Carl Orff: Musical humanist

Beyond the obvious knowledge and skills imparted, education respects and enables students in ways that training does not. Composer Carl Orff articulated a central theme of his approach to education also known as Orff-Schulwerk, or schooling in music through active involvement when he wrote: “Anyone who has worked with children or young people in the spirit of Schulwerk will have discovered that it has a humanizing influence which transcends its musical function.” This paper is an exploration of the Schulwerk in terms of its humanizing potential as well as a comparison of the Schulwerk to humanism as articulated by Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers