How Eduardas Balsis' system of teaching music to children was created
Eduardas Balsis was an excellent educator. He constantly emphasized that he created and practiced a methodology that was accessible to any teacher, suitable for any school. All that can be seen and heard in music lessons in Lithuanian schools is not the success of one man, but the success of a special system for teaching music in schools. A system that has found support from other teachers as well as from the city administration.
"I literally have to throw the children out of the classroom," E. Balsis said, and told of a school where, to the amazement of the principal, the best, most perfect discipline always prevailed in music lessons. At the time, that school recently built. And it was a magnificent building, a school palace. It came into operation after the start of the school year. The school was not built in the new neighborhood, but in the center, and all the children, of course, used to study in other, neighboring schools, which were now being unloaded. It is clear that no one wanted to get rid of the best students, and that's why the new school now has an increased percentage of "difficult" children.
And so it was with these unformed, uneasy groups of fourth-graders that the teacher began classes late in the fall. Until that time, the children were familiar with ordinary music lessons, where a few of them might sing, but most of them had as much fun as they could.
The children's successes are the result of only three or four months of work. Balchitis is a principled opponent of lessons beyond the hours allotted to music: otherwise, he says, other teachers would not trust my method.
How Eduard Balsis Created a New Lithuanian Music Teaching System
He took it upon himself to develop his own methods of teaching music - or, more precisely, methods of developing musical thinking and methods of music education in school lesson conditions - Eduardas Balsis was armed with profound knowledge in this field. He graduated in music from the Vilnius Pedagogical Institute, then in Moscow, at the Research Institute of Art Education completed his postgraduate studies, then received a PhD in pedagogical sciences.
He taught extensively in schools, observing children's perception of music. E. Balsis was head of the Department of Music Siauliai Pedagogical InstituteHe studied with future elementary and secondary school teachers and gave lessons to schoolchildren. He is one of the authors of music textbooks for Lithuanian schools.
Develop new system - it is designed in detail, down to the exact hourly and even minute-by-minute breakdown of the program, and most importantly, to convince in its viability was not easy. But E. Balsis relied on the help and support of those enthusiasts in Lithuania who were working in the same direction as he was.
They were Vilnius teachers A. Peliciuskas, I. Piatrošius (he invented many simple and convenient devices for music classrooms), teachers 3. Rinkevičius, V. Surgautaitė, S. Sinkevičius, and many others, as well as a number of Lithuanian composerswho write music for school textbooks and manuals.
The time that has passed since the beginning of this enormous work has allowed us to see that beneficial changes have touched everything that is related to children's music education: music education for future teachers; music classes in children's institutions; music lessons in secondary schools.
