A new view for multicultural education

After reading the Morton article, it definately made me reconsider the ways in which we implement a multicultural curriculum into our classrooms. There are many teachers that subscribe to the philosophy that I need to include units on diverse cultures just to expose my students to this type of music. On the other hand, many performance based programs only choose music that will challenge the students and produce and accepted outcome. They do not feel that they need to fluff their program with extra pieces just to touch on the philosophy of music education. I have to say that I subscribe to neither philosophy. I feel that we need to program music that will teach our children something about the world, but the music must also have substance and be a viable teaching tool for musical concepts as well. I also liked Morton's idea about choosing music based on the cultural diversity within your classroom. If we choose music that directly relates to the students in some way, we recognize their identity and will encourage others to learn as well. We validate their culture's existence and enable others to see how the music relates to particular traditions. In a nutshell, I feel that musical works of various cultures should be used to enhance a music program and its students...not to add extra fluff.