The current situation and reform ideas of music education in primary and secondary schools in my country

Since the reform and opening up, my country's social economy has continued to develop at a high speed, people's living standards have steadily improved, and the entire education industry has entered a period of healthy development. track. It is under this background that music education in primary and secondary schools has received a rare and good development opportunity, received unprecedented attention from the party and the government, and achieved eye-catching results. To sum up, these achievements are mainly reflected in the following aspects: First, most education administrative departments at all levels have initially established management, consulting, and teaching and research institutions for primary and secondary music education, which has changed the situation in the past where there were no specialized institutions and no dedicated personnel for management. The spontaneous state of music education in primary and secondary schools; secondly, a series of regulations and documents have been formulated to guide music education in primary and secondary schools, which has fundamentally changed the situation in which music education in primary and secondary schools in my country has no legal basis; thirdly, it has changed the situation in primary and secondary schools. There has long been a large gap in music education, and the opening rate of music courses in primary and secondary schools has steadily increased. Especially in 1994, high schools opened a compulsory course on art appreciation, which ended the history of no music courses in high schools since the founding of New China; fourth , a large number of outstanding music teachers in primary and secondary schools have emerged, and many successful experiences in music education and teaching in primary and secondary schools have been accumulated. The construction of music teachers in primary and secondary schools has achieved initial results; fifthly, a series of colorful extracurricular and extracurricular music activities have been carried out to effectively promote It has promoted the development of school music education; sixth, a certain number and quality of music teaching materials for primary and secondary schools have been compiled, and the equipment of music teaching equipment has begun to take shape in some areas.

At the same time, we have also seen that due to the poor foundation and weak foundation of music education in primary and secondary schools in my country, the development is very uneven. Therefore, despite the above-mentioned achievements, there are still many problems. These problems include: the management institutions and management teams of music education in primary and secondary schools are still incomplete; the opening rate of music courses is unbalanced, and some are even very low; there is a large vacancy of music teachers; the quality of teachers and the low rate of academic qualifications and job qualifications; and the outflow situation Serious; the emphasis on music education is often only verbal, with little real investment, and the overall lack of teaching equipment; the understanding of music education is not scientific and comprehensive; the teaching level and the quality of teaching materials are not high, etc. Obviously, most of these problems can only be gradually solved by relying on government actions, and cannot be controlled and solved by scientific researchers and one or several scientific research projects.

On the other hand, it is not difficult to see that the current achievements of music education in primary and secondary schools are more of an increase in quantity and hardware. Of course, without these quantitative and hardware developments, there would be no qualitative development and leap in music education. However, to improve the quality of music education, or to achieve sustainable development of music education, in addition to the guarantee of external conditions such as quantity and hardware, there is also a very critical issue, that is, at the same time, we More attention should be paid to the music education itself in primary and secondary schools, that is, the inherent problems of music education in primary and secondary schools. Therefore, as the 20th century is coming to an end and the 21st century is approaching, we must carefully examine our past music education in primary and secondary schools and truly answer the problems existing in primary and secondary music education itself, including theoretically vague questions and The problems that arise in practice are urgent and unavoidable for the further development of our music education.

We believe that there are currently two serious and prominent problems in the music curriculum of primary and secondary schools in my country. One is the non-artistic tendency of music education, that is, music education in primary and secondary schools does not highlight music well. characteristics of art; the other is the professionalization tendency of primary and secondary education, that is, primary and secondary music education does not highlight the characteristics of primary and secondary students well, so that primary and secondary music education often becomes non-primary and non-music in practice. education. It can be said that the above problems are clearly revealed in many aspects such as the purpose and tasks, content and form, principles and methods of music education in primary and secondary schools.

Regarding the understanding of the purpose and tasks of music education in primary and secondary schools, there are mainly the following one-sided and biased views. These views may interpret the purpose and tasks of professional music education as the primary and secondary music education. purposes and tasks, or understand the purposes and tasks of other non-music courses as the purposes and tasks of music education.

Some people often regard teaching students to master the knowledge and skills in music textbooks as the purpose of music education in primary and secondary schools. They believe that music education in primary and secondary schools is mainly to provide professional reserve talents for higher-level professional music colleges. Therefore, cultivating students with musical talents is the key to primary and secondary schools. The main purpose of primary school music education; some people are accustomed to regard music education as "desserts after meals", an embellishment of school education, and a vassal of other aspects of school education; others like to treat the entire school education The ultimate goal is simply transplanted into the goal of music education. Especially when everyone is talking about quality education, many people like to artificially and hollowly elevate the status and role of music education, treating music education as a cure for all diseases. The cure for the disease. We believe that the above-mentioned one-sided understandings of music education in primary and secondary schools are mainly due to insufficient understanding of the essential characteristics of music education in primary and secondary schools. On the one hand, music education in primary and secondary schools is a basic quality education for all students, rather than professional music education or vocational training education for individual top students; on the other hand, music education is an education of art and beauty, and the main purpose is It is not a scientific education, a true education or even a kind education. The purpose of art education and aesthetic education is to beautify life and improve human survival and quality of life. Therefore, music education in primary and secondary schools should guide students to participate in music activities, so that students can enjoy the satisfaction of success and gain aesthetically pleasing experiences, thereby making students love music, stimulating students' interest and desire to further learn music, and on this basis, make students Students have the basic knowledge and ability to further learn music, as well as understand the history of the development of music culture, laying a foundation for their sustainable development in music, and at the same time achieving the purpose of subtly promoting the overall improvement of students' quality.

