No Age is Too Early to Begin

Abstract

Music, music everywhere, especially in the early childhood classroom, but is the real educational challenge being met? Are we laying the kind of foundation in this area that permits the achievement of lifelong growth and benefits? Are we helping children attain the kinds of concepts and the strategies for learning that will have active and functional use in later years? The challenge before us is to provide for meaningful, viable music education, and no age is too early to begin. The first priority is to communicate our goals for music in general education to those who make decisions about curriculums; we must articulate these objectives in the language of the nonmusicians with whom we work. In the past, the placing of academic subjects at the center of the curriculum was justified because these subjects were the ones that helped a person deal with the world. The arts were peripheral-for recreation or diversion-and were usually enjoyed only by an elite minority. Music educators have talked and written at length about the need for providing music learning The author is professor of music education at New York University, New York City. Copyright ?1974 by Frances Webber Aronoff.