Playing on Both Sides of the Djembe: Preservice Music Teacher Development Through Facilitating Drumming at a Special Education School

Abstract

Despite a renewed interest in music teacher education practices with real-world implications, the heterogeneity of learners is often daunting to early-career educators. There is a lack of specific and adequate coursework in undergraduate music education programs to prepare preservice music teachers (PSMTs) for teaching diverse learner populations, including learners with disabilities. Drawing on a project where PSMTs facilitated drumming sessions at a special education school, this case study explored PSMTs’ experiences of project-based service learning in a special educational setting. Five themes that emerged from the data describing PSMTs’ experiences suggest that such initiatives with learners at a special education school can foster student responsiveness and autonomy. The findings describe how integrating dialectic aspects could nurture the music-teaching skills of a PSMT. These aspects are joy and challenges, expectations and reactions, and learning to teach individually and in a group.