Music Teacher Training to Build a Musical Community

Abstract

This chapter describes how pre-service teachers and future music teachers facilitate peer learning and collaboration in their teacher training courses. This chapter first introduces a case that every student in a Japanese teacher training course learns composition independently and collaboratively. Collaboration involves the mixture of peer-to-peer learning, hands-on one-on-one instruction, and group learning that can strengthen teacher education programs by offering a variety of interactive opportunities. The chapter also introduces a school-wide and local community collaboration among university, elementary school, kindergarten, and community to create a large musical show. Finally, in the chapter, the concluding one, one of the main purposes of music education is to build musical communities to learn from each other and to share musical enjoyment with different individuals. In essence, music is the best way to build a community. For an ideal music teacher training, it is essential for future teachers to become able to collaborate musically and to build collegial relationships with other fellows to learn from the differences.