The National Jazz Curriculum and the Integration of History and Music Education Standards in the USA

Abstract

Jazz music is a valuable cultural heritage of the United States. The National Jazz Curriculum is a part of the Jazz In America project, supported by the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz, for the purpose of encouraging youth to appreciate the national culture through the basic education. The National Jazz Curriculum integrates the National Standards for United States History with National Standards for Music Education. The curriculum is designed to be a part of basic education in grade 5, grade 8 and grade 11, each level consists of 8 lesson plans with details covering topics, objectives, activities, content and teaching materials. Each lesson plan is designed to be consistent with national standards for history and music education. The National Jazz Curriculum shows the intention to reserve national heritage by connecting music and history learning together through basic education. The result is a guideline for learning jazz history that is systematically linked jazz music with historical thinking processes. This paper aims to 1) study history of the National Jazz Program and 2) analyzing the connection between history and music education standards in the National Jazz Curriculum that reveals its intention to reserve jazz as a national heritage. Thus, studying and understanding the principles and concepts behind the development of National Jazz Curriculum can be especially useful in the development of music curriculum for the basic education in Thailand.