History – WorldMusic Education Resources
Teaching Global Musics in the classroom
WorldMusic Education Resources comes out of my experience as an ethnomusicologist teaching students, especially education students, in the university classroom, and also from my own experience teaching music to children. I saw a need to bring into curricula for elementary and secondary schools the excitement and drive for understanding that global music courses generated in university music classes. I wanted to produce and source material that would be useful for all teachers, not just music specialists. I wanted to help students make music, but also to use music and sound as a vehicle to understand ideas expressed in music that are more “social” than “musical”.
As I worked on a set of resources and looked through available materials, I came to realize that multi-level, classroom-friendly resources for teaching world music can be hard to find. In a climate where cross-cultural teaching is recommended and even mandated in elementary and secondary school classrooms, WorldMusic Education Resources strives to be a source and clearing-house of many kinds of teaching resources in various media, from easy to complex. It also hopes to be a community – for exchange of ideas and tips, and to encourage teachers trying to provide this important aspect of education.
The website here will try and be a source not just for materials, but for information, links, downloads, discussion, at whatever scale teachers are seeking. If the company and the website make global music more accessible to teachers, it has served a big part of its purpose.
Mission Statement
WorldMusic Education Resources aims to provide pre-evaluated, quality content for teachers at an affordable price, and a space in which teachers can compare experiences, exchange information, and look for help as they teach about the music of other cultures in the classroom.