A music teacher education experiment: The Kodaly Fellowship Program

This qualitative/historical study examined the outcomes of an ambitious music teacher education program, the Kodaly Fellowship Program, initiated by Professor Alexander Ringer in the late 1960s.;The primary research question was to determine the impact, if any, over forty years (twenty in the case of Israel) in the professional and personal lives of participants in the Program. A secondary purpose was to describe in general terms, the partially supported effort to establish a demonstration center in the United States based upon the Hungarian music education system.;All living participants were interviewed using a well-established protocol. In addition, fellows who have been recognized for their work with the ideas of Kodaly underwent a second, more intensive interview.;The year abroad devoted to meeting Hungarian music teacher standards and observing these teachers in the schools was life-changing for most participants, most importantly the culture and in experiencing the high level of music skills required of teachers and students in the Hungarian curriculum. Although not all participants returned to the US to teach the Hungarian standards, they gained an imprimatur of individuals who understood the requirements necessary to meet Hungarian standards and could speak with authority. Interview responses varied considerably depending upon the fellow's subsequent career path. The results from the demonstration center were equally mixed as the fellows who elected to teach faced the difficult curriculum issues of implanting the best of another culture into the fairly conventional American school system.