Development-oriented learning approaches and the demand for an integrated understanding of teaching: A plea for more music in school

Classroom teaching is very complex. It interacts with a multitude of knowledge, personal experiences, dreams, hopes and even fears of each of the teachers and students involved. As learning is an activity of the learner, success depends on his motivation to learn. According to the Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000), the most effective intrinsic motivation depends on three factors: social relatedness, perception of competence and experience of autonomy. Learners react differently to different aspects of these factors according to their predispositions (age, origin, but also current emotional state, etc.). When working with young children, because of the age-specific proximity of development and learning, the consideration of development-oriented approaches is particularly important. Children (but also adolescents and adults) often learn in an informal way. Subject-specific interfaces develop over time. The Swiss Curriculum (2016) identifies nine fields of developmentoriented approaches (Entwicklungsorientierte Zugänge) to thinking and learning:

Classroom teaching is very complex. It interacts with a multitude of knowledge, personal experiences, dreams, hopes and even fears of each of the teachers and students involved. As learning is an activity of the learner, success depends on his motivation to learn. According to the Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000), the most effective intrinsic motivation depends on three factors: social relatedness, perception of competence and experience of autonomy. Learners react differently to different aspects of these factors according to their predispositions (age, origin, but also current emotional state, etc.). When working with young children, because of the age-specific proximity of development and learning, the consideration of development-oriented approaches is particularly important. Children (but also adolescents and adults) often learn in an informal way. Subject-specific interfaces develop over time. The Swiss Curriculum (2016) identifies nine fields of developmentoriented approaches (Entwicklungsorientierte Zugänge) to thinking and learning: (1) Body, health and motor skills: Children experience their body as the center and discover the world through their actions. A 07 0 3 / 2 0 2 0 wide range of physical activities support their healthy physical and mental development.
(2) Perception: Through perception, children come into contact with themselves and their environment. They perceive themselves, their body, fellow human beings and the environment through the various senses. They see, hear, smell, taste and feel. All areas are closely linked.
(3) Time orientation: Children must learn to estimate the duration of time to plan time and to use time resources purposefully, given that there is no innate sense of time and because time is a social construct. Understanding time is a long and complex process.
(4) Spatial orientation: Children build up a cognitive idea of their immediate and distant surroundings through experience, which allows them to orient themselves. Through diverse experiences in spaces, children acquire basic skills of orientation. Cslovjecsek, M. (2020). Development-oriented learning approaches and the demand for an integrated understanding of teaching: A plea for more music in school. Didacticae, 7, 1-3.
(6) Imagination and creativity: Creative processes in children are mainly unstructured, partially conscious and spontaneous. They respond to inner and outer perceptions by interpreting them and putting them into context with their ideas and knowledge.
(7) Learning and reflection: In the course of their development, children expand their own learning opportunities. They get involved with different topics, accept suggestions and assignments, explore, discover, practice, observe, compare, arrange, imitate, apply, test, assume, interpret, etc.

(8) Language and communication:
In order to express themselves, children use a very wide range of language and communication tools. By sharing their experiences, sensations and perceptions through different means, children discover and explain the world to themselves.
(9) Independence and social action: Children see themselves as independent beings who explore the world, take the initiative, solve problems, develop strengths and refine their self-assessment. At the same time, children also experience fitting in with larger groups of peers, experience different relationships and learn to shape them.
Music is a universe of its own -and making music together is a very demanding activity. Successful music making in the classroom depends not only on the skills of each individual, but also very decisively on the motivation of those involved. Since the outcome of a musical activity can be judged quite easily, it is understandable that teachers often feel insecure and claim their limited musical competence.
Making music together is very vulnerable and only works when everyone really wants to. Synchronicity is a condition and the autonomy of the individual is extremely limited (Cslovjecsek, 2009). It is a great challenge, but also a very joyful moment when a whole class makes music together successfully. Of course, the musical competence of the teacher plays an important role, but much more decisive seems to be their pedagogical-didactic skills. So how is successful music teaching with a group of children possible at all?
Every musical activity is a multidimensional display of fireworks -be it listening, holding a rhythm, singing, composing, playing an instrument, dancing or speaking. Musical activity in the classroom connects in many ways with the above listed developmental learning approaches. Children (and people of all ages) respond differently to these approaches in the dimensions that resonate for them as individuals or in the group. The heterogeneity of needs and the asymmetry of competences is overwhelming.
In order to deal constructively with the challenge of musical experience in terms of education, it seems more fruitful to assume a "symmetry of ignorance" (Fischer, 1999). This means, as teachers, to take the learners very seriously. The art of teaching in every classroom is to relate the world and the people involved with their different cultures -and certainly not to be ignorant. Music is a wonderful training ground for this purpose. In order to tap the full potential of music, the role of sound as a learning agent needs a very subtle look. Due to its multi-dimensionality, the participants perceive emerging situations quite differently: while the Music teacher is likely to focus on subject-specific goals, children probably have various development-related priorities.
Cslovjecsek, M. (2020). Development-oriented learning approaches and the demand for an integrated understanding of teaching: A plea for more music in school. Didacticae, 7, 1-3.
Therefore, the teacher has to be curious and open for emerging learning fields. In addition to different subject-specific and interdisciplinary aspects, the students in their dispositions and relationships as well as the different cultures involved play a central role in every lesson: a circle dance, for example, provokes mathematical ‚problems' which are linked to specific musical questions. In parallel, references to different cultures and traditions may be of importance, and for some children it will be very relevant who they should hold hands with. Integrated teaching and learning (Cslovjecsek & Zulauf, 2018) means to be simultaneously aware about intradisciplinary and interdisciplinary, intracultural and intercultural as well as intrapersonal and interpersonal fields of development. Teaching music in a classroom is full of thrills and excitement.
According to John Dewey (1916), education means to learn to use our cognitive abilities to keep polarities and fields of tension open for as long as possible. In this way, the creative potential that arises when different cultures and systems of thought clash has to be fruitful at school. The art of teaching is to plan, steer and reflect on students learning in awareness of this immense complexity. Our professionalism as teachers obliges us to continuing professional development. This is, along Dewey's definition of education, to constantly reconstruct and reorganize our experiences in order to increase the significance of our daily experience and to expand our ability to guide the course of subsequent experiences.
Since both doing and thinking are equally important in this lifelong process, teachers are experts in developing the art of teaching. In this sense, we invite you to study the articles in this issue of Didacticae along the 'Six fields of integrated education' (Zulauf & Cslovjecsek, 2018, p. 402). We will be pleased if you share your expertise with us.