Education of values with Yunu Emre hymns: The example of Palet Turkish Music Primary School

The aim of this study is to examine the place of Yunus Emre's hymns, an important element of our national and spiritual cultural heritage, in primary school values education courses and to investigate the contribution of the traditional meşk method. Culture is a multi-layered concept that shapes the common lifestyles, beliefs, values, and aesthetic understanding of individuals. One of these layers, music, has been an effective tool for transmitting values from the past to the present. The thought world of Yunus Emre has also been transmitted from generation to generation through various verbal transmission methods, especially through mosque–tekke music and Turkish folk music. In this transmission, the fluent language and universal values in Yunus Emre's hymns are considered to be an important instructional tool in the educational process of children. Primary school is a developmental stage in which children begin to understand concrete and abstract concepts and express their value judgments more clearly. During this period, being introduced to works such as Yunus Emre's hymns that carry universal values, and learning them through the traditional meşk method, provides important opportunities for children's development. In the study, ten hymns composed from Yunus Emre's poems were taught to 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th-grade students at Palet Turkish Music Primary School using the meşk method. Data obtained through semi-structured interviews, student drawings, and practice records showed positive results regarding both the learning of values and the applicability of the meşk method. As a result, it was determined that Yunus Emre's hymns can be used as a cultural heritage-based and effective instructional material that supports long-term learning in primary school values education courses. Moreover, this study presents an exemplary model of integrating the traditional meşk method with contemporary approaches to values education.