Bias in Early Childhood Songs
Music for Early Childhood-New Dimensions in Music is a song book consisting of one hundred and sixty-five short songs intended for young children and elementary students. At first glance, it seems like a very appropriate resources to use in a typical elementary music classroom. It includes many classic folk and patriotic tunes which are important for young children to learn. The songs are also quite culturally diverse with folk tunes and styles from nineteen different countries. While delving in deeper, it can be seen that all seven biases are present in these songs and therefore this book should not be in the hands of young students. When this anthology was published in 1970, the general population was not very …show more content…
Overall, most of the songs that speak of humans are about boys and men. A few titles include: “Peter Peter Penguin”, “Jonathon”, “This Old Man”, “Old King Cole”, “Nicholas Ned”, “My Son John”, and “Old Mister Rabbit.” The lack of songs depicting a female is disheartening. In many cases, it would only have to be a change of pronoun and a female would fit perfectly into the tune. A thoughtful teacher may benefit from using that quick trick to enlighten the girls in the classroom who never hear their personal pronoun (Choate, R. A., Berg, R. C., Kjelson, L., & Troth, E. W., 1970, pg. …show more content…
In the section “Songs for Special Days”, songs of holidays are written. There are many covered including: Christmas, Hanukah, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Easter, and Valentine’s Day. It is easy to see that all of the holidays are typical holidays for white, Christian based children. Besides the two short Hanukah tunes, there is little for students who might celebrate holidays such as Kwanza, Chinese New Year, Day of the Dead, or St. Lucia’s Day. There should be more consideration for all of the diverse children in a classroom (Choate, R. A., Berg, R. C., Kjelson, L., & Troth, E. W., 1970, pg. 135-147).
In conclusion, Music for Early Childhood- New Dimensions in Music is not a suitable resource for the classroom as a whole. It is overall outdated and contains all seven forms of bias. No child should have this book to explore for themselves, but it can be argued that this would be a suitable resource for the teacher to use for individual songs. When teaching about original folk tunes all around the world, this book may be useful, but should not be used in consecutive order. Overall, there are better options that include songs which are bias free and sensitive to all
Music for Early Childhood-New Dimensions in Music is a song book consisting of one hundred and sixty-five short songs intended for young children and elementary students. At first glance, it seems like a very appropriate resources to use in a typical elementary music classroom. It includes many classic folk and patriotic tunes which are important for young children to learn. The songs are also quite culturally diverse with folk tunes and styles from nineteen different countries. While delving in deeper, it can be seen that all seven biases are present in these songs and therefore this book should not be in the hands of young students. When this anthology was published in 1970, the general population was not very …show more content…
Overall, most of the songs that speak of humans are about boys and men. A few titles include: “Peter Peter Penguin”, “Jonathon”, “This Old Man”, “Old King Cole”, “Nicholas Ned”, “My Son John”, and “Old Mister Rabbit.” The lack of songs depicting a female is disheartening. In many cases, it would only have to be a change of pronoun and a female would fit perfectly into the tune. A thoughtful teacher may benefit from using that quick trick to enlighten the girls in the classroom who never hear their personal pronoun (Choate, R. A., Berg, R. C., Kjelson, L., & Troth, E. W., 1970, pg. …show more content…
In the section “Songs for Special Days”, songs of holidays are written. There are many covered including: Christmas, Hanukah, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Easter, and Valentine’s Day. It is easy to see that all of the holidays are typical holidays for white, Christian based children. Besides the two short Hanukah tunes, there is little for students who might celebrate holidays such as Kwanza, Chinese New Year, Day of the Dead, or St. Lucia’s Day. There should be more consideration for all of the diverse children in a classroom (Choate, R. A., Berg, R. C., Kjelson, L., & Troth, E. W., 1970, pg. 135-147).
In conclusion, Music for Early Childhood- New Dimensions in Music is not a suitable resource for the classroom as a whole. It is overall outdated and contains all seven forms of bias. No child should have this book to explore for themselves, but it can be argued that this would be a suitable resource for the teacher to use for individual songs. When teaching about original folk tunes all around the world, this book may be useful, but should not be used in consecutive order. Overall, there are better options that include songs which are bias free and sensitive to all