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A bass baritone who trained at London's Royal Academy of Music and who has spent 20 years in kindergarten and tertiary education wants to put song back into early childhood education .

Assistant Professor Robert Faulkner is the coordinator of The University of Western Australia's new early childhood education program which begins next year.

The two-year Masters of Teaching, Early Childhood Education course is the third in an interconnected suite of new courses available at UWA for postgraduates.  The others - Masters of Primary and Secondary Education - have attracted students from fields including engineering, management, marketing, law and psychiatry. Asst/Professor Faulkner, who developed a K-12 curriculum in Iceland, expects his program to do the same.

"Music and play are very much related," he said.  "You play the piano, you play the violin.  In Scandinavia the importance of play in a child's development is understood but we tend to see a dichotomy between play and learning instead of making them work together.

"Song and language are linked and with the concern about literacy levels, I believe it is time to put song back into classrooms, to encourage children to create their own songs, their own music, and to have their own voice.

"The earliest years of a child's life are those in which the foundation is laid.  They are the window to the greatest opportunity, a time when the brain is at its most plastic, when patterns of behaviour, beliefs, and social, emotional and cognitive development begin.  Of all the areas I've taught in, for me these are the most exciting years."

Asst/Professor Faulkner said the new course would blend theory and practice, with student-teachers working in schools in a range of socio-economic and ethnically diverse areas.

Media references

Assistant Professor Robert Faulkner (+61 8)  6488 4243
(UWA Graduate School of Education)
Janine MacDonald (UWA Public Affairs)  (+61 8)  6488 5563  /  (+61 4) 32 637 716