The curriculum and music

This paper has been initiated by my awareness of a lack of concern in many areas of music teaching in'the question of organisation. Teaching, to be successful, I feel, must be structured. If this structuring does not occur, a lack of direction can be seen in the teaching area and a failure to put across one's intentions usually results. If planning is employed in teaching, those involved in such planning must be aware of the factors which influence their proposals. This dissertation will outline some of the factor's which influence curriculum and programme design and discuss all the main areas of educational thinking which influence this subject. Basically, I propose to study curriculum in a general educational sense and to present the various reading's which offer suggestions for curriculum structuring. These are being offered to enable the reader to be aware of the various possibilities for curriculum design. I will then follow this with a discussion of curriculum which is directly related to music. This section will offer suggestions as to our function as music teachers, the role of music in the curriculum and other related topics of discussion. At the end of these two sections I will outline briefly some of my own proposals for music content. To a large extent I will refrain from discussing content directly, because I feel it is the function of the teacher to select his or her own content. The role of this paper is to offer suggestions as to how to organise what one has decided to teach. I will be asking the question: "What is the role of the music educator today and how should one fulfil this function?