Abstract
Much research supports the everyday therapeutic and deeper socialneurophysiological influence of singing songs alone and in groups (Austin, 2008; Cozolino, 2013; Sacks, 2007). This study looks at what happens when Japanese students teach short English affirmation songlet-routines to others out of the classroom (clandestine folk music therapy). I investigate 155 student-conducted musical case studies from 7 semester-long classes (18 to 29 students per class) over a 4-year period. The assignments, their in-class training, and their results are introduced, with examples directly from their case studies. Each class published their own booklet of case studies (a class publication, available to readers online for research replication and modeling). Results show that most primary participants enjoyed spreading these positive songlets as they became “well-becoming agents of change” in their own social networks. “Well-becoming” emphasizes an agentive action or activity that creates better well-being in others, an action such as the sharing or teaching of a songlet. The qualitative data reveals a number of types of well-becoming such as social and familial bonding, meaning-making, teaching-rushes, and experiencing embodied cognition. The project also stimulated wider network dissemination of these well-becoming possibilities and pedagogical insights.
Highlights
Connecting project work, positive psychology, and neuroscienceLeo van Lier wrote in the foreword to the book Project-Based Second and Foreign Language Education (van Lier, 2006, p. xi) how most Americans cite John Dewey’s “advocacy of experiential and action based learning” when there are a great number of admired European educators who advocated such experiential learning years before (Comenius, 17th century Prague; Pestalozzi, 19th century Switzerland; the Italian Montessori, early 20th century; and the giant of educational theory Piaget a bit after Dewey)
Leo van Lier wrote in the foreword to the book Project-Based Second and Foreign Language Education how most Americans cite John Dewey’s “advocacy of experiential and action based learning” when there are a great number of admired European educators who advocated such experiential learning years before (Comenius, 17th century Prague; Pestalozzi, 19th century Switzerland; the Italian Montessori, early 20th century; and the giant of educational theory Piaget a bit after Dewey)
Van Lier goes on to stress that we need to appreciate the “deeper foundations of educational thought that underlie this approach to education” (p. xii)
Summary
Connecting project work, positive psychology, and neuroscienceLeo van Lier wrote in the foreword to the book Project-Based Second and Foreign Language Education (van Lier, 2006, p. xi) how most Americans cite John Dewey’s “advocacy of experiential and action based learning” when there are a great number of admired European educators who advocated such experiential learning years before (Comenius, 17th century Prague; Pestalozzi, 19th century Switzerland; the Italian Montessori, early 20th century; and the giant of educational theory Piaget a bit after Dewey). Leo van Lier wrote in the foreword to the book Project-Based Second and Foreign Language Education Xi) how most Americans cite John Dewey’s “advocacy of experiential and action based learning” when there are a great number of admired European educators who advocated such experiential learning years before (Comenius, 17th century Prague; Pestalozzi, 19th century Switzerland; the Italian Montessori, early 20th century; and the giant of educational theory Piaget a bit after Dewey). Van Lier goes on to stress that we need to appreciate the “deeper foundations of educational thought (whether it be enlightenment, democracy, or fulfillment) that underlie this approach to education” Students are normally already heavily invested in certain important relationships out of class that can be rich contexts for exploratory learning tasks
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