Suchergebnisse

Music has been an integral part of humanity's culture for millennia. Like many other artifacts of culture, songs have: expressed a range of feelings, informed listeners of historical and political issues, and provoked social awareness and change at every level of sophistication. In nearly all corners of the globe, music is woven deeply into the fabric of life and significantly affects and reflects the contexts in which it is written and shared. Our almost universal passion for music, bolstered by its importance as an artifact of culture and history, has not resulted in the integration of musical forms and texts in our classrooms in any systematic or conspicuous way. In that context, we propose a framework for integrating music in the social studies classroom. Our example comes from two individuals who lived very different lives, yet experienced some tragic parallels confronting fascism at various points in history. The music and writing these individuals left behind enable us to explore best practices in social studies and literacy in particularly engaging ways.

Scholars have long pointed to the power of music as a primary source in instruction for bringing past actors into sharper view and engender deeper connections with the past. By employing Dimitri Shostakovich's 7th Symphony, composed amidst the Nazi siege of Leningrad during the Second World War, we sought to explore, more precisely, the nature of how music, as a primary source, enhances the study of history among students. Through the formulation, execution, and assessment of a two-day lesson with students in five secondary history classes, three of which listened to the symphony and two of which did not, we found that the incorporation of the symphony resulted in students' enhanced empathetic understanding of the past. Implications include details regarding profound opportunities for, as well as challenges to, cultivating historical empathy through the use of music as a primary source.