Browsing by Author "Teräväinen, Maiju"

This bachelor’s thesis examines how from University of Helsinki newly graduated kindergarten teachers' experience their own abilities as music educators. Purpose of this study was to clarify how teachers feel about their own abilities as music educators and how they feel the music pedagogy course in university have helped them in the actual work life. The study also finds out how kindergarten teachers use music in their everyday work. In the theoretical framework of this study music is examined as a part of child’s development. The theory studies different stages of musical development and shows what kind of benefits music can give to child’s holistic development. The governing documents, such as Curriculum for Early Childhood Education and Act on Early Childhood Education and Care are explored in the light of music education. Literature will also focus on how kindergarten teachers act as music educators in early childhood education and how individual child’s musical development can be supported by adults. Lastly the theoretical framework includes an overview of what music pedagogy course for kindergarten teachers at the University of Helsinki contains. The study was carried out as a qualitative research. The research material was collected from the responses of the online questionnaire and a total number of respondents in this survey was 8 (N=8). As an analytical method in this study has been used thematic content-based content analysis. The results of the study revealed that kindergarten teachers use music in their work by traditional methods, but not very diversely or systematically. Kindergarten teachers experienced that their best abilities as music educators were their features, talent and learned skills. Teachers mentioned that the poor knowledge obtained from the music course and the lack of their musical skills were the reasons for their weak abilities as music educators. Results also showed that teachers’ musical needs in work life and the abilities obtained from the music pedagogy course in university were conflicted. Based on the results obtained, it is considered whether the musi-cal activity that emerged from the research questions was sufficiently goal-directed. The results were also mirrored to the theory of this thesis. The contradiction between the skills obtained from the degree and the needs of working life and the development proposals that solved it are critically considered.