Seeking the Significance of Music Education

Noted music educator Bennett Reimer has selected 24 of his previously published articles from a variety of professional journals spanning the past 50 years. During that time, he's tackled: -generating core values for the field of music education; -the core in larger societal and educational contexts; -what to teach and how to teach it effectively; -how we need to educate our teachers; -the role of research in our profession; and -how to improve our future status. Reimer precedes each essay with background reflections and his position, both professional and personal, on effectively addressing the issue at hand. The opening "Letter to the Reader" presents a valuable overview based on his deeply grounded viewpoint. The entire music education profession will benefit from Reimer's perspective on past, present, and future concerns central to the functioning of music education in Seeking the Significance of Music Education: Essays and Reflections.

This fascinating and exhaustive set of essays confirms Bennett Reimer not only as an inspirational thinker and educator, but as a philosopher of deep humanity whose clarity of thought and expression are equally matched by his breadth of vision, humour, and delight in finely honed language. If you care about or are involved in educating through music, not only in the USA, but worldwide, then this book is essential reading., The enduring legacy of Bennett Reimer is that, for over 50 years, he has been able to challenge us to think much more deeply about the profession we proudly call music education. In this collection of essays, the reader is again summoned by Reimer’s wise, empathetic, and learned mind as he weaves a brilliant intellectual tapestry that both celebrates and illuminates the role and function of music in our lives, and provides a profoundly eloquent foundation for a practical philosophy for music education. This intellectual memoir is endlessly thought-provoking and will live for generations as one of our discipline’s finest achievements., It is often difficult to find among scholars in education individuals whose ideas are as deep as they are broad. In Bennett Reimer we have such an individual. The twenty-four essays that constitute this book touch many of the central questions one can raise about music and its place in education. To be able to articulate so clearly what these issues are and how they might be approached is a real achievement, one that Professor Reimer has attained. This book will be an invaluable resource for those preparing to teach in the arts. I recommend it with considerable enthusiasm., The entire music education profession will benefit from Reimer's perspective on past, present, and future concerns central to the functioning of music education in Seeking the Significance of Music Education: Essays and Reflections ., I have known Bennett Reimer and admired his work for a long time. Seeking the Significance of Music Education is a very special publication. Essays written over a fifty-year timespan are now reprinted (as originally published) along with reflectionsfrom a present-day vantage point. As he puts it: 'This book is a kind of intellectual memoir of a life spent grappling with intractable questions relating to music education.' The essays are organized into three parts: Our Values as a School Subject (generating core values; core values in larger contexts); Achieving Our Values (what and how to teach; educating our teachers; the role of research); and Preserving and Enhancing Our Viability (our values in service of our future). So much has happened in theintervening years between the time the essays were written and the present. New technologies have radically altered our means for making and disseminating music. The arts (including music) have become highly politicized. Previous distinctions between 'high' and 'popular' music have been erased, and the image of the artist has changed. Reimer addresses the consequent issues confronting those who would teach music. Indeed, the issues are those that need to be addressed by all art educators. This is an inva

Bennett Reimer is the John W. Beattie Professor of Music Education Emeritus at Northwestern University, where he was chair of the Music Education Department and founder and director of the Center for the Study of Education and the Musical Experience, a research group of Ph.D. students and faculty. He is the author and editor of some two dozen books and 150 articles dealing with a variety of topics in music, music education, and the arts in education.