The Creating Child (Reflection on Ch. 10)

p. 248-249 "Teaching music without having children compose would be like teaching art without having children draw or paint, or teaching writing by having children copy other people's work... All children, however, can benefit, both musically and cognitively, from active involvement in the creation, not just the re-creation, of music."

I think I disagree with this statement. I definitely believe that composition, improvisation, and arranging are extremely important parts of any music education program, but I think it's unfair to compare composition to the copying of other people's work. I think this devalues the performance of music by describing it as merely the reproduction of something which already exists. Like dance, music exists in the moment in which it is being performed - visual art does as well, but it continues to exist before and after that point. If music is written down, it continues to exist, but not in the same way in which it does when something is able to perceived aurally. I know this is a really abstract concept, but the nature of music is distinct because of this fact. Is performance simply the re-creation of music? How are they defining music? Side thought: this would be a really great discussion to have with a high school level general music class - what is music?

p. 254 "The possibilities for improvisation are endless."

I like how improvisation is discussed in this chapter - I think it's something that seems a little scary, even though it really isn't when you think about it. Because so often we associate improvisation with virtuosic jazz musicians (as is mentioned in the book), I think it's assumed that improvisation is a skill available only to a talented few, when really we do it all the time, and could do so more purposefully and with a better educational focus.

p. 262 "Children are natural inventors of song."

Earlier this year, I spent a day hanging out with my cousins (ages 5, 7, 9, and 11) during which we played with GarageBand and iMovie, creating songs and videos together. The 5 and 7 year olds worked collaboratively, as did the 9 and 11 year olds. With the younger group, I used the pre-made clips from GarageBand, allowing them to choose whichever sounds they liked in whatever arrangement sounded good to them (the one guidance I provided here was in pitch - I made sure that the clips were all in the same key...). With the older group, they picked out some rhythm clips, arranged them into a specific order, then played guitar and sang over the percussion and bass clips. We were having a great time (and that was the fastest 6 hours I've ever spent with four children under 12...) and I wasn't even thinking of this as an educational experience, even though it was (though highly unstructured). I wondered later whether they would have the opportunity to have similar experiences (composition, using musical technology, etc.) in any of their future music classes. I would hope that they do. All four live in households which value music and music education (and at least one of each of their parents are musicians). Who knows... maybe I could end up as one of their music teachers in the future!

The Listening Child (Reflection on Ch. 9)

p. 224 "Music, in many ways, is a thread connecting the different periods of one's life, marking special moments... music [people] associate with certain times or events may continue to appeal to them throughout a lifetime."

I really struggled with feeling homesick my freshman year of college... after a really difficult fall semester, spring semester bordered on feeling impossible much of the time. Music really helped me get through that feeling - specifically, listening to jazz. My dad's been playing jazz guitar since he was 16, and for as long as I can remember, that's most of what my family listens to when we have music playing during dinner, parties, or just everyday music. I've also been hearing my dad play since I was born, and I can sing you most of the songs he can play. I brought Oscar Peterson, Vince Guiraldi, and Nat King Cole CDs back to school with me, and in a way brought a big feeling of family and home along with that. Music's capability to comfort, inspire, excite, etc. is something that I think is really important to stress to students - often we spend so much time talking about what the music itself sounds like we forget to talk about how it makes us feel, which is a HUGE part of experiencing music for every person, and for many of us, why we enjoy it so much in the first place.

p. 229-231 "Deep-Listening"

This semester I'm required to do a large amount of music listening for two music history classes. I think I'm going to start trying to move beyond the "Attentive Listening" phase into the "Engaged Listening" (which is theoretically what we're supposed to be doing, I would imagine, but it's tempting to stay in the "Attentive" phase). Going all the way to "Enactive" for every piece would be extremely time consuming, but who knows - maybe I could learn to perform one or two... I would certainly remember them. And, as is discussed at the end of this chapter, it is so important for teachers to continue listening to new music as well.

p. 239 "Music teachers who see children only once or twice a week may with to enlist the help of classroom teachers in reinforcing listening experiences with children."

