American Elementary School Music Education Multicultural Perspective

Ancient Greek philosopher Plato once said:"Those who received such a good music education can keenly see the ugly side of works of art and natural things, and thus disgust them correctly. But once on the sight of the beautiful things, he will praise them and happily absorbed them into the soul as nourishment. Thus, the character also becomes noble and beautiful." Good music education has a positive role in the development of the children in mind.However, as the development of economy in today’s society, music education philosophy is constantly updated worldwide nowadays. Meanwhile, our music education in primary and secondary schools is facing new opportunities and challenges with the advent of a new round of curriculum reform. From the concept to the implementation of the curriculum standards of music teaching, from compilation of teaching materials to the specific implementation of the music classroom, almost all aspects of music teaching are undergoing profound changes.In order to effectively improve the quality of elementary school music education in China, so that all children are able to enjoy the music, we must be able to break through the traditional concept, learn from the advanced experience of foreign music education, so that a limited number of music classes will become a broad platform to develop students’ music literacy. In the thesis, primary schools in Massachusetts and other places in the United States are selected as the object of study. By means of discussing various aspects of American elementary school music education, this thesis attempts to analyze how the music education philosophy in the music classroom in the United States is completed in a multicultural social background. At the same time, I also tried to find the gaps and shortcomings by comparing the Sino-US music education of elementary school, and to explore the inspiration of the music education of primary school in China.This paper is divided into five chapters. The first chapter account of the significance of the topic and the development history of American music education. The second chapter discusses music curriculum standards in the elementary school in the United States as well as teaching philosophy. The third chapter discusses some of the problems in the form of teaching materials and some particular problems in music teaching classes of elementary school in the United States. The fourth chapter focuses on the teachers and management in the United States. On the basis of the previous chapters, The fifth chapter focuses on the comparative discussion in China-US music education of elementary school and draw inspiration. In the discussion of thesis, the author accessed to a great deal of relevant literature, classified the detailed information, summarized the sources and tried to conclude from this discussion.Through this discussion, I hope that this thesis is not only able to make a more specific discussion of music teaching in American elementary school, but also reveals, through comparative analysis, some practice of American music education as well as the rationale behind the reference value. I hope the thesis can, to some degree, be some kind of useful reference to the reform of basic music education as well as the first-line teachers. When conditions allow, I will continue to refiner some aspects of t study and do some further research.