The Future of Education

In the educational system in Turkey, The teachers, at the end of four years education that they took in the educational faculty, can become a teacher. Teacher candidates of music are prepared to the profession with the courses of the domain (music) their professions require, and of pedagogical formation toward the profession of teaching. The profile of students in these  institutes is consist of the graduated from the department of music of high schools or those taken general education of music as the graduates of general high schools. Professional music education basically includes the educations of the history and culture of music, musical hearing, reading, writing, composing, instrument, vocal and musical creativity. In the process of instrumental education, teacher candidates obligatorily take four years of education on any  instrument (e.g. flute, violin, viola,  kanun, ud ) they choose as a main branch instrument, 3 semesters on the instruments (e.g. “baglama”, recorder, mandolin, guitar) they  will  readily use in the schools, and 3 years on piano. The process of piano education in these institutes encompasses to learn the main technical and musical behaviors toward playing piano. However, the students gain the skill to be able to use the piano as an instrument to accompany during music education in the school. The students continue from the level they have  remained  in  the  direction of  piano education they  have  already taken or first  begin  to  take  the  education  on   piano  in  this  institute.  Therefore, the education on piano changes according to the level of student. There are a lot of factors affecting the quality of education on piano. These can arise from the student, teacher, and physical environment. When the studies carried out in our country are examined, it was identified that the age to begin for piano, negative influences of the education in the past and technical problems caused some troubles on the students.             

Just as it happened in every stage of education, also in the institutes raising the music teacher, there can be some shortcomings and problems in the run of process. As educators,   identifying these problems and searching solutions for them are of our missions. Therefore, identifying the problems faced in the prices of piano education forms a basis of this study. The aim of this study is to reveal the difficulties the applicants for music teaching encountered the piano education and present the suggestions toward the solution. The study group of  the  research  consists  of  the students  studying  in  fourth grades of  the  Main Scientific Branch  of Music Education of the Department of Fine Arts Education, Necmettin Erbakan  University, in the educational and instructional year of 2013-2014. The study is in the descriptive quality and for identifying the difficulties faced during the piano education, the students were asked to write a report and the data were analyzed by using the method of  content.