. Oh the staff toilet is in there as well but you probably didn’t want to know that (laughter). Come back out of the science area and we’re back in the dough area. If you walk straight across from the dough area you are in the kitchen. The door to the kitchen is always shut, a safety precaution. The kindergarten has a nice open feel to it because you can move anywhere. Come out of the kitchen and you have all your collage materials: paints, glue, arts stuff and natural resources of leaves, shells, petals of flowers and things, bark and shells, colored paper, foam shapes. On the wall above are parent notices, along with information about community events. Children’s artwork is also displayed. Then there’s a painting rack attached to the wall for drying paintings, and boxes. A painting easel, and a big screen printing table, and if you move down that side more, you have another trolley with paper galore and crayons and pens and pencils and scissors and staples and punches and every other thing. Then there’s another table, a great big yellow table. Immediately by the yellow table on the left hand side there’s a wall with windows, and that’s the children’s toilet and the hand-basin. They used to put their bags in what is now our office, but we have hooks out on the covered verandah, so now they hang their bags there. Artwork is seen hanging from wires across the ceiling and around the walls. Well that’s an outline of our kindergarten.
So the children pass all the outside activities to come into the kindergarten? You mentioned a shed earlier on.
Yes, that’s where we store all the outside equipment. There’s hoops and balls and soccer goals and wheelbarrows and trucks and diggers, and so on. Do the children get those out or do you set them out before the children arrive?
Tomorrow I will go and set up, probably put the goal and balls out and I’ll set up the boards and the ladders on the climbing frame otherwise it’s not safe. The rope ladder is often put up right on top of the box. So they climb up the ladder and go across the rope onto the box, and now it’s like a confidence course. That will go up onto the platform onto the slide.
So the climbing frame can be different every time they come?
We’ve got big Tredsafe boxes and you can put them anyway you like but we are limited
91 by space. We’ve got a wave board that you can put up that they can climb with footholds, and a jouncing board, a springy board, which they can jump up and down on. They can jump on any board they like. Some children are crazy; they jump from the boxes way too far sometimes, shudder shudder. I think we need a different soft fall surface but the bark is perfectly okay as far as legality is concerned and it has the safety aspect.
How often do children have accidents off the climbing equipment?
Not very often. But we do have a fully equipped first aid kit, with ice packs, and so on. Very occasionally we’ll have a bad accident. Somebody may hit their head on one of the bars of the climbing frame or they get stuck on the climbing frame, or someone runs in front of a swing and gets kicked, because we haven’t got the room to spread the equipment out as much as we’d like. We’ve just acquired a 9-meter width of grassed area. The Kindergarten is down quite a long right of way, and the house on the front section belongs to the Housing Corporation (Government housing) who said we could have it as long as the tenants agreed. The house has a long back yard, which they did not use, so we had asked if we could have some, and the current tenants had said they would think about it. The new manager of the Waikato Kindergarten Association got moving on it, and just before Christmas the fence was moved and the new grass was planted, and it’s wonderful! The house still has a big back yard, but we have our grass for the first time! So that’s our kindergarten! The layout at present is: you look through the door and you have a clearway, you can walk easily from one activity to the next. Supervision is very easy in this kindergarten. For the new-year we repositioned the equipment, we (teachers) played around with where things would best go, and the current plan emerged. Our office is now where their lockers used to be. Our office is a very busy looking place. It has a brand new computer which is great, a photocopier, and a laminator which is put away. Administration stuff is everywhere. It is a very busy working space.
Do you have an active kindergarten committee?
We have a very active committee. We have a brilliant kindergarten committee actually. It very much depends on the chairperson and her drive as to how effective the committee is. However we had a subcommittee formed who ran our mini gala and it was brilliant. I think we earned more with our mini gala than we ever have in the past. Every term (4 term year) there are set fundraisers that we do, but if someone comes up with something better we’re quite happy to change and to try that. I meant to tell you: we have an auxiliary worker now, we’ve only just had that last year, so we’re teaching her how to use First Base which is our kindergarten admin program. She’s been finding it a bit frustrating with a lot of new children coming in but she’s getting there. It’s really good having an auxiliary worker because there’s a lot of things we would have to do that she now does. It means we can spend more time on our observations and portfolios and actually being teachers and working with the children, which is what we want to do.
92 Colleen can you tell me how effective you think the link is from the kindergarten to schools. Numeracy and literacy are probably fairly well established because the kindergarten and the schools have expectations of that, because of the national push in those areas.
We’ve done that because some of our teachers are really interested in that. I work with the head teacher. She is doing masters papers. She has studied in literacy so she has done reading in that area. We know how important it is and I think that we always try to emphasize it and bring it to the notice of the parents to show what’s happening here. We point out to the children things about books: this is the title, this is an ‘A’, these are the words I am reading, this is a question mark, this is an exclamation mark, this is a full stop, that kind of thing. We’ve done that a lot in the past, but now we do it every single time we read to the children. We have excellent links with Knighton Road Normal School, and they can always pick a Peachgrove Kindergarten child, now that’s an interesting observation. They come in and we have school luncheons every term, maybe more than once a term. The new entrant (Year 0)2 teachers call in quite regularly during the term, from each of the schools our children will go to, once usually from the rest of the schools, but more regularly from Knighton. They just check to see which children are coming to their school soon. Often they will bring work from children who have been at our kindergarten. They’ll come find out more about children, they need more information for instance, on our Somali children. Our liaison with the school is excellent really, because most of our children will go to Knighton. Marian School (private catholic school) has just started their own kindergarten, so we don’t see as many children now who will go to their school, but I’ll be interested to see what happens in the future.
What happens to their music when they go to school?
What happens to their music? I’ve never asked that, but I must ask next time I go. We’ve been to the school on several occasions because we’ve been invited. We take time to go into the classroom and see the children that we’ve sent to the school, and look at their work and talk to the teachers, but I’ve never talked about music!
It’s interesting that there is a gap by default set there. What they’re doing at age 4 and what they’re dong at age 5 has a total cut-off between kindergarten and school first year.
What do they do at school for music, do they do a lot of music? What can they do?
It is totally over to the teacher and to the school. Affected by squeezed curriculum, and
2 When children start school they will enter a new entrant class and their time as a new entrant will depend on their school readiness. All new entrant classes are classified as Year 0/1, and children will be at that level as long as they need to, there is no annual grade graduation.
93 ‘more important’ skills it can be squeezed right out. But as you said music can be so crucial to the learning processes. It was interesting that even although you knew what the topic of the interview was, and even though music is so important in your own life and your own teaching, it was still almost a surprise question.
I haven’t ever investigated what happens at school, but I would like to think it is happening. You go into some classrooms and there is a guitar there and I think therefore there must be good music or at least some music happening there, but it would be a terrible shame if it was not. Do they get training in how to include music in the primary school programme? So they should know the benefits of music.
Yes, those are the students I am involved in training, but they get a very short time for music (24 hours in a freshman paper that includes dance, drama, music and visual art education. Option papers are available in all of the Arts, but less than 10% take these option papers in music at my training institution).
It hasn’t been apparent to me when I go to the schools, I don’t see it. I have seen instruments in a classroom. We have never struck a music session, but perhaps we’ve never been there at the right time. But I remember when my children started school I loved seeing the music session. Emily’s (daughter, now age 28) was in Maree ***’s class, and she was very keen on music, they had such fun with music in her class. I’m sure that it happens at school, but I haven’t asked. I should ask next time I go: what music do they provide at school, would that be the right question?
Or perhaps: they’ve been doing all these things with music at kindergarten, how is this being built on when they come to school? Because it is rather difficult to put music into their portfolios isn’t it. (laughter).