While this makes sense, I'm a little confused as to how this might help children do too much more than becoming familiar with a piece. If that's the goal, then this would be a valuable use of time. BUT - my question is, would the classroom teacher be working with the children in a way which promotes deep-listening? As part of a listening sequence? What is the objective of having the classroom teacher continue the listening experience? If the point of listening is to move beyond music as simply background, then I think it would be really important to stress this outside of the music classroom as well. Would be confusing for the children to have a specific piece of music that requires focus in the music classroom and that same piece of music playing in the background during the regular classroom teaching time? Or would that be helpful? I'm not sure... the book is vague on the procedural aspect of this, which seems really important.

Assessment and Evaluation (Reflection on Ch. 13)

p. 332: Box 13.1 Measuring Covert Behaviors

I'm not going to re-type the entire chart here, but after reading it, all I kept thinking was "lesson plan words! lesson plan words!" because the box offers ways to create "overt response[s]" (ways which show) covert responses. For example, to show whether or not a child is perceiving something (covert response), the child "could identify, discuss, shape, draw, diagram, notate, point to, circle, order, sing, play conduct, or move to what they perceive." Super helpful!!

p. 335 "Rubrics provide a set of scoring criteria that can help to determine the value of a student's performance on a task... [and] can be limited to a specific task, or it can be stated in terms of benchmarks that measure student progress toward a standard... A well-designed rubric will not only help establish performance standards for students; it can also help provide feedback as to what must be done in the future to improve their performance."

No wonder it's so hard to write a good one. Not entirely true - but, as we were also talking about in Intro to Education, oftentimes teachers end up creating things that vaguely resemble rubrics, but are decidedly less helpful and effective. From what I can tell, what makes a rubric special is that it includes a progression of skills and knowledge indicated in specific categories.

p. 340 "Systems for gathering and recording data may vary from simple to elaborate, depending on the teachers preference, how many students are in each class, student contact time per week, what reporting system(s) are used, and how much technical and physical support the teacher gets in accomplishing this important task."

I bet someone could teach an entire class on just "tracking student growth"... it seems like such a tremendously important part of teaching, but we spend so much time learning how to impart knowledge to students that we are left with very little time for the "behind-the-scenes" stuff (or so it seems sometimes). I know we do incorporate a lot of that into each class we take, but I know for me it can easily get lost in everything else that we do, because it's not a skill that we practice quite as much (seeing as we don't actually have regular students of our own).

On a slightly unrelated note, I came across a blog of a friend of mine who is teaching for Teach for America this year. He's still in his first couple of days of teaching and clearly feeling WAY over his head. Classroom management is a big issue for him - as is to be expected for a first year teacher with minimal training in teaching in a high-need, urban environment. I can't help but feel tremendous empathy. And be scared for him, and myself. Sometimes I get so caught up in being excited about education that I forget about how scary it's actually going to be that first day. I try to be sobered by it, but not discouraged, but sometimes it's just too easy to think "sure, I'll have been in school for a couple of years, but what on EARTH makes me qualified to do this!?" Thinking about all the fantastically amazing teachers I've had in my own education, I know that they all had to have had their time to "figure it out," make mistakes, maybe even fail miserably sometimes. But it's so much more intimidating imagining myself in that situation...

The Playing Child (Reflection on Ch. 8)

p. 192 "... Suzuki's method: (1) begin early with listening at birth and lessons from about two-and-a-half years onward; (2) delay music reading until musical skills and performance techniques have developed; (3) involve parents in lessons and home practice; (4) use excellent music literature that is developmentally appropriate; (5) balance private lessons (for attention to technical skills) and group lessons (for motivation and socialization); (6) repeat, review, and reinforce the performance of previously learned music; and (7) accentuate self-development while de-emphasizing competition."

Reading