Holistic Education in a Secondary Band Classroom

Hendrixson, Caleb

Publication

Holistic Education in a Secondary Band Classroom

Hendrixson, Caleb

Date

2015

Additional date(s)

2015-12-01

Abstract

Holistic education is based on the ideal that each student finds identity, meaning, and purpose in life through connections to the community, natural world, and to spiritual values such as compassion and peace.A holistic perspective of education asserts that educators must nourish the unique potentials of every child and facilitate within them a reverence for life and a passionate love of learning. Holistic education is not a fixed ideology.Instead, it is an attempt for educators to embrace the complexity and wholeness of human life, express it through a holistic philosophy of education, and transfer it to student learning.The difficulty, but beauty, of holism lies in its responsiveness to diverse learning styles within the classroom and the needs of evolving children. While scholars have proposed methods for holistic education to be implemented in a variety of educational settings, the role of holistic education in the secondary instrumental music classroom has not been well defined.The purpose of the present study is to explore how holism can be applied within this setting through the rehearsal and performance of three wind band works: Divertimento for Band by Vincent Persichetti, Salvation is Created by Pavel Chesnokov, and Irish Tune from County Derry by Percy Grainger.This study will also investigate how secondary music programs may be using portions of holism in their curriculum and how music educators can continue to develop curriculum and pedagogical techniques to develop their students cognitively, emotionally, and spiritually.