But you can include photographs by using a digital camera you can photograph the activities, you can’t hear it, but you can see what they’re doing. For instance, if the children have made a bus, and they’re all sitting behind the steering wheel, and you photograph this and then write a story about it; this is what happened and this is what the children did. Then when they are dancing I will take two or three shots, so I will get the children waving the scarves, bending over, kicking their feet, so you get the idea the child is dancing to the music. In the portfolio, it is important to have some sort of picture so that the children can see themselves in action. I took a photo of some of the children playing the instruments in a group with me in the afternoon session, so the parents could see they were using the percussion instruments.
I wonder if either of your computers at the kindergarten has a microphone so you can actually record them.
I think you can record for a minute or two on the digital camera, but we can’t take that recording off. Maybe we could put that on the computer for the parents to watch. Now
94 that is something we could do. But I don’t know how, I’m not adept at doing that. Sharon could do that. Now that is something we hope to do in the future, this is part of the exemplar project we are involved with.
That would raise the parent’s awareness, and also their expectations.
That is something that we want to do, to have something playing on the computer over and over. The children love to see themselves. I guess eventually we will get a video camera to record the children having a music group and then pay that when the parents come in. That would be the way to do it? We do have parents bring video cameras to our ‘Danceathon’ which I haven’t told you about yet. We have a ‘Danceathon’, and the children are sponsored to dance for 45 minutes or maybe an hour. What we do is dance for 15 minutes and then go and have supper. If they want to come back and dance they can do so. We have a strobe light and the whole place is dimmed and all the children come dressed up as their favorite character. It’s in the third term, in winter so it’s darker earlier. It ends by about 7:00p.m. and we bring a plate of finger food, and have supper, and if you don’t feel like dancing after supper you don’t have to. But there were some children who went back after supper and they danced and danced and did not want to stop and go home, it was amazing, last time there were about ten children who did this. The Danceathon is a hoot, lots of fun, and a good fundraiser. We do it every year now.
Thank you Colleen for sharing so much of your experience and information about your kindergarten
95 Appendix C
Kindergarten Photographs Photographs of the Kindergarten described in the Interview with expert teacher Colleen.
Figure 1:The reading alcove to the right of the main entrance door.
Figure 2:The display of Learning stories, and children’s computer.
Figure 3:The collage materials rack. Figure 4: Notice-board for parents to see how the kindergarten program is being planned and implemented.
Figure 5: Children find their name when they arrive and place it on the magnetic board.
Figure 6: Parents lending library, books about child Development Figure 7: Children’s collage work and prints from guided activities.
Figure 8: Resource cupboard with math games and clothes. Figure 9: The science corner & fish tank.
Figure 10: Dolls house.
Figure 11: Kitchen corner. Figure 12: Family corner, table used for multiple activities
Figure 13: Book corner. Map shows the different countries that children who attend the kindy are from.
Figure 14: Music corner, currently no piano playing teachers. Children have free access to percussion instruments. Figure 15: The new grassed area. Figure 16: Shaded swing area
Figure 17: The bench where puzzles and Figure 18:Water play tub, general purpose group activities happen. tables, and the sandpit
Figure 19: Covered verandah area where outside activities can happen in inclement weather. Appendix D
Onsite Researcher Observations Kindergarten 1
38 children 3 teachers Length of recording/session 2 hours 55 minutes
Use of Recordings C.D. set to play before children arrive, peaceful mood music, no apparent reaction to it, no attention drawn to it. It is audible over all chatter, plays for 1’ 5“. When it stops children come and request tapes to be played. Girls dance to Spice Girls and sing matching pitch with chorus sections. Boy requests Barney, but no such tape found, so teacher puts on a nursery rhyme tape and boy wanders off. Teacher turns tape off after 15 minutes. Instrumental C.D. put on for last hour of kindergarten time, during which teacher plays a math’s singing game with a group of up to 10 children with the C.D. still playing. The recoded music is changed when cleanup time arrives. A music cue is used to help the children with the tidying up.
Teacher Jo uses a high range of pitch modulation in her speech, and has a higher pitch center to her speech when talking with the children.
8:57 Two boys on swings, singing ‘Jack and Jill…’matching pitch, change the words, abandon singing pitches, change to chant. 9:12 Three boys on fort, chanting fire bombs, fire bombs, fire bombs . Using speaking voices, but altering pitch range…. Over 3 minutes duration. 9:20 humming sound on pitch middle c, source not found, 3 – 4 minutes, no evidence of anyone else noticing it.
15 plus activities for children to select from: swings, fort, sandpit, carpentry, screen-printing, trolleys, puzzles, Duplo (large sized Lego), finger-painting, drawing, painting, play-dough, sewing, fish exploring, child built climbing frame under construction, morning tea, home corner with bed, table, phone, dolls, clothes etc
9:58 Spice Girls tape, ribbons out, sing-along, dance with ribbons, children then able to choose tapes to be played. 10:27 lego area, song tape is playing, boys ignoring, and using sing speech, telling each other the story of their lego constructions. 10:32 antiphonal calling, six girls on swings: ‘Lydia..” changes to ‘Lydila..’ briefly 10:35 grunts from morning tea table (ill – laa) 10:40 boys with book, off cam, telling story about where they think they live, on what they think is a map ‘Auckland’ home, biggest city is ‘Australia’ kindergarten pitch of voices, high and excited, sing songy, high degree of modulation in all of their speech, it is all based on a map of the Vancouver Aquarium. 10:52 trolley song, having repaired the trolley It’s working, it’s working it’s working 10:55 girl on swing, whoooooooo descending pitches, free rhythm pitch g1 – bb 10:55 boy on swing hello hello me – doh pitch b – g 11:20 Clean up time, tape put on to play during clean-up, after instructions are given.
Kindergarten 2
42 children 3 teachers 1 special needs teacher Length of recording/session 2 hours 22 minutes
Use of Recordings Tape of children’s songs sung by children is playing as they arrive. Children join in with ‘heads, shoulders, knees & toes’ matching pitch while doing the actions. This is turned off soon after the children wander off. After an extended play with instrument, a tape is requested. Children dance but do not sing, other children come and watch and listen, but still no singing with the tape, although the songs have been requested and are therefore presumed to be known. A break from recorded music for about 30” and then teacher puts on a rap recording. Boys come and march in front of the sound system in time with the music.