In terms of teaching principles and teaching methods of music courses in primary and secondary schools, the current problems are also serious. This is first manifested in the fact that in the specific teaching practice process, people often use the same teaching methods as other subjects to teach music without highlighting the characteristics of music art; in theory, although scholars have also proposed many music teaching principles in recent years , but some of the principles also do not highlight the characteristics of art, so it is difficult to play its due guiding role in the practice of music teaching in primary and secondary schools. In short, the current music teaching in primary and secondary schools is too intellectual and rational, emphasizing teachers' teachings, neglecting students' participation experience, emphasizing the results of teaching, neglecting the pleasant process of teaching, emphasizing the teaching of knowledge and skills, and neglecting the development of music practice activities and teaching models. Single, the teaching effect is not good. It is so common that almost all students like music, but a considerable number of students do not like taking music classes. We believe that the non-artistic nature of the teaching methods adopted by teachers will inevitably lead to the inclusion of some non-musical and non-artistic elements in music education, and their existence will inevitably affect students’ ability to appreciate music, express music and create music. subject position. Therefore, the improvement of music teaching methods, in the final analysis, is to truly establish the dominant position of students in music teaching. Music class is an active and practical course. Music teaching activities are actually a kind of music practice activity in which teachers and students participate together. Therefore, the form and method of music teaching are bound to be different from other intellectual and academic courses. discipline. For music teaching, the main status of students is mainly reflected in whether students truly become the masters of music teaching, that is, music practice activities. If the form and method of music teaching are still based on teacher teaching, then the student's dominant position cannot be guaranteed, music teaching cannot provide students with enough opportunities to participate in music activities, and it is impossible for students to truly acquire aesthetic appreciation. Pleasurable experience and the satisfaction of success. Therefore, the primary task of music teaching is to create opportunities for students to actively participate in music, so that students can truly become the masters of music teaching activities.

In terms of content and requirements, music education in primary and secondary schools also has a serious tendency towards specialization and adultization.

Generally speaking, the current primary and secondary school music syllabus and the various versions of music teaching materials compiled accordingly are deeply influenced by professional music and art colleges in terms of content, style, and requirements: content and requirements The pursuit of comprehensiveness and system is too difficult, which not only exceeds the current level and acceptance ability of primary and secondary school students, but also exceeds the needs of primary and secondary school students in music development. Many knowledge and skills do not need to be mastered by non-professional music workers and cannot be used. In terms of format arrangement, various types of music knowledge are often divided into fragments, and they are not well integrated so that they are presented to students as a complete musical image rather than as separate knowledge points. As a result, students are often exposed to only some isolated knowledge points rather than real music. At the same time, the arrangement of teaching materials overemphasizes its own strict logical system and sequence arrangement. It is closed and single, rigid and inactive, leaving little room for creativity for teachers and students. It is seriously contrary to the creative character of the music discipline itself. We believe that in order to effectively solve this problem, we must fully respect the laws and characteristics of the music curriculum itself, and we must also fully follow the laws of physical and mental development of primary and secondary school students and the musical aesthetic characteristics of primary and secondary school students.

Because there are misunderstandings about the purpose and tasks of music education in primary and secondary schools, and because the current practical level of music education in primary and secondary schools in my country is not high and the theoretical discussion is not in-depth, the evaluation of music teaching in primary and secondary schools is also inconsistent. It is quite backward and has serious problems. It can be said that at present, our country has not established a sound, scientific, reasonable, and unified standard music teaching evaluation system for primary and secondary schools, so that in actual work, some behaviors that conform to the laws of primary and secondary music education often It is considered wrong by people, and some behaviors that violate the rules of music education in primary and secondary schools and deviate from the overall goal of quality education in primary and secondary schools are often affirmed and promoted by people. Therefore, carefully exploring and establishing evaluation standards for primary and secondary music education will play a very important role in the healthy development of primary and secondary music education in my country.

In short, my country’s primary and secondary music education is currently developing, but at the same time it is also facing many problems that need to be solved. It should be said that the problems we pointed out above are only a few of the main problems. There are also the disconnection between school music education and society and family music education, the separation of music education from other subject education, and the inability to learn foreign music education theories in conjunction with our country’s. Problems such as the combination of specific practices are also serious. Whether these problems can be fundamentally solved depends on whether the reform of music education can meet the needs of social and educational development in the 21st century.