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As a prelude to this historical representation of music teacher education, I would like to suggest that any historical telll. ing is a personal construction of select ideas, facts, figures, etc. that reflect that teller's own history, inquiry process, and interpretative understanding of things investigated. As a result of my inquiry (discovery, collection, organization and presentation of information about the past), I hope, as Zeichner and Liston (1990) note in their study of teacher education reform, that the story presented here helps provide perspective and new awareness regarding current (or future) choices and responses music teacher educators might make in their own work.
Reform
If one idea could characterize and simultaneously summarize the history of teacher education, including music teacher education, it would be reform. Any tracing of the development of music teacher education in America would quickly uncover that efforts directed toward change have been not only practical but also personal and political. Furthermore, as Walker and Soltis (2004) point out, reform is not only generated from knowledge-, student-, or society-centered perspectives, but also from a perception that an educational system is not working properly at a given time or for a given context. Reform, they go on to say "is then called for to correct, adjust, or improve the situation" (p. 77). In other words, reform is a prime example of a problem-centered approach to change.
Whatever the nature or focus reform takes, the basic problem in teacher education is, according to Lucas (1999), trying to figure what specific form it should assume. In this story of reform in music teacher education, I have divided the narrative into four historical parts. Although considerable overlap exists, this division provides a schematic for constructing themes and looking at lasting legacies. In one way or another, an important answer to the best way to educate America's (music) teachers lies in its history.
Framework
Part 1 concerns early forms of music teaching and teacher education including the emergence and organization of state normal schools. The larger context of the common school movement (1770-1900) gave birth to both the public school in the mid-nineteenth century and the beginning of state licensing of teachers. A key problem during this time was figuring out how to respond to expanding...