9:00 sandpit, boys, own song I’m a grader 9:20 sandpit, friendly girl singing line 2 nya nya nya nya nya 9:25 Kayla, prize for you… a mother with a gift for a friend of her child… Kayla’s last day at kindergarten 9:30 instruments inside, 9 mth old sibling playing, 2 boys join in, 2 minutes later a girl joins them. Girl gives 9 mth old castanets, parent joins. Boy with drum playing flat on ground, then tilted, 2 beats each building pattern. Parent models ostinato (song 4) boy with drum on floor models accurately 9:40 parent leaves with 9 mth old. Other children drift away. Child with drum wanders off, brings drum back, he is 3 yrs old and belongs with the adult, and is leaving until time to pick up older sibling. 10:37 teacher clears away instruments to make space for a game, which is joined by 6 girls 10:53 Girls at front gate sing soh me lines to friend walking past with parent. 10:56 girl into shade area vocalizing and listening to beats of feet into sound ye ye ye ye separately and bouncing ma ma ma ma 11:00 tidy up and mat time. 11:28 child singing on the way out, very specific melody that nobody can identify see line 6 Kindergarten 3
41 children 3 teachers Length of recording/session 2 hours 55 minutes
Use of Recordings Music tape on when children arrive, soft instrumental, non obtrusive. Music tape played the majority of the session, children were allowed to change the volume, but teacher still always in charge. Changes of recording were requested
9:00 teacher & children listening to the tape. 9:03 4 boys with teacher @ tape & singing 9:10 2 children dancing to the beat of ‘I’m a little angel’ around 10 seconds, no peer or adult input or supervision. 9:14 boy @ breakfast table - own song – see outside video, 15 seconds 9:17 S.N. child with Education worker, burst of vocabulary 9:27 ‘Plip Plop Plo…..’ 2 girls from the toilets, marching with packs NB check inside video and children with audio tape from beg. of session 9:57 boys’ chant ‘no-one’s coming to sit by me’ song 1 9:58 girls on climbing frame ‘scardey cat’ to soh me pitches, playing with sounds, laughter 10:04 climbing frame, ‘I hate you’ accent on hate, using melodic fragments from before. Jumping on the accented word 10:15 Play-dough kitchen, girl singing ‘own song’ for instructions, descending even notes over diatonic scale, 4 steps, repeated. 10:16 girls on inside construction, fragments of own songs 10:20 child going inside, fragment of soh me repeated 10:50 Wym-o-weh song, teacher in reading corner with three girls, singing in Key of A 10:55 Boys with lego, story telling, use of pitch in expressive voices 10:57 same boys, siren noise for one of their Lego vehicles f1 – d1 11:08 banging clasp on wood, listening 11:12 teacher and children on grass, 5 to 16 children, singing songs teacher led, pitch range b1 - f#, using rhythmic chant vocalizing over circa 8ve in chat “Susan what was that?” “Ickle Ockle, black bottle” 11:20 tidy-up 11:33 ‘story time’ teacher using soh me 11:35 songs inside Kindergarten 4
41 children 3 teachers Length of recording/session 3 hours 5 minutes
Use of Recordings Kindergarten starts with mat time, and the children sing well, no recordings. Nothing put on until a stage is built and the children are ready to perform. It is a piano version of ‘Mexican Hat Dance’ this recording on for 10 minutes, then changed to adult male singer for 9 minutes, then female singer with standard children’s songs, such as ‘Puff‘, and ‘Rainbow Connection ‘and ‘Rainbow song‘. After 10 minutes of this recording teacher asks children if they still want it playing, the answer is ‘yep’. This recording plays to its conclusion although after 45 minutes the volume is turned down.
8:40 teacher to children arriving at the door, song, good morning 8:55 child 2 to the right from charge teacher, flipping lip song, next child starts imitating (check tape for meaning of this observation) 9:00 child on mat, own song. Perspex front to piano, lid open, free play, girl playing a melody 9:20 morning tea table, girls song 9:20 teacher aide with child playing singing game what have you got in your pocket 9:25 zoom slide, children singing own songs, sliding and walking back to climb and slide again, highest pitch a1 and down 9:27 sandpit, imitating Simpson’s character ha -ha 9:30 the first time children wanted to play with the cameras 9:40 head teacher’s comment that it is a very quiet morning 9:50 clogs on metal slide… timbre awareness 10:08 baking table inside I want the raisins song 10:30 boy walking outside, singing to his walking pace, poo-we poo-we about 8 bars, pitches b – g# - e 10:50 ‘farmer in the dell..’ story at morning tea. Teacher reading, girls at the clay table singing story as they play, matching to teachers pitch. 10:57 teacher sing speaks ‘frere Jacque’ at the zoom slide, children listen intently, and reply, but not during the song. singing continues desultory fashion, child strumming guitar at zoom slide at 11:20. 11:20 teacher with four children on grass (2 boys 2 girls) telling story to melody of ‘skip to my lou’, in the chorus sections the children all sing along. By 11:37 the teacher has the guitar, now there are 9 children, and the singing is less. 11:40 parade, three girls, one with tambourine in the lead, two shakers to follow. Tambourinegirl is initiator, they head to the swings, the two girls with shakers climb on, the girl with tambourine pushes them.
11:47 1 boy polystyrene blocks, fingers in each side, clapping like claves, then using his own head with polystyrene as percussion, with blocks, put blocks down, go to science corner, magnet handle, tapping animal jawbone in different places, examining the sounds, about a minute overall. 11:55 Child, own recorder, blowing a sustained note. Teacher and children follow, teacher sings Were you going to follow Nikita, Nikita… children listen but do not join in, teacher stops. (song 5). 12:00 singing games, 2 teachers, 9 children. Teacher sings and does actions, children concentrate on actions, do not sing. Second teacher and all children clap, recorder player accompanies, teacher joins with shakers, children join hesitantly towards the end.
Kindergarten 5
46 children 3 teachers 1 teacher intern Length of recording/session 3 hours 2 minutes
Use of Recordings Kindergarten commences with mat time, after which a recording of children singing is put on to play, turned off after 10 minutes. Children improvise on the piano and sing some of the mat songs, then recording put on of Christmas songs and child at piano plays along matching rhythm. Recording turned down, single child sings along matching pitch. Break of 15 minutes, no recorded music, then male and female singers in good pitch range for children, during which the teachers plays the piano, a different song. This is turned off after 20 minutes and 10 minutes later a child request the “ABCD” tape. This plays for 30 minutes and then no recordings for last 45 minutes of session
9:17 melodic rhythmic speech on climbing frame Not allowed to do thatline 1 of melodies 9:35 boy banging pegs through hole in time to piano music (tchr) (inside video?) during 3 songs 9:42 free play at piano for child then children 9:44 process baking I’m going over there now line 2 of melodies
(SES testing for gifted come into the kindergarten, where parents want their children going to full school at 4.5 yrs)
10:12 chant on outside climbing frame sung speech up and da-own compound timing 10:13 inside boy dancing to video
10:20 other teacher inside (?) 10:25 girl sitting beside other girl to do puzzles Ashley what are you doing? 10:46 Boys taunt from sandpit ya ya ya ya Boys run from sandpit, ‘get us get us’ echoing melodic shape and rhythm(song 4) 10:47 girl, sandpit, own song, self conversation, pitch c and above, circa 20 seconds, friend joins in and first girl stops. 10:48 song (identify location from video) You can’t ge-t me – e repeated 2 times, then missed me missed me, now you’ll have to kiss me 11:17 boys throwing bark chips at each other, chanting gimme more bark, gimme more bark 11:20 Tidyup time – Diane - Song
Kindergarten 6
43 children 3 teachers 1 special needs teacher Length of recording/session 3 hours 2 minutes
Use of Recordings Children’s singing playing as children arrive, plays for6 minutes, then a recording of pan pipes is put on. 15 minutes later this is changed for an orchestral recording for 9 minutes. Break of 15 minutes then pan pipes recording back on for 25 minutes. No recorded music for the next hour, then pan pipe on softly, no able to hear when it is tuned off, as children’s activity and sound increased.
