Review: Houlahan, Mícheál; Tacka, Philip (2008). Kodály Today. A Cognitive Approach to Elementary Music Education.

Abstract

Houlahan and Tacka’s textbook is an adaptation of Kodály’s philosophy for teaching grades 1 to 5, designed to meet the US-American National Standards for Arts Education. The authors see the book as a “practical guide for teaching“. It contains model plans of a Kodály based curriculum, monthly plans and detailed lesson plans. Additionally the authors aim at establishing a theoretical foundation for their concept on the basis of a learning theory developed especially for this purpose, which, however, is not convincing in some central aspects. This affects all aspects of teaching, such as teaching procedures, teaching objectives and lesson planning.

The concept presented by the authors is marked by a highly sequential treatment of topics and procedures, even more so than in the original method. This results in uniformly structured and strongly teacher-centred lessons, which discourage independent student behaviour and attitudes towards learning. Due to this and the narrow choice of teaching matter this approach cannot be recommended for general music education on pedagogical grounds.