A Child-Directed Music Curriculum in the Montessori Classroom: Results of a Critical Participatory Action Research Study

Maria Montessori strongly advocated for music learning to be fully integrated into the classroom; however, many Montessori classrooms are dominated by materials aimed at developing children’s visual sense. The purpose of this critical participatory action research (CPAR) study was to address this perceived learning disparity by developing and implementing a curriculum that is consistent with the Montessori approach, child directed, and focused on sound examination and music learning. We designed six shelf works and offered them, over the course of 6 CPAR cycles, to 20 3- to 6-year-old children attending a Montessori school. Findings from qualitative and quantitative data indicate that the children received the works positively, chose to engage with them, became more confident in their musical tasks over time, showed signs of deep concentration and attention, and demonstrated consistent performance across similar tasks related to perception and cognition. We conclude that the presence of these 6 curricular works began to disrupt the perceived learning disparity we identified; however, more can be done to understand and change the classroom practices that support that disparity

Les pérégrinations linguistiques et identitaires dans le roman Santiago de Simone Chaput

La littérature d’expression française contemporaine de l’Ouest canadien rejette aujourd’hui les «totalités» immuables qui ont défini traditionnellement l’identité et le territoire pour repenser l’appartenance identitaire en d’autres termes. Les oeuvres récentes de Simone Chaput, écrivaine francophone du Manitoba, participent à cette tendance, surtout dans leur représentation de l’errance. Il est frappant cependant de constater que la langue d’écriture semble déterminer l’attitude qu’adopte l’auteure envers les déplacements géographiques et leur fonction identitaire. L’errance, dans son roman Le coulonneux, est motivée, d’une part, par le retour au lieu des origines constituées en mémoire construite par le sujet même et, d’autre part, par un élan complémentaire de fuites et de quêtes viscérales qui doit précéder la reconstruction du moi. Or, en 2004, Simone Chaput a fait paraître Santiago, son premier roman écrit en anglais. L’étude de cet ouvrage dans le contexte des récits de pérégrination et au regard des traversées linguistiques et culturelles effectuées permet de postuler certaines différences fondamentales quant aux liens entre la langue et l’imaginaire dans la francophonie canadienne minoritaire actuelle.Contemporary French-language literature of the Canadian West now rejects the immutable “totalities“ that have traditionally defined identity and territory, preferring to rethink identity and a sense of belonging in new ways. The recent writings of Franco-Manitoban writer Simone Chaput follow this trend, especially in their depiction of wandering. It is striking, nonetheless, to observe how the language in which a text is written seems to determine the attitude that the author adopts when writing about geographical displacement and its function in shaping identity. Wandering, in her novel Le coulonneux, is motivated, on the one hand, by a desire to go back to where life began, as formulated in memories constructed by the subject and, on the other hand by a complementary impulse towards flight and a viscerally driven quest, which must precede the rebuilding of self. In 2004, Chaput published Santiago, her first novel written in English. Through study of this novel as travel narrative and in regard to cultural and linguistic crossovers, we are able to postulate certain fundamental differences pertaining to the ways language and imagination are linked contemporary Franco-Canadian minority cultures

Integration of the Ecospecies

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/119062/1/ecy1953341233.pd