8:45 Tape of children singing playing when the children arrive, then tape changes to pan pipes. 9:00 boys at water ‘ raining it’s pouring’ pitch range d1 b e1 9:07 sandpit, boy playing freely own song 9:10 sandpit, nonsense words same pitch as @ 9:00 9:12 child picks up tambourine, shakes, puts down, goes on her way. boys 3 – 5 at a time in very busy play, frequent sing speech and own songs. 9:20 three girls on front fence ‘bye bye’ c# - a# now running races, same pitches ‘I won I won” two races same each time, holding same pitch. 9:23 boys on front lawn ‘see ya’ interspersed with their running races, ‘I won’ on specific and non specific pitches. 9:25 two swing songs ‘push me’ ‘one push on each side’ 9:26 boy, own song, pushing trolley, nonsense words, free rhythm pitch and range d1 - a 9:35 ‘Dar-ren, Dar-ren’ boy calling to teacher, same boy as at 9:26 9:45 Teacher and 14 – 18 children Parachute games, lots of sing speech, teacher’s 1 voice range in speech over two 8ves g - g1 ‘who is on the colour?’ song 3 wind sounds with sirens f# - b – lower girl in ‘duck duck’game soh me ‘uh – oh’ on f# - d# when she missed someone out. Chant, all children ‘go (name) go (name)’ when the goose was chasing the duck, about 50% of children with chant, and 50% with thigh slap, both imitating the teacher, a few doing both.. 10:00 same game, some children now inventing their own rhythms when the goose is chasing the duck and the children are chanting. Now 22 children 10:05 hop hop hoppity hop skip skip skippity skip jump jump, jumpity jump chanting game, some children chant and do actions, some just actions. 10:08 “ring a Rosie” game immediately followed by ‘Fishes in the water’ game, immediately followed by ‘one two threeeeeeee’ running away. 10:15 boy playing on drum, sets it down, goes to teacher and reports ‘I was singing row row row’ 10:18 girl with poi, while drumming (for camera?) 10:20 boy revisiting music area, going through sound sources. 10:43 child at play-dough, alone, singing about her cake, indeterminate words, it appears song is audible, then in her head, - building – time-span 10 minutes 10:45 Child on slide to teacher ‘Cheryl (soh me) watch this (spoken) 10:47 ‘beep beep beep’ head voice d1 then story to me about what he is doing 10:52 child on swing to teacher 3X “Serina” song over a 7th 10:58 boys in kitchen, sing speaking and baking, to left of video view
[presentation of affirmation cards for children, given each day, ranging from 2 to 10 cards, for special effort/achievement/attitude/progress. Including such things as sliding without holding teacher’s hand, tidying without being reminded, using children’s names by a child who had not, and a parent who was a helper for the day. Staff notice a very definite flow on effect for children who receive cards. Children soon learn that they cannot request cards, so don’t bother, just look forward to card time]
11:25 ‘Steven’ call re doh d1 c to child by building shed 11:35 bell for tidy-up. 11:36 tidy-up time, multiple calls see music sung speech and pitched interval widened and volume increased 11:40 singing continues outside Kindergarten 7
35 chn, 3 teachers 1 teacher intern Length of recording/session 3 hours 2 minutes
Use of Recordings Radio on when teachers arrived, changed to easy listening tape, female singer, when first child arrived.
9:05 ‘neh neh neh’ song, melodic bb - e1 - f1 with steering wheel set into driftwood, group of 3, 2 boys, 1 girl. 9:17 ‘I got a blue one’ (jumping into sandpit) antiphonal response from the sandpit ‘and I got a…(?)’ 9:27 boy at carpentry table: me ray doh, sustained tones 9:31 girl on trolley alone singing to herself, 15 – 20 sec f – c1 Inside cam, music making, spontaneous 9:20 onwards 9:45 train below cam, boy loud noise “ who moo ….” Head voice 5 – 7 seconds tractor in sandpit cf train, headvoice, neutral vowel. 9:52 30 – 40 second bursts, same boy, in his own world of play. 9:55 teacher gave children a choice of c.d.’s, they chose Bee Gees, she put on Bob Marley 10:00 change Bob Marley to Bee Gees, children drum, then go, Bee gees stays on. 10:15 snack time, song to fill time. ‘twinkle twinkle’ male teacher starting note e 1 2 – 3 children match pitch at the octave, the rest follow melodic line but under pitch. 10:25 ‘soh me soh me’ siren on fort, intermittent, and continuous, over this time. 10:30 majority of children outside after two pieces of fruit, energy levels appear to be up activity on fort and in sandpit, many sound effects, notate from video. 10:57 teacher with twinkle twinkle again, boy matches pitch at the 8ve and then wanders off humming, continues humming as he works on a construction, sings twinkle twinkle through twice, back to humming (teachers have already labeled this child ‘musical’). 11:05 child into teacher in office, sings a dialogue to her 30 – 40 seconds. 11:10 tape of singing and clapping, children match pitch, those who choose to, join. 11:15 tape played for mat time, then switched off, girls keep singing the song off the tape, while working with sellotape. 11:20 Tamariki Ma on tape, girls on sellotape join in on word ‘tamariki ma’ not on in between words. 11:25 very quick tidy up Kindergarten 8
45 children 3 teachers Length of recording session: 2 hours 57 minutes Music tape on as staff set up, it is turned off as children arrive. Tape on for twenty minutes after the first hour of the session, instrumental, children sing along their own words and melodies. Third hour teacher puts on a tape of action songs, which leads to the qualitative movement event. It plays for 25 minutes then replaced with an instrumental slow tempo tape and turns the volume down.
8:50 group of children head to the swing, it is in the sun, news time as they sing hello to friends, sun, teachers using soh me 8:55 girl at shop counter on play-phone conversation, pauses for up to 5 seconds for imagined replies. 9:03 boy on swing, song sung four times ‘yeah I got the swi—ng’ 9:05 Mat time 9:12 children not of Christmas or birthday faiths go with other teacher during birthday and Christmas songs in mat time. 9:19 girls with duplo and animals, walking the animals and singing. talking high voice pitch d1 – f#1 9:25 boy on scooter, sustained steady pitch on c1 neutral vowel 3 seconds 9:27 boys on climbing frame call five times to friend Davi-id 9:28 boys on swing, lots of vocalizing on pitch. 9:36 – 9:40 lots of songs around outside, not inter-related 9:40 sung speech counting for a game. 9:40 girls with Duplo singing scraps of known songs while building, range f and above 9:55 ‘Nundi, Lundi, cat and doodie’ boys on climbing frame 9:57 three boys on swings, three individual songs simultaneously, range f – c1 one started singing, others sang over the top of the first boy - 20 seconds . Songs as sung speech, made up chants using nursery rhymes, beat of swings different, song beat matches each boy’s swing pattern 9:58 ‘let’s sing you guys’ ‘round the clock, round the block’ three times chant, while walking round a construction. 10:01 teacher (x5) ‘who owns the hat’ song line 4 10:04 girl with wooden blocks ahbe ahbe ahbe, with variations three times 10:15 skipping A B C doh = b missing shoe… see outside video child singing A B C doh = b1 teacher’s 40th birthday sing other song, A B C song consistent starting pitch 10:23 teddy bear e – c# 10:32 group of 3 children outside1 humming, sideways glances at researcher, looking for response?? 10:43 swing, teacher pushing, child singing ‘swinging in the rain’ 10:45 boy looking for friend ‘Ben, you’re la-ate’ repeats and pitch drops line 1 11:15 a bumble bee, a bumble bee (4 or 5 times) group of boys on the mat with their lunch &/or wandering with Duplo 11:17 Tidy-up time 11:26 Tidy-up time song with Teacher Leanne in key of c Appendix E
Video Events Qualitative Descriptions Descriptive Events from each Kindergarten Site Kindergarten 1 8 minutes Six children are standing around the teacher who is playing a math game with them. It is about the jellyfish who swim in the deep blue sea and then are washed up on the beach, a subtraction game. The children hold the jellyfish, one each, a total of six (made of a ball of paper covered in plastic, with fronds of plastic for the jellyfish tentacles) and the teacher removes them one by one. At times she sings, but first she is chanting it, holding up fingers so that children can count how many left. As each one is washed up she puts it on the chair behind her. Children watch intently and listen and count. There is no attempt to sing along at first. The recorded music that has been playing all morning is still playing. Two girls lose interest in the jellyfish game and start to dance holding both hands, still paying half attention to the math game on the back of the group around the teacher. Their emphasis is on arm movements and these become more complex but remain slow, in response to the slow music still playing. This dance episode lasts for 42 seconds. The teacher is now definitely singing, pitch center is A below middle C, some children singing along but above the teachers pitch, in a semi- monotone, not following the melodic contour. Children join and leave the group as each jellyfish is removed, and as they lose interest or gain interest. The two dancing girls are now hugging and balancing, holding each other up off the ground. The jellyfish game continues for another full repetition as the jellyfish are distributed again, with the two girls back to dancing and playing at the back of the group. The teacher’s pitch center has dropped a tone, to G below middle C. The tape has finished in the background, a child sings an own song, poly tonal, no words, not in time with the teacher’s chant, and approximately an octave higher in range. Once the tape stops playing, more of the children attempt to sing along with the jellyfish song, about a 4th higher than the teacher, now following the melodic contour of the song. One of the boys starts dancing on