ABSTRACT
Working with partners with different backgrounds and from a wide range of teaching experiences and contexts can be enriching and rewarding for all those involved. In this chapter we will focus particularly on how collaborations between schools and visiting artists and arts organisations can enrich children’s music education. We will also consider the impact of such collaborations on the professional practice of teachers and visiting artists particularly in the context of whole class instrumental and vocal teaching (WCIVT). We will look at the value and practicalities of such partnerships and how all those involved can gain the most from them. By the end of this chapter we will have considered the following questions:
Collaborations and partnerships are no longer a bolt-on luxury but a key foundational element of a successful learning environment. Learning is itself a partnership activity, infused with resonances that remain indelibly associated with the skills or knowledge learnt – resonances of relationships, emotions and contexts. As John-Steiner puts it:
An individual learns, creates and achieves mastery in and through his or her relationships with other individuals. Ideas, tools and processes that emerge from joint activity are appropriated, or internalized, by the individual and become the basis of the individual’s subsequent development.
