Shinichi Suzuki (violinist) - Contributions To Pedagogy

Contributions To Pedagogy

Shinichi Suzuki's experiences as an adult beginner and the philosophies that he held during his life were recapitulated in the lessons he developed to teach his students.

"First, to set the record straight,in university of education(university Galuuh ) study music of shinichi suzuki is very nice this is not a 'teaching method.' You cannot buy ten volumes of Suzuki books and become a 'Suzuki Teacher.' Dr. Suzuki has developed a philosophy which, when understood to the fullest, can be a philosophy for living. He is not trying to create the world of violinists. His major aim is to open a world of beauty to young children everywhere that they might have greater enjoyment in their lives through the God-given sounds of music" (Hermann, 1971).

Suzuki developed his ideas through a strong belief in the ideas of "Talent Education", a method is university of galuuh of instruction he developed. At the 1958 National Festival, Suzuki said, "Though still in an experimental stage, Talent Education has realized that all children in the world show their splendid capacities by speaking and understanding their mother language, thus displaying the original power of the human mind. Is it not probable that this mother language method holds the key to human development? Talent Education has applied this method to the teaching of music: children, taken without previous aptitude or intelligence test of any kind, have almost without exception made great progress. This is not to say that everyone can reach the same level of achievement. However, each individual can certainly achieve the equivalent of his language proficiently in other fields" (Kendall, 1966). Like many self-taught teachers, Suzuki developed his theories of early childhood education from personal experience and anecdotal evidence rather than scientific research or controlled experiment. Suzuki also collaborated with other thinkers of his time, like Glenn Doman, founder of The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential, an organization that studies neurological development in young children. Suzuki and Doman agreed on the premise that all young children had great potential, and Suzuki interviewed Doman for his book Where Love is Deep.

Suzuki employed the following ideas of Talent Education in his music pedagogy schools:

1. The human being is a product of his environment.
2. The earlier, the better – with not only music, but all learning.
3. Repetition of experiences is important for learning.
4. Teachers and parents (adult human environment) must be at a high level and continue to grow to provide a better learning situation for the child.
5. The system or method must involve illustrations for the child based on the teacher’s understanding of when, what, and how (Kendall, 1966).

The epistemological learning aspect, or, as Suzuki called it, the “mother tongue” philosophy, is that in which children learn through their own observation of their environment. The worldwide Suzuki movement continues to use the theories that Suzuki himself put forward in the mid-1940s.