the back of the group, doing a couple of pirouettes, then he and another boy dance together, and replicate some of the girl’s dance moves from earlier in the session, with hugging and lifting each other. Then they move to the shelf where the percussion instrument are kept. These seem to have caught their eyes as they spun. There are just four children left in the math game now. The two boys look for a few seconds at the instruments and then pick up and put down different instruments. One boy picks up a triangle, holds it tight, and strikes it three times. The other boy pick up a triangle as well and they look for and find another striker. The second boy holds the triangle tight and strikes it twelve times, both boys play the triangles briefly together. The jellyfish game is still going on, no singing from children. The first boy moves over to the jellyfish group and starts playing the triangle in time with the beat of the song, just as it is finishing. Having established this beat he continues to play it as the teacher moves away from the area to put the jellyfish in the cupboard. He continues to play in tempo as he wipes his nose on his sleeve. He sits on the floor to watch his dancing mate do a puzzle, and plays the same style intermittently on the triangle. He bangs it on the floor, and then goes back to striking it. He threads the triangle onto the striker and begins to spin it, resulting in a continuous ringing sound. He slides it back and forth along the striker which he is holding at both ends. He starts to cycle through his playing styles, striking it while holding it, banging it on the floor. The teacher returns from putting the jellyfish away and gets herself a triangle. She tells the playing boy ‘You show me something you can do with the triangle’, and immediately starts to play it herself, hanging it on the end of her finger to let it ring. He plays, holding it as he has done since he started playing. She sits down on the floor with him. His friend who was doing the puzzle goes and gets himself a triangle and joins them. She plays the way he has been playing and asks him if it makes the same sound as the one she was making. ‘I wonder if we hold it like that it would sound different?’ Both boys hang the triangle on the end of a finger and tap it and it swings. The boy who was doing the puzzle puts his triangle away and goes back to completing the puzzle. The teacher asks again if it make a different sound when it hangs. The boy who has been playing continuously goes back to holding it and striking it as he has done since he picked it up, while the teacher’s attention is distracted as she talks to a child who has picked up a ribbon and is dancing with it. She makes some suggestion as to how the child should use the ribbon. She brings her attention back to the boy playing the triangle, and tries again to get him to hang it on the end of his finger to play. He plays it like a dinner gong, holding it at the top and circling the striker inside it. She is avoiding talking about the right way to play, but keeps commenting that it doesn’t make the same sound when you hold it. A girl picks up a triangle and sits down with them on the carpet. She immediately hangs it on the end of her finger and plays a ringing sound. The teacher then tells the boy she will copy him. He strikes it from below, and on the sides, and she copies while giving attention to the three children with the ribbons. The boy loses interest and stands up and walks away, the teacher moves to stop what she considers inappropriate behavior with the ribbons. The girl sits still for a few seconds, and looks around, then puts the triangle away and moves off to another activity. Kindergarten 2 11 minutes The children have spent nearly thirty minutes building a ‘stage’, the girl who instigated, and has continued to organize it, has told them to help her ‘put on a movie’. They have taken the building blocks and put them on the floor side by side covering an area 6’ X 10’. Different children come and walk on it, she remonstrates with them ‘don’t walk on it, I’m still building’. A tape of children’s songs, being sung by children, is playing in the background as they build, no singing response. The tape is changed. The Mexican hat dance comes on and children jump and dance on the block floor. Three girls wait for the music to start again and then dance slowly in time with the new music track. The girl who has organized the project joins them. Children play intermittently and briefly on the piano in the background, individual notes and chord clusters. It has a Perspex front so that they can see the piano action as they play. One of the children slides, apparently accidentally, and the block floor starts to come apart, the organizing girl says ‘don’t mess them up’. The music track changes and the tempo is faster, and the children’s dancing is in response to that. Some join hands in pairs and skip in a circle with each other. In between the songs on the tape the floor is repaired. There is talking heard on the tape that is playing, two pairs of girls continue to move together, non-locomotor, perhaps rehearsing their dance moves. The music now playing is ‘Alouette’ The girl ‘in charge’ wanders off, and then comes back. The blocks start to slide apart again, she gives up trying to keep it together and the sliding blocks become a fun thing, the girls join in to slide the blocks apart, and there is vocalizing and laughing. More piano improvising in the background, mostly melodic patterns, with just a few clusters. The tape is finished, they laugh and sing nonsense short own songs. The voices are high pitched, using easy soft production of head tone as they dance and slide the blocks apart. The organizing girl goes and picks up belts that have ribbons hanging from them and distributes them to three others. They fasten with Velcro and the girls put them on. The dance becomes more exaggerated to make the ribbons swing. Now the game is dancing and sliding and falling. The song on the tape is ‘Old Macdonald’. The tempo is fast as is the children’s movement, there are two or three incidents of an ‘e i e i oh’ sung along with the tape, matching pitch. The blocks are now spread over an area twice as big as when they started. A boy climbs up on a sofa next to the block area and ‘sings’ and dances in a pop stage style; feet wide apart, head back, shoulders writhing, singing a verbal chant, non sustained frequencies, indistinct words. There is no music playing because the teacher is changing the recording at this point. The music starts again, he pauses, then starts again, then pauses, and this pattern continues. Children join and leave the block dancing activity, a home made maraca is brought into the group by one of the children who plays it as she dances. Another child goes and picks up another home made instrument and shakes it, the sound is inaudible. Dancing is in response to the tape, as it changes character from one piece of music to the next, so the children’s speed and style of movement changes. The boy performing on the sofa is joined by someone else standing beside him, and his performance energy heightens. The boy who stood up beside him, sits down on the sofa and watches him and the girls dancing on the disintegrating block floor. This pattern continues, as children wander away and come back. The crowd gradually thins as the children wander outside to play in the sunshine, the tape continues to play to an empty room. Kindergarten 3 31 minutes There is a continuous sound of hand bells, two girls are playing in the area where the instruments and the sound equipment is kept. A teacher is with them. The teacher suggests that she will put on some Christmas music. The bell play continues as the teacher looks for the tape. The tape starts to play, the sound of continuous bells does not initially change. Gradually the girls start to play the bells to a beat in time with the tape. The song is ‘All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth’. The tape continues, the bell play becomes intermittent. The bells are put down and the girls one after the other pick up tambourines and shake them, playing as they were initially with the bells; continuous sound. The teacher pick up a tambourine and starts to beat on the skin in time with the beat of the music. The song is now ‘Jingle bells‘. The girls put down the tambourines and wander off. The teacher stays kneeling on the mat in front of the sound equipment and instruments. Two boys come and play with triangles, the teacher picks up a wood block and plays a beat with the music. The teacher then continues with the beat on a tambourine, two boys play triangles with energy playing their own patterns not apparently related to the music playing, a third boy joins them and dances, the children’s activity stops and starts. Half a room away from the music activity a girls stops beside a low cupboard and plays a 6 second complex rhythm pattern on the top of a low cupboard with her hands, laughs and then runs off. All children leave the music area, the teacher stays for a few seconds playing the tambourine looking around, no children join her so she puts the tambourine away and moves to another part of the kindergarten. There is a book that accompanies the tape that is playing, and she leaves this open on the floor beside the stereo. A girl comes and sits down to look at the book, the tape is still playing. The girl who played the rhythm on the cupboard joins her. The girl looking at the book stands up. They both move in response to the music, bobbing and taking little fast steps as they survey the instruments, one picks up a maraca, the other a tambourine. They then pick up another instrument like the one they are playing, and now play with two maracas and two tambourines briefly. They are in time with each other but not with the tape as they play a beat pattern. The song is ‘Here comes Santa Claus’. The beats