抄録
Since 1989, the national curriculum guidelines for kindergartens set forth by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), called the Course of Study for Kindegarten, has regarded musical activities as a field of comprehensive activities called “Expression” (MEXT, 2008). The guidelines stipulate that, in childcare and education, musical activities such as singing, playing a musical instrument, and music appreciation (listening), should not be treated as separate and isolated skills, but rather must be taught by the teachers in an integrated fashion as part of a kindergarten’s daily activities.
In this study, I discussed the professional expertise required of teachers in early childhood education today, the positioning of music in early childhood education, and the direction that programs to teach self-expression in the teacher training course should head for. The key is to cultivate, in the students during the teacher training course, the ability to carry out activities with the children creatively, cooperatively and in an improvised manner, based on their own musical sensitivities.
As a concrete example, I described an educational program on comprehensive self-expressive activities targeting university students that has been implemented as part of a certain university’s teacher training course and proposed methods for realizing collaboration between music and methods of self-expression other than music. At the same time, I showed that the objectives of this educational program are to encourage students to become aware of the diversity of musical expression, and to have them re-think the meaning and function of music. To be able to autonomously design and develop childcare and education programs, today’s teachers in early education are required to possess an even higher-level professional expertise, such as meta- understanding of life habits and culture, in addition to practical skills. In the teacher training course, it is also important that specialists in diverse artistic fields organize team teaching and cooperate in supporting the students through creative activities.
