“What are the roles of parents in developing prodigal young musicians?” This was a question explored in one of the lessons in Dr. Eric Kong Siu Hang’s course “Understanding Families in Educational and Community Settings”. In many middle-class Chinese families, the learning of a musical instrument such as the piano or violin is an important enrichment, as many parents have hopes that this additional cultural skill can open doors for their young children. What is seldom discussed is how parents’ involvement or lack of involvement in their children’s music education can affect how far a child goes in his or her music education.
To shed light on this issue, Dr. Eric Kong, who himself is a talented musician and music educator, invited Ms. Wang Mei-Chi, a famous music educator and Electone teacher in Taiwan, to his course to give a guest lecture about music enrichment classes for children in Taiwan to his students. Dr. Kong invited Ms. Wang to record a video presentation, which he played in his class on 12 October 2022. After playing the video for his students, he gathered their questions and reflections and passed them to Ms. Wang. In the following week, Ms. Wang met with Dr. Kong’s students live on Zoom to answer their questions.
In the talk, Ms. Wang shared her experience from the Taiwanese context about the kinds of parenting styles that encourage students to develop to their highest musical potential. The class also compared music learning for young children in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Dr. Kong explained that in Hong Kong, the number of talented musicians is low, compared to Taiwan, despite students having similar potentials, and he explained that parental support might not be pragmatic to develop their children’s musical talent due to social factors. Expanding on the topic beyond nurturing talented musicians, the students (who are taking the Master of Arts in Child and Family Education, MACFE) were particularly interested in the potential of music education to help children with special needs.
Dr. Kong said that his students showed positive reactions to Ms. Wang’s lecture as it offered them “a valuable chance to learn more about music education in Taiwan”. Ms. Wang shared her experience being a guest lecture in Dr. Kong’s class, “The preparation of the sharing session was a valuable opportunity to review the difficulties and setbacks encountered in my past teaching career, reflect on some effective teaching methods and how I work with students with special needs.” Dr. Kong also valued the comparison of music education in the two settings, which allowed the students to see “how education is shaped by different contextual factors from the perspectives of sociology.”
Mr. Raphael Lok Yui Chueng, a student from the MACFE program, found Ms. Wang’s sharing relevant to his training as a family educator and as a parent to a five-year-old. He shared, “Ms. Wang’s sharing about how she supports and nurtures children to learn music in Taiwan is transferable to the situation of Hong Kong.” A memorable lesson he learned was the importance of parents finding a balance between their children’s music education and the pressures of the academic system in Hong Kong. As one’s musical venture is “a long journey,” he explained, it would be a pity if a child gives up his/her music education to focus only on studying for examinations.
Written by Sofie Chua (schua@eduhk.hk), COIL Facilitator