Creativity in Greek Music Curricula and Pedagogy: An Investigation of Greek Music Teachers’ Perceptions

Abstract

Creativity’s enhancement through education has been widely discussed and promoted in Greece, especially in the past few decades. In the music domain, teaching philosophy and practice seem to focus on ways that can encourage children to learn and apply their knowledge through creative music activities. This paper reports on the outcomes of a study undertaken with 112 general music teachers of different ages and scientific backgrounds, who teach in 235 primary and secondary schools in Greece. Being the first time that such research is being conducted in Greece, the main aim of the study was to reveal how Greek music teachers think, feel about, and influence pupils’ creativity and the teaching conditions that may enhance or inhibit it. It is believed that such a study may contribute to the development of creativity enhancement projects through music teaching. The findings suggest that creativity is associated by Greek music teachers with a natural gift that cannot be addressed in all students, and can only be partly taught in music classroom. They also indicate that teachers do not have an explicit understanding of music creativity as well as creativity assessment, since most of them tend to assess students’ creative performance on the basis on non musical criteria (i.e. participation, eagerness, etc.). Results also show that creative musical activities are more often applied in primary education, while in secondary education they are successively replaced by music theory and history. Finally, teachers’ negative views about the music curriculum, text- books and number of teaching hours are identified. Such findings lead to suggestions for numerous changes in music teachers’ education, establishing training in teaching for creativity as a fundamental priority.