Education through Collaboration: Learning the Arts while Celebrating Culture. An Elementary School--University Partnership Provides Valuable Multicultural Music Education Experience for Elementary Future Educators

Overview & Synopsis

The university curriculum for an elementary education degree traditionally includes a "basics of music" and a "basics of art" course. These two courses represent a nod to the importance of the arts in the elementary school, and they may be the only formal contact with music and arts pedagogy that prospective teachers receive. One way to make these courses especially dynamic and show teachers how they can use music and arts in their own classrooms is through a partnership between university and local elementary school teachers. In this article, the author discusses how an elementary school--university partnership provides valuable multicultural music education experiences for elementary future educators, and describes how music and art faculty forged a partnership with the music and art teachers at local elementary schools to team-teach a class called Creative Arts for the Elementary and Middle Levels. (Contains 2 figures and 4 notes.)