are now in time with the music, still an instrument in each hand. In time, but no in the same key, with the introduction to the next song, one of the girls sings ‘scaredy cat scaredy cat’ to no-one in particular, while she plays to the beat and dances on the spot. She puts down the maracas and picks up bells, one in each hand. The girls both change instruments, one has a wood block, the other a drum. She puts the drum back, gets a tambourine and puts it on the floor to play as a drum. The instruments are put away, one girl goes back to looking at the book, the other picks up the karaoke microphone. She asks the teacher to turn it on for her, and the teachers comes and does so straight away. The song is ‘I’m a pretty angel’. It has a ‘tra la la’ chorus with which she sing along. Each time she repeats it her intonation improves. The other girl plays rakau (claves) in time with the beat. The song changes and both girls stop all music activity and have a chat. The one who had the microphone moves away, the other girl picks up the microphone but doesn’t sing. The teacher changes the tape to a pop song style tape and the girl who moved away returns. The girl who stayed starts to clap in front and behind her body, keeping in time with the music. The teacher stops the tape, and the child who returns picks up the microphone and starts singing the same melodic shape as was just heard, but with indistinct words, and indefinite tonality. She continues for 40 seconds, then holds it out to her friend to sing, there is no sound. The teacher turns a different tape on again and the girl stop singing. The song is ‘We wish you a merry Christmas’ the teacher sings a line and invites the girls to join, one of the girls says ‘I don’t want to sing that.’ The teacher says ’this is a lovely song, everyone knows this song’. The tape continues on the same song, the child with the microphone sings strongly the last note of each line when it is a sustained note, singing just under pitch. When the track finishes the same child, who first didn’t want to sing this song, says ‘we want to sing it again’. While the teacher rewinds she sings the melody line into the microphone, but not the words. When the tape starts she sings more of the words and more in tune. Her friend picks a tambourine and plays in time, the singer now dances as she sings. The teacher leaves and they get out an assortment of instruments including drums and tambourines and wood blocks to play like a drum kit on the floor. The rhythm patterns become complex, brief interludes of ostinatos show intention in the patterns. The microphone is put down and both of the girls play the assorted instrument, one on each side of the set. The tape is still playing. A boy comes to look at the book of song words still open on the floor. They look at him, play for just a few seconds more, then get up and wander off. Kindergarten 4 10 minutes The children are gathering on the mat with their teachers and some parent helpers, it is the beginning of the session, just after 9a.m. Lots of chatter conversations between children, and teachers and children. A boy starts a non verbal vocalizing on a monotone. A child asks who the researcher is, and the teacher tells the child she is about to introduce the researcher. She is introduced by name, and that the video cameras are her responsibility. The teacher tells the children that they are just going to carry on as normal and have a good time. Then she tells the children it is time to sing ‘Haere mai’ (a welcome song) The chatter continues for another few seconds, children asking various teachers about the cameras and about the visitor. A girl suggest another song and sings the first line of it to the teacher leading the mat time. More talking about what time it is, and time to sing the song. The teacher moves straight from talking into singing, starting note middle C which is a half step above the lowest note of the song. Strong singing from teachers, with the children all doing the actions and some children singing. When it is repeated more of them sing, more of the words. The pitch matching is very good to start with, but as soon as the words become more complex there is less accuracy in the children’s pitching of the notes. A child asks the name of the researcher and is told, then the attention is back on the group. The same girl who had the song request earlier talks about the rain last night and how it woke her up, then as the other children start talking as well she changes her use of voice and sings/chants a line rhythmically ‘raining in the sky’. Her song continues, with actions, but the chatter obscures it from the video. More chatter about rain and the sound of the raindrops. The teacher starts singing a song about rain, she starts singing part way through the song ‘standing outside in the rain’ the children don’t appear to know it. Then she stops and invites them all to sing, the song is ‘If all the raindrops were lemon drops and gumdrops’. Starting note is G below middle C which occurs only four times during the song, the tessitura of the song is middle C up to G. The children join in very well, consistently matching pitch. During the line sung to ‘ah’ the singing becomes stronger and more confident. It is the same melodic line as the previous line, the children who don’t know the song very well have been able to join in at this point. The song concludes, it is in ternary form, and one of the children goes back to the ‘b’ section again, and the teachers join in. The same girl who sang the first two individual singing events improvises a song. It is about her waking up when it is raining. It is melodic and tonal, rhythmic and extended, using repeated word patterns. As she continues the tonality becomes more flexible, and the subject matter of the words moves on. She sings about ‘wanting to stay awake to go to kindy and play with my friends’. The song is 48 seconds long. She concludes the song in the same tonality as the previous group song. The teachers lead the children in clapping for the song. A boy sitting across the circle has something in his hands that he shakes making a rattling sound, it is not clear on the video what it is. There are more scraps of songs and chatter. The teacher leading the mat time announces (reminds the children) that today is a long day, it is a 3 and a ½ hour session not the usual three hour session. Then the children are told to think about what they want to do, in the kitchen they are going to be baking gingerbread men, but not just yet. A child asks about fruit salad. The teacher laughs, and tells the child ‘we did that last week, maybe we’ll do it again next week’. When the children have thought of what they want to do they are to quietly stand up and go get busy. The children get up and move away to their different activities. Two children immediately head to the piano and start playing, single notes at first. The last child sitting is a special needs child and his own teacher sits beside him as they talk. Other children come and join them on the mat, the piano music becomes more ordered, someone is playing melodically. Many children have gone outside to play, it is a lovely sunny summer day. Kindergarten 5 8 minutes It is mat time, announcements, and start of kindergarten. The next day they are going to have a visit from Father Christmas, so they practice their Christmas songs. One of the teachers plays the piano. The song is ‘Jingle Bells’. The key is F and the speed is quite slow. The pitch matching starts off being very good, then the volume increases and the pitch sharpens. The next song is ‘Side by side’ also in the key of F the teacher sings high for the first section and then down an octave for the second section, the children sing intermittently, seldom in tune. The teacher picks up a guitar and gets all the children to stand and sing. The song is ‘When Santa got stuck up the chimney’ The children sing but not confidently. The teacher tells them “I can‘t hear you, I don’t want to hear my yucky old voice” (It is suspected that this is a nervous response to the presence of the video camera), so they respond and sing more loudly and less in tune. They sit and sing ‘Coming round the mountain’ in C and move straight onto ‘Ga-loop went the little green frog’ and then ‘Some people make a fuss on the bus’ and then ‘Take me for a ride in your car’ all in the key of C. She asks if they want a word or a tune game and the children ask for a tune, several asking at once. The teacher sit at the piano. The children lie down on the mat and close their eyes and she plays a tune, and the children call out as soon as they recognize it. She plays on for a bit more after the song is recognized so that they can all hear it. She plays a variety of tunes, all in the key of F. As she plays the final song, without a word they all stand up and move off, this is a cue song that the mat time is over. Kindergarten 6 20 minutes The children have been handling the pet mice with the teacher’s supervision. The mice are put away and all of the children and the teacher are to go and wash their hands. A child picks up a bell set and begins to play continuously. The children who are to wash their hands go, except one girl who stops and watches the boy playing bells. Another boy runs across the room to join the bell player, stops and watches for a few seconds, and then goes off in another direction. The bells are put down and a maraca is picked up and the sound continues. The bells are played in the rhythm of ‘jingles bells’, the sound of ‘jingles bells’ being sung is heard faintly in time with the bells, matching pitch. The teacher has returned. Another child picks up the bells and now there is maraca and bells together. Finger cymbals join the sound picture next, this is occurring just out of camera shot so it is not possible to see who is playing what. The bells and finger cymbals continue with unbroken sound, the maraca joins in again. There is the sound of instruments being dropped into a box, and now a triangle is heard along with the bells, a cabasa comes out and is played continuously and now a guiro scraping, then shaker eggs and the guiro, and the bells, and a hand drum. It sounds like three children playing and discarding and picking up another instrument to play. There is the sound of a child singing along with the instrument playing, measured beats, words are indistinct, tonality is flexible, the song is not recognizable. More short phrases of singing are heard as the instrument play continues, now always three instruments at a time. It has been continuous now for five minutes and continues still. There is a loud sound of banging coming in from the outside building area. The camera is now swung round to film the children who are playing on the beanbags, and playing on the instruments, confirming that there are three of them. A girl plays the standing drum and wiggles her hips in time with an internal rhythm and then sits down again. A boy picks up a pair of pois and tries to spin them. He gives them to another boy who spins them successfully. Two of the children playing instruments are now sitting down, they have the glockenspiel out. The boy plays one striker in each hand, uninhibited playing, single notes, alternating hands, fast pattern. Teacher sings in the background ‘Rere atu..” with a pitch b center of B 1 in a song where the tonic is the middle pitch of the range of the song, none of the children join in. The boys now have one poi each and the girl has wandered away and left the glockenspiel player alone. She comes straight back and sits on the bean bag beside him. A third boy has a poi and the three boys are playing with single poi. The boy playing the glockenspiel wanders away and the girl who has been watching goes straight to it and begins to play. She moves it to be more comfortable which moves it into camera view, plays a few notes then turns it round 180° so that the low notes are on the left. She plays two- note chords and then intersperses it with single notes, all to a steady one sound per beat. She moves up and down the keys and then plays little glissandos. She plays freely rhythmically and then moves back into playing to a steady beat. The boys playing with the poi drop them on the floor and move off to another activity. The teacher tells them it is not a dumping ground, so they come back and instead of putting them away they play with them some more. The pois are put away, the child continues to play the glockenspiel. She puts in a few rests, the sounds become less frequent, she enjoys chords and then alternate strikers, then repeated chords. To this point she has been playing continuously for three minutes, and continues still. The teacher comes and remonstrates with the boys about tidying up. As she leaves the area she stop and dances to the glockenspiel song. She asks if the song has any lyrics, and the reply is indistinct. The girl continues to play, it is now four minutes. The teacher asks her to play a little more quietly. She does so, striking more gently. There is the sound of guitar. The teacher ask a child if he wants to play the guitar. The girl playing the glockenspiel sees the guitar come out and tells the teacher she has finished playing the glockenspiel. She has played for five minutes. The teacher moves the boy onto a bean bag to play the guitar and the girl starts to play the glockenspiel again. She leans over to pluck the strings with one hand, at the same time still playing the glockenspiel with the other hand. She has two hands back on the glockenspiel, while the boy strums the guitar in his lap. She has been playing now for six minutes. She stands and plucks the strings of the guitar with one hand, sits at the glockenspiel to play, then puts the strikers down and with two hands plucks the guitar strings. She makes sound that is audible on the video recording, whereas the boy’s play has not been audible. The boy who was part of the original group who started playing now wanders back and watches the two playing the guitar, and then leaves again. The teacher comes and tells them ’one at a time on the guitar’ then asks if they are finished with the glockenspiel and starts to pack it up. Off camera a recorder is heard. The girl goes back to the glockenspiel and plays some more, energetically. There is the distinct sound of melodic intent, and then energetic playing, now both styles interspersed. The teacher is tidying up the instruments that were played at the beginning of the session and then finally puts the glockenspiel away. Both children are playing the guitar now. The girl sits back, raps her arms round her knees, and taps her feet and swings her body to some internal beat or song. The teacher takes the guitar off the boy and gives it to the girl, who plays continuous sound, while the boy picks up drumsticks and plays along on the standing drum. Some active playing with toys is going on in the foreground, including lots of vocalizing, and use of upper vocal register, in the meantime the girl is absorbed in the guitar. Children have come back to hold the mice whose cage is right next to the music area. The girl plucks the strings, and hits the strings, she fiddles with the tuning pegs, then goes back to playing the strings, plucking and hitting. The teacher has settled other children on bean bags to hold mice. She then takes the guitar off the girl and puts it away. Kindergarten 7 4 minutes It is mat time and there have been announcements. Then the children are going to sing Christmas songs, so the children whose families don’t celebrate Christmas go off with one of the teachers. The leading teacher, who is sitting on a chair, goes straight into singing, starting note C# which is the lowest note in the song. Many of the children who are sitting on the mat are singing along, the tempo is steady, the song is ‘I can see a Christmas tree‘. The matching of pitch is very close and accurate for a most of the duration of the song. She commends their singing and then they sing ‘We wish you a Merry Christmas’ with a swing of the arms on each ‘wish’. Again the pitch matching of the children is very close, the pitch range is similar to the first song. The next song is chosen by one of the children, ‘Jingle bells‘. The energy level is going up and the pitch is too, but still a lot of accurate singing. Each of the song has a few simple actions that are used on repeated words. In this song they shake their hands as they sing the words ‘jingle bells’. Next request is ‘when Santa got stuck up the chimney’. The lyrics are faster than the previous song, and the pitch is more flexible for the children’s singing but still a number of children are matching pitch. The final request is ‘Rudolph’ and the teacher doesn’t know it well, and neither do the children, so it is fun to see who remembers which line. The teacher pitches it lower than all of the previous songs, in G. There is little accurate singing by the children in this final song. Then it is a birthday celebration for a boy who is going to start school the next day. His mother is there, and presents a book to the kindergarten. Then they light the candles on the play cake and he blows them out. Kindergarten 8 22 minutes Three Boy are playing with blocks. The teacher puts on a tape, and she starts to move and clap to the tape. The song is ‘Monster walk’, but it started part way through the song and finishes in about 20 seconds. A protest is heard from one of the boys ‘aww it’s finished!’. The teacher replies ‘we’ll go back to the beginning if you like.’ and puts the tape on to rewind. She stops it and presses play and it starts on another song which has movement instructions, and one of the boys immediately moves to follow the instructions, ‘now stay, you’re a statue made of clay… now move’ and so on. The teacher moves away from the area. When he moves he energetically jumps, and then moves from foot to foot swinging his arms. The next time he is a statue he holds his right arm out at right angles to his body. The teacher comes back and sits down and swings two poi. At the next 'stay' another boy jumps into camera view and stands still. He runs out of shot and then comes back and continues to dance but then the music finishes, they both stand still. It also started playing part way through the track. The teacher ask if they want it again. As the tape is still running the next song starts and the first boy moves to the music, changing the pace and energy level of his movement as the music has changed to a slower pace. The teacher stops the tape and rewinds it for the statue song. By the time it starts there are four boys but it is the wrong song. They stop and look, and wait. Off camera some one has picked up bells and plays them energetically, briefly. It is still the different song, but the four boys enjoy dancing to it. Then the statue song comes on again and they are totally absorbed in the words and their movements. One of the boys has picked up two pois while the song track was being found again, he puts them away during the beginning of the song, but the other three boys are right into it, this time traveling with their dancing, rather than dancing on the spot which they did at first. As the first 'stay' happens a fifth boy joins the group. The ‘lead’ boy puts out his right arm as he did during the first time through, and one of the boys copies him. A sixth boy comes and picks up a poi and swings it, and then realizes what song is playing &/or copies the other boys. While he stands still for the 'stay' he keeps swinging the poi. On the final stop, which is the end of the song, the ‘lead’ boy swings over from the waist, with his head between his legs and arms straight up in the air. He then does the movement three more times, and asks for the song again. He performs the move three more times again, almost falling on the final time. While the tape is being rewound the group of boys continue to dance, intermittently, trying out moves, balancing on hands and falling back onto feet. This time as the song reaches the first ‘stay‘, the ‘lead’ boy rolls onto his back. Meanwhile, another boy does the lead boy’s final move from the last time through; of head between legs, while two other boys balance on one foot. When the music say move, ‘lead’ boy springs up and starts dancing briefly with a chair in his hands, but soon puts that down, the teacher is still near by. The next 'stay' he lies on his back and swings his legs over his body with his feet pointing to the floor, a duplicate of his swing from the waist, but now horizontal. Another boy copies him exactly. Three of the boys pick up pois and swing them as they dance, then put them down again. The lead boy is just dancing. After this 'stay' he shows definitely that he is aware of the flow of the music as he coils to spring up absolutely in time with the word ‘move’. On the final ‘stop’ this time he runs and skids on the carpet and lands on his bottom. He announces this to the other boys. He does it twice more while the others watch. One of them tries it , but the first boy has bare feet and they slide easily. The second boy has sandals on and they don’t slide and he crashes into the blocks. He only does this once. In between music tracks the dancing goes on, different boys standing on a chair and gyrating, and running around the furniture. The song now is a slower one ‘To and fro’ and the boys movements start to reflect this, gently waving arms, with leg well spread, and then energetic hops and arm movements when the lyrics move faster, then back to swaying as the lyrics slow. A child requests the track ‘Monster Walk’. The song starts and their posture changes, hands out and into claws, shoulders hunched, exaggerated walking, in time with the beat for some of them. They circle the table just beside the video camera and the expressions on their faces are grimaces and are part of their whole monster demeanor. There are now eight boys dancing. The next track ‘Doing my exercises’ is not known, so the teacher teaches it as it plays, repeating the instructions and showing them what to do at the same time. There are several repeats of the set of exercises during one playing of the song. The last repeat is slower, and one of the boys makes a siren sound, high in his voice, as he moves slowly. When the music is finished the boys sing their own brief improvised songs and continue to run and dance, wriggling bodies and waving arms and nodding heads as they run. The teacher rewinds the tape and it is back to the statue song. The first 'stay' the boys all have more stylized poses than before. There is a lot of vocalizing as they dance now, squeals and sirens. There are now ten boys dancing. They copy each other in their various moves and their 'stay' patterns. The moves become more complex, as they develop from one 'stay' to the next. One arm becomes two arms, a twist of the body becomes a twist and fall. The boys are now all rather excited, so at the end of this time through the teacher turns off the tape and moves away. The boys continue providing their own music by singing and vocalizing, and dancing for about 2 more minutes and then start drifting away from the area, or back to the blocks. The teacher returns and puts on a slow instrumental tape, and gets the boys who are still there to start packing up the blocks, it is close to tidy up time at the end of the kindergarten session. Appendix F
Informed Consent Forms Julie J Jackson School of Education University of Waikato e-mail [email protected] Phone (07) 838 4500
Louise Stevens Head Teacher Waipahihi Kindergarten Taupo
Dear Louise
Thank you for your verbal permission to visit an collect data for my dissertation project at your kindergarten. To confirm:
I would like to come and video a full morning session at your kindergarten, as one of eight kindergartens used in my research. I would like to collect data on informal and formal music practice of children, and reaction of peers and teachers to the events, to build up a picture of current practice. I will set up two video cameras to run as unobtrusively as possible right through the session, working with you to make sure that the cameras are set up I such a way as to cause no anger to the children.
The data from the video tape recorded at your kindergarten will be available to you. The final paper with the data form all the kindergartens analyzed will also be available to you and your staff to disseminate as widely as you choose.
The videos recorded at your kindergarten will remain totally confidential to me, unless I approach you to use video clips in which you appear, in possible presentation of my results. You would view the section of video I want to use before being asked permission to use it.
Once again thank you for your support and help
Your sincerely
Julie J Jackson Julie J Jackson School of Education University of Waikato e-mail [email protected] Phone (07) 838 4500
The Teachers Ruston Road Kindergarten Ruston Road Morrinsville
Dear Education Colleagues
As you are aware Jo has given me permission to come and collect video data at Ruston Road Kindergarten o my dissertation project. However it is important that you also have opportunity to choose to be involved in he project. To confirm:
I would like to come and video a full morning session at your kindergarten, as one of eight kindergartens used in my research. I would like to collect data on informal and formal music practice of children, and reaction of peers and teachers to the events, to build up a picture of current practice. I will set up two video cameras to run as unobtrusively as possible right through the session, working with you to make sure that the cameras are set up I such a way as to cause no anger to the children.
The data from the video tape recorded at your kindergarten will be available to you. The final paper with the data form all the kindergartens analyzed will also be available to you and your staff to disseminate as widely as you choose.
The videos recorded at your kindergarten will remain totally confidential to me, unless I approach you to use video clips in which you appear, in possible presentation of my results. You would view the section of video I want to use before being asked permission to use it.
Once again thank you for your support and help
Your sincerely
Julie J Jackson Julie J Jackson School of Education University of Waikato e-mail [email protected] Phone (07) 838 4500
The Parents and Guardians Morrinsville Kindergarten Morrinsville
Dear Parents and Guardians
Thank you all for the pleasure involved in videoing your children at play and in formal situations, to gain an awareness of current practice in music in Kindergartens. I am visiting eight kindergartens in Taupo, Morrinsville and Te Awamutu. I looked for all the informal and formal music making, and measure the number of events, and reaction of peers and teachers to the events. I will then compare them with the kindergarten syllabus Te Whariki, Quality in Action which is the curriculum implementation document, and the Educational Review Office Report on the Central North Island Kindergarten Association. When the study is written up I will be forwarding a copy to your Head Teacher, you are most welcome to view this document.
The videos recorded at your kindergarten will remain totally confidential to me, unless I approach you through your teachers, to use video clips in possible presentation of my results. You would have the opportunity to view the section of video I want to use before being asked permission to use it.
Once again thank you for your support and help
Your sincerely
Julie J Jackson Consent form for Julie J Jackson
I______consent to be videoed as part of Julie Jackson’s data collection on current music practice in early childhood education in New Zealand, at ______
Kindergarten, where I am Head Teacher/ teacher (cross out that which does not apply)
Signature______date______
YOUR COPY
………………………………...... C onsent form for Julie J Jackson
I______consent to be videoed as part of Julie Jackson’s data collection on current music practice in early childhood education in New Zealand, at ______
Kindergarten, where I am Head Teacher/ teacher (cross out that which does not apply)
Signature______date______
RESEARCHER’S COPY
Appendix G
Children’s Notated Songs
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Julie Jackson-Gough holds a bachelor’s degree in music from Canterbury University in Christchurch, New Zealand, and a master’s degree in choral conducting performance from Florida State University. Her school teaching experience includes serving as Head of Music at Kelston Boys High School, Auckland, New Zealand from 1975 - 1977, part time music teaching at Marlborough Girls College and Marlborough Boys College, Blenheim, New Zealand 1979 - 1985, and Head of Music at Tauhara College, Taupo New Zealand 1986 - 1992. She was responsible for the founding of the Taupo School of Music and served as the principal of the school 1989 - 1992. Other qualifications include: Trained Teachers Certificate (1974), Licentiate of the Royal Schools of Music in piano teaching (1975), Fellowship of the Trinity College London, in singing performance (1982), Diploma of Divinity (Melbourne College of Divinity, 1984), and Stage One Te Reo Maaori Certificate (1988). As a performer, clinician and adjudicator, Jackson-Gough is in demand throughout New Zealand, and is currently Lecturer in Music Education, at the University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand. She is a member of Music Educator National Conference, a national board member of the New Zealand Society for Music Education, regional president for the Hamilton Society for Music Education, an associate of the Registered Music Teachers New Zealand, and a member of Phi Kappa Lambda.