Integrating Parent ’ s Contribution into Music Class to Achieve Learning Purpose of Musical Expression

Qualitative research has been carried out with the aim of exploring synergy between parents and school in elementary school music education in an urban area. The focus of the research is the synergy pattern of parents and school related to students’ music education. In order to derive the findings, one major attention of the research is parent’s contribution integrated into music class to gain a successful learning goal of musical expression. This paper discusses characteristic of the contribution processes in supporting the successful of music learning related to education components of learning material, facility and supporting the budget, with the topic of playing an ensemble of a particular music instrument. The school’s samples chosen were those which are located in a particular urban area in Central Java. The data were gathered using observation, interview and documentation methods and analyzed descriptively. Based on the data analysis, it was concluded that parent’s contribution is an important element for attaining a qualified students’ achievement of musical expression. It is integrated into learning sessions fulfilling the criteria stated in the used curriculum implemented by the teacher, by three major ways, those are communication, collaboration and cooperation. This becomes a significant reason for its integration into elementary school music instruction to achieve the expected students’ competence.


INTRODUCTION
Various studies notify that music and arts educations give a positive effect on children, particularly on academic achievements.Kinney (2008) reported that since music instruction reinforces or catalyze other forms of cognition, the activities performed in a school did not give any negative effect on other students' achievements.Moreover, Hallam (2010) provided other for elementary school students mounted in the books used in learning.Based on the study it was concluded that the patriotic song is an important medium to form students' understanding and feeling of patriotism and citizenship spirits.From the different side, Miksza & Gault (2014) reported their research on music experiences received by elementary school students in the United States.They described that there was a different delivered music lesson between the suburban students of majority race and high levels of SES and the ones of color from urban and rural settings and of low SES.Based on that, one of the suggestions was to provide outreach efforts offering access to music programs both in and outside of the school setting, including the availability of music specialist in the classroom to work together with the classroom teacher.In case of benefit of music learning itself, Sumaryanto (2000) reported the influence of musical ability on students' music achievement.It was stated that combination between musical ability and well-directed and regular practices would support students' musical achievement.Related to the use of technology in music class, Hernández-Bravo, Cardona-Moltó & Hernández-Bravo (2016) stated that implementation of a program using new technologies in teaching music increase students' musical learning as well as the development of musical competence.In case of arts education, Julia (2009) said that this kind of education delivered through Seni Budaya dan Keterampilan (SBK) plays a significant role in changing students' morality.All of the above studies support a statement from Dewantara (1977) stating that arts or sense education will lead directly to intellectual education, which eventually leads to the education of character and morals or manners.
There are life characteristics differentiating urban community from the rural one in terms of attention of fulfilling of social needs, religion activities, a firm division of labor, economic status, occupation and other life aspects, including education.These characteristics imply the urban com-munity social system, including those of music education.Jorgensen (2008) said that music education has societal and cultural characteristics as it interrelates to the other things, either societal, cultural, or whatever with which it interacts (Sukanto, 2010).These interrelationships require an openended system infusing each other.Furthermore, Jorgensen (2008) discussed the institutional agencies of music education.He clarified that the societal institutions, such as family, religion, politics, commerce, and the music profession, play an important role in music education in terms of enforcing value.With regard to the role of the family in music education, Gibson (2009) studied two focuses, those were children musical environments created by a parent and the factors influencing a parent to carry out musical parenting.In his study there were four main topics evaluated: singing interactions, musical resources in the home, music gatherings within the complex, and child-oriented concerts and musical enrichments in the community at large.From the study, it was concluded that parents build musical environment at home by singing spontaneously to their children or repeating several kinds of song, such as lullabies, play songs, religious songs, and family songs.It was also found that the built musical environment was influenced by instruments, musical toys and books, the mediated music of CDs, DVDs, and the internet.In addition, gender, education, religion, and parents' own memories of their childhoods were investigated as factors contributing to the created musical parenting.As a result of a literature review on the influence of parents on instrumental learning, then, Creech & Hallam (2003) concluded that from several perspectives, such as parents' musical background, family interaction, and parental aspirations and values, musical home environments relate positivelly to the musical responsiveness of children from these homes.By taking the point on family's support on children's musical development from several references, Koops (2012) stated that children's interest in a variety of music ac-tivities are developed by family through singing to and with children; making music a part of daily routines, cultural expressions, and play; as well as demonstrating enjoyment of music.
In another point of view, Jorgensen (2008) also explained that pedagogy and various ways of delivering teaching materials, e.g.training, schooling, education, socialization, and enculturation can be implemented in a particular musical course.In this case, the teacher's leadership of the student in the manner of a parent, tutor, or guide is needed.Students follow their teachers with sufficient knowledge to undertake on unfamiliar musical activities.In line with Jorgensen's statement, Hamalik (2001) and Sudjana (2010) also emphasize the importance of a teacher in an instructional process.From different points of view, Tirtarahardja & La Ulo (2012:60) also stated that the result of an education process achieved by students is affected by an organized system of elements consisting of a row, instrumental and environmental inputs.They explained more that facilities and infrastructure, curriculum, and cost for supporting learning process belong to the instrumental input.In addition, Kelly-McHale, (2013) also revealed that the teacher's view of the self as musician and educator combined with the choice of instructional approach would create a music classroom environment that successfully met the teacher-directed goals for sequence-centered instruction.Moreover, Parncutt & McPherson (2002) stated that encouragement and concern from parents and teachers in giving opportunities and support for students is an important factor in developing child's musical talent.The above explanations give an idea that the teacher supported by the societal institution, i.e. family/parent who can give contribution for learning is an important component of music education running success in an urban area, which in turn can support students' achievement, both in musical and non-musical one.
The stress of an instruction is a blending system of teaching and learning to grow students' activity consisting of several components, those are lesson plan, teaching material, learning the purpose, method, assessment and learning scenario (Majid, 2016).Meanwhile, one of the competence standards of the SBK subject to be reached and stated in the curriculum used in this research, was students' musical expression.Based on that cases, in order to perform such instruction in music properly in an urban area, a teacher needs to consider family (parent) which can contribute for such provisioning the instrumental input and also promotes students' success in experiencing music education, particularly in achieving students' musical expression standard competence.How do the elementary school teachers in the research area integrate parents' contribution into their music instruction?This paper discusses characteristics of the music instruction carried out by teacher in several state elementary schools at urban area which integrates parent's contribution into the class.The characteristics discussed in this paper involve a series of activities done by the teacher and students during a music lesson, focusing on three main activities, those are 1) teacher's preparation; 2) teacher's lesson material delivery and 3) assessment of students' outcomes.This is followed, then, by the discussion of the integration ways implemented for achieving learning purpose of musical expression.

METHOD
The research focused on both music instruction accomplished by the classroom teacher and the integration ways of parent's contribution to achieve learning goal.These two focuses were explored through four research questions: (1) how does the teacher prepare lesson plan?; (2) how does the teacher deliver lesson material?, (3) how does the teacher assess students' learning outcomes?and (4) how does the integration process work in the lesson.The data were gathered from three different elementary schools located in a particular urban area in Central Java.The-re were eight teachers from eight classes of grade five with overall three hundred and twenty students.The data were collected using observation, interview and documentation methods and analyzed descriptively.

Characteristics of Elementary School Music Instruction Carried Out in the research areas
Characteristics of elementary school music instruction carried out by the teachers in the research area can be outlined in the following table.Based on Table 1 the following characteristics discussion is divided into three parts, those are teacher's preparation, teacher's lesson material delivery and teacher's assessment activities.

Teacher's preparation
All elementary school teachers in the research area used Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan (KTSP) 2006 which is under the jurisdiction of laws of the National Education System and dan Government Regulation about National Standard of Education.The implementation of this curriculum has been started from 2007.Teaching activities planning is carried out by the teachers based on specified signs in the curriculum including competence standards and basic competencies.
Based on the specified competence standards and basic competencies the teacher composes a lesson plan with its assigned time allocation.The teacher does not have any authority to change the standards which are same in every education level in Indonesia.Teacher's ability in composing the lesson plan is gathered through curriculum development training performed by either province, regency or town level of the education board.Meanwhile, lesson plan development in deeper level is carried out through a workshop done by a professional group of teacher in a district level called Kelompok Kerja Guru (KKG).Through the workshop, the teachers also discuss all components of the lesson plan.
The components of lesson plan consist of school identity, time allocation, purpose of learning, competence standard, basic competence, indicator, teaching material, teaching method, learning media, source(s) of learning, learning stages, and assessment.There was name of the school, subject name, grade and semester information mentioned in the school identity component.They were followed by time allocation which, in this case, was one meeting of 2 x 35 minutes.The learning purpose stated was knowing and playing rhythmic and melody music instrument.In the competence standard and basic competence, hered through explaining the relationship between previous and current learning material.It was, then, continued by mentioning learning aim that was student can play an ensemble of rhythmic and melody instrument.
The main activities are performed based on the lesson plan.However, there were also many teachers who carried out the activities by following the stages written in students' worksheet or a music lesson book developed by a particular publisher.There was, even, a certain music lesson book which was used as the only learning source for students and written explicitly in the lesson plan.So, although the lesson plan has already been prepared and owned by the teacher, the learning material delivery was still performed based on the stages written in the book used as the learning source.The lesson plan was only used as the activity guidelines.
Learning method commonly written in the lesson plan is Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL).However, practically, there are various difference methods applied among one teacher and others.There were giving an assignment, discussion, group work, and lecturing methods.The method of CTL which was mentioned in the lesson plan, was often not applied in the learning process.The reason for this was that learning requirements of situation and condition contained in the lesson plan made by KKG group did not match with the situation and condition of every class' condition where the teacher delivered the teaching material.So, there was the different method used by the teachers when they delivered their teaching materials.There will be a change in using the teaching method depending on every class situation and condition and every teacher's capability in delivering the lesson.
The main stage of learning activity was carried out by doing a question and answer session and deriving conclusion which was done orally.The questioning session was performed to give students chance to ask question or explanation and give their opinion related to the discussed self-expression through music and playing simple rhythmic and melody instruments in the form of the ensemble was written.Meanwhile, the indicator was stated as students are able to recognize and play simple rhythmic and melody instruments.The learning material was ensemble practice derived from learning sources of the SBK main book and internet, with learning method of contextual teaching and learning (CTL), observation, expository, and demonstration.The learning media stated were music instruments and a picture of the rhythmic and melody instruments.There were three main learning stages: opening, main activities and closing.In the assessment component, the indicator of outcome, assessment technique, instrument form and problem were listed.
The workshop produces the lesson plans which are almost similar in all parts, either in its substance or compositions.A positive effect of this kind of lesson plan is efficient and effective supervision toward learning implementation quality.On the other hand, teacher's creativity in doing learning innovation has killed.However, in order to implement the lesson plan wisely, it is recommended that it is used by the teacher flexibly based on every school's situation and condition, including the teacher.

Teacher's lesson material delivery
The elementary school teachers in the research area delivered music lesson based on the lesson plan developed in KKG activities.Learning stages in the lesson plan consist of three main activities, those are an introduction, main and clossure.In the introduction, the teacher prepared class situation and condition to receive the lesson by praying, checking students' attendance, taking students' prior knowledge (apperception) and mentioning learning purposes for the day's lesson.The praying activity was lead by either the teacher or one of the students.After this, the teacher checks students' attendance by calling students' name and asking students' condition.Students' prior knowledge was gat-material which they think cannot be understood at all.Meanwhile, the purpose of the deriving conclusion is to give students chance to remember and take the important points of the material given by the teacher.
As additional information, it is common that elementary school teachers were teachers who teach all subjects, such as Mathematics, Indonesian, Science, Arts and others, except Religion and Sport for each grade.This situation caused the same delivery way between the Arts and other subjects, meaning that the teachers used same methods which were used for other subjects having different characteristics.This made an unfavorable class of the Arts subject, especially music lesson, for students, as the teacher did not have any musical competence support.The music class which needs such explanations and practice of music instruments including singing, cannot be done properly.The teacher cannot give such example(s) of how to sing or how to play the music instruments because they have no supporting abilities and skills in doing them.As a result, the high music lesson, or in general the Arts lesson, quality mentioned in the curriculum cannot be reached optimally.Students cannot get any enjoyable and rewarded experience in music class, which according to Hallam (2010) is possible to be reached through musical activities and is needed to build the foundation of music education (Cabedo-Masa & Dı´az-Go´mez, 2013).This also contrasts with Richardson (2007) statement telling that students' ability in covering artistic problems with insight, reasons and technical proficiency can be increased through music education.

Assessment of students' outcomes
Regarding with assessment, the result of the data analysis showed that assessment of students' outcomes was carried out in the form of formative and summative tests to measure cognitive aspects only.The one which can be used to measure students' performance related to the use of music instruments has never been done in these two forms of the assessment test.The formative test was given to students at the end session of every competence standard or base competence period.In addition, the summative test was performed to finish lesson activities twice: at the end of mid semester period and the end of a particular semester.Although there was no formal measurement for students' performance achievement, the schools commonly have a schedule of students' art show to give students opportunities to perform their art ability and skill, including music.
All the above results indicate that the teachers teaching music lesson at the school were those who categorized as a classroom teacher.This kind of elementary music teacher was, in fact, also work in Utah's music education, besides other types of the teacher, such as a certified instrumental teacher (Walker, 2015).However, although they are not music specialists, the elementary school teachers in the research area have been carried out suitable music teaching preparation with the one which is mentioned in the lesson plan developed by the teachers in the KKG group activity.The lesson plan provided has written all components of an ideal music lesson delivery, although the implementation of the stages of lesson delivery is still based on every teacher's musical abilities and skills.Because they are non-music experts, there were many teachers who still use same methods of material delivery with the one used for other subjects affecting the unexpected music learning result: there are no students' engagements with music, even though there are many ways to develop them in the class.Niland (2009) explained that physical engagement can be accomplished by playing instruments, while vocal engagement can be done by singing.Social engagement, then, can be reached as students observe and imitate, and the cognitive one can be gained when students interpret lyrics.When students express feelings and music aesthetic aspect, the emotional engagement occurs.This is in line with research result from Holden & Button (2006) and Alter, Hays & O'hara (2009) which sta-ted that there were music teaching problems faced by non-music specialist teachers in primary school due to teacher's lack of music knowledge and experience.This limited music experience causes the teacher to feel inconfident in teaching.In their research, Holden & Button (2006) focused on non-specialist teachers' levels of confidence in teaching music, musical training and qualifications.It was found from the research that the level of teacher's confidence in teaching music was affected by several reasons, those were teaching experience, less ability to read music and singing well and the teacher's view of music as a different and exclusive subject.
Hale & Green ( 2009) explained several principles in music assessment for evaluating student's performance.The principles are beginning with the end in mind, finding out what students know, assessing during instruction, teaching students to do self-assessment, using rubrics to reinforce learning goals and implementing teacher's self-assessment.Based on these principles, it can be stated that the teachers involved in the research need more additional activities for assessing their students' performance.Since the teachers only assessed students' cognitive aspects, the above principles can be considered to be implemented in their music class.

Learning facilities
Buying the instrument required for the class and asking children to bring it in the class with suitable learning topic.
In this research, the music lessons were carried out with the topic of playing a particular music instrument ensemble.In the lesson, students are expected to be able to play an ensemble of a particular melody instrument, which can be seen from the learning indicator.For assisting students to perform this indicator, several difficulties occurred in the lesson implementation.For example, the teacher faced the problem of delivering such material related to how to play a music instrument and how to sing a song in a correct manner due to lack of ability and skill.The unwanted problem of giving an example of how to play a particular instrument caused students to to have no expected performance experience.As a result, the students did the practice by using their own ways which were often incorrect one.In case of playing melodica for example, the students cannot do fingering correctly.This, of course, did not match with the purpose of the learning.Furthermore, in terms of giving an example of a good singing problem, the problem effect was the unexpected result of students' experience of singing.Since the teacher only invited the students to sing with their own fashion, there were often observed that the students sang with inappropriate voice, which in turn resulted in the same students' attainment of unskilled students in singing.
The different problem faced for reaching successful learning goals were those related to the availability of music instruments.As the school did not have enough budget to provide facilities of music instrument, in this case is the melody instrument, as many as the number of the students, there was also a problem of procurement of the instruments.As a result, there was no chance to have a music class involving students' performance together to play the instrument.
The difficulties on these aspects of learning led the school to share the problems with the parents.The schools met the parents to have a discussion to solve the problems.The discussion resulted in an agreement that the parents will take part in such activities related to finding successful learning of music for their children.The implementations of the agreement were appeared in at least two general activities of parents' contributions in performing music learning in a family environment.The first was to have additional music lesson at home by inviting a specialist music teacher or to deliver their children to music course at a music institution.The parents' aim to have home's music class or to deliver children to music course was to promote the children to have better music learning material achievements, either in singing or playing kinds of music instrument.The second was supporting the procurements of music facilities.The procurements of music facilities were carried out to help the school to cover the lack of music facilities problem so that the teacher can be able to deliver the lesson with the topic of playing ensemble appropriately.Commonly, the parents will buy the instrument required for the class and ask their children to bring it in the class with suitable learning topic.
The above result shows parents' contribution integration in a music lesson.As stated by Munib, Budiyono & Suryana (2016) and Tirtarahardja & La Sulo (2012), the environment is an important aspect should be considered to gather a successful learning goal.In addition, Djohan (2009) explained that children's musical competences will develop faster through the learning process involving interaction with their environment.The environment, in this case, is represented by the parents and the school.These two learning institutions influence each other to attain education's goal of qualified students, both in academic or non-academic one, at home (family environment) and in the school.It is explained that the goal of family education is preparing children to be a human having personality and giving benefit for the community (Purwanto, 2011), through methods of nurturing (Dewantara, 1977) with one of the material is knowledge and skills possessed and controlled by parents (Tirtarahardja & La Sulo, 2012: 169).Meanwhile, one of the goals of education in schools, especially art education, is the formation of an appreciative and creative personalized human as a member of society, with the functioning of art as a means of developing student potency (Triyanto, 2017).Based on these education goals, it is undeniable that in an attempt to attain the one in music education, that is students' musical expression, the parents give their contribution to collaborate with the school to facilitate students to have expected experience.This is in line with Hornby's report on practices of parents' participation in educational processes.It was stated that collaborating with teachers is one aspect of parental involvement to improve educational outcomes in elementary school (Hornby, 2011).
In developing the collaboration, several communication channels were open by the parents and the teachers through a telephone call, meeting by appointment and informal contact resulting optimum overall home-school communication.Mulyana (2013) defined communication as the basic form of human adaptation to its environment which is carried out by parties working together to achieve common goals.In this case, communication was done by the school and parents who work together to achieve the goals of music art education that has been established in the curriculum.Communication was performed both on an interpersonal level, with one form being dyadic communication involving only two people (Mulyana, 2013), as well as groups, adjusted for the number of participants.Group communication is done by the small group, face-to-face and response from emerging feedback can occur.In this context, the teacher as a source conveys a message about music learning materials, for example, to the parent group.By communicating the learning materials, then, as a feedback from this message, pa-rents can take actions to support the achievement of the expected educational objectives, by providing actions at home.
Another form of communication is done through the actions of teachers to communicate about the source book used as a reference for music lesson.The teacher invites the parents at the beginning of the semester to give an explanation of the planned activities to be performed.Hornby (2011) named this kind of parental involvement as sharing information on children.At that time the parents were informed about the materials or subject matter that the students will study, and the source books will be used.Parents are asked to provide the books for their children.The purpose of this activity is for running effective and efficient learning process in the classroom.Since students take similar material learned at home in which parents can help them with those at the school, the time consumed for learning at school will be more unimpeded.For instance, when the topic material is related to singing and playing instrument, for example, the teacher does not have to take longer time to give rehearsal to students because the students have already learned the material at home.
The description of parents' action also represents their contribution to supporting music class purpose of music expression by doing a collaboration with the school.The collaboration occurred when the school carried out such activity of students' performance show at the end of academic year.Lawson (2004) defines collaboration as a kind of collective action.It is needed under several conditions, two of them are when needs and problems occur at the same time and nest in each other and there is ineffective linear problem solving strategies.In case of students' performance show, the school collaborates with parents from planning to implementation activities.In this event, the school and parents jointly coordinate in several matters: defining students who will participate in the performances, determining the presentation materials, providing venues and organizing staging schedules, as well as the others related to training schedules, stage performances, providing food, transportation and provision of fees.
The next form of implementation of parents' contribution to music class is cooperation.This term refers to activities or efforts undertaken by several people or institutions to achieve common goals.Through cooperation, individuals can contribute to help other parties to solve common problems, so that problems that cannot be solved individually can be solved by the cooperative way.As mentioned in the previous part, the parents gave their contribution to the procurement of such music instrument and other learning facilities.In this case, the school identifies the required music facilities and infrastructure, while the parents seek the procurement.Besides that, school as the party who knows the condition of facilities and infrastructure supporting students' music activities offer parents the types of activities that can be done at school as extracurricular events.Parents, then, support the implementation of the events by providing the necessary costs, such as fees for trainer fees, equipment purchases and student participation cost in related competitions held outside the school.Hornby (2011) called this with the term of parents' acting as a resource.

CONCLUSION
The discussion related to music instruction carried out by a teacher in the research areas directs the authors to the conclusion as follows.As preparation activity, the teacher who did not belong to a music specialist group, prepared learning activities by developing lesson plan through a workshop run by a professional group of an elementary school teacher.The lesson plan produced consisted of components which were similar in all parts, however, the implementation of learning will be based on the teacher own ways.This caused the problem of delivering learning materials which need performance example from the teacher, such as singing and playing music instrument.The problems commonly occurred due to lack of knowledge and skill of the teacher.
The problem called the school to communicate with the parents.In order to attain a successful learning goal of music class of musical expression, then, the parents played their significant roles.The roles occurred as a response of the difficulties faced to perform a suitable music learning activities and appeared in the form of providing parent's contribution on three education components, those were learning material, facility and supporting the budget.Giving additional music lesson at home, delivering children to music course outside the school, providing music instruments, supporting the implementation of extracurricular events by providing the necessary costs, such as fees for trainer fees, equipment purchases and student participation cost in related competitions held outside the school were parent's contribution on the three components.All of the parent's contributions were implemented in learning activities by three major ways, those were communication, collaboration and cooperation.

Table 1 .
Elementary School Music Instruction Characteristics

Table 2 .
Parents' contribution and actions on