Episode 24: Fleurette Sweeney

Meetings With Remarkable Educators

Fleurette’s focus: Education and learning; the effect of social play and movement on learning; the connection between singing and speaking; economy of place as antidote to globalization; inter-cultural relations.

Fleurette started teaching in 1950 and has spent more than 45 years researching the connection between singing and speaking and the effects of social play on the educative process of children. She collaborated with Mary Helen Richards (1967 to 1985) developing Education Through Music and taught ETM at universities and school districts throughout the US, Canada and Japan. Upon retiring (1996) Fleurette began doctoral studies at UBC. She graduated in 2002. Her dissertation From Sound to Symbol: The Whole Song as Curriculum; The Whole Child as Pedagogue; Observation as Methodology is the basis for her continuing work with children of all abilities, families, and teachers. She founded the Living Language Institute Foundation (1987) under the auspices of which Fleurette and colleagues have developed such projects as: the Singing English Pilot Project (2002-04) to address the needs of teachers and children learning in the multi-lingual classrooms of Metro Vancouver; the Co-lingual Pilot Project (2005) an intergenerational, inter-cultural sharing of folk song-games among neighborhood families living in South Vancouver; and the LLIF Early Childhood Education Training Program (2012). She offers directed studies in Sound to Symbol Praxis at SelfDesign Graduate Institute.

• http://songworkseducatorsassociation.com/

• http://livinglanguageinstitute.org/singing-english-2/

Click here for a transcript of the podcast.

Sound to symbol star!

This is the six sided star that is central to Fleurette’s work as mentioned in the podcast.