Music Education as Human Education: The Ethos of the Suzuki Method Teachers' Community

• In Event: 41.047 - International Perspectives on Teacher Education: A Specturm of Subjects and Contexts

Abstract

This study focuses on ethos of the Suzuki teachers’ community, by drawing on narrative inquiry. Teachers who embrace original Suzuki’s original philosophy were interviewed in 2013 and 2016, in Japan and the U.S. Focusing on the ethos in the teachers’ community revealed, in their own concrete words, that the Suzuki method is oriented toward “music education as human education.” The significance of the group lesson form, the reciprocal teaching and learning in the teachers’ community, and the growth of parents and teachers as well as that of children, were demonstrated through teachers’ narratives to embody the ethos of collaboration, co-learning, and co-development—clearly denying the competitiveness so common in traditional music education.

Author

• Naomi Katsura, Toyo University