Can't get Backbone Events to work - backbone.js

Question

I'm using Backbone.js 1.1.2 with jQuery 1.11.
I think I'm missing something very simple.
I've set up a model: Contact and a collection: ContactList.
I have success rendering ContactView views with models obtained from ContactList.fetch()
But when I try to bind a change event in the view initializer:
this.model.on('change', this.render, this);
... I get:
backbone Uncaught TypeError: Object #<Object> has no method 'on'
So I go back to the documentation and read that .on() is part of Backbone.Events, and somehow I need to extend my model to use this (and why is this not part of the out-of-the-box functionality for models??)
I've tried declaring
_.extend(this, Backbone.Events);
... inside of the initialize function for ContactView before declaring the binding, but no dice.
What do I need to do to get the Backbone.Events functionality working??
update: all relevant code (sans template)
var Contact = Backbone.Model.extend({
defaults: {
FirstName: '',
...[etc]
},
initialize: function() {
}
});
var ContactList = Backbone.Collection.extend({
model: Contact,
url: '/api/Contacts/getall'
});
var ContactView = Backbone.View.extend({
initialize: function() {
this.render();
this.model.on('change', this.render, this);
},
render: function () {
var template = _.template($('#contact_template').html(), this.model);
this.$el.html(template);
}
});
var contactList = new ContactList();
contactList.fetch({
success: function (collection, response, options) {
contactList.models.forEach(function (m) {
var $el = $('<li />')
.addClass('adminItem clearfix')
.appendTo($('#contactList'));
new ContactView({ el: $el, model: m.attributes });
});
}
});

Answer 1

This line is the source of trouble
new ContactView({ el: $el, model: m.attributes });
m.attributes is a plain js object. You want to pass along the actual model object:
new ContactView({ el: $el, model: m});
And because the collection has underscore methods mixed in you should be able to simplify it a bit to this:
contactList.each(function (m) {
var $el = $('<li />')
.addClass('adminItem clearfix')
.appendTo($('#contactList'));
new ContactView({ el: $el, model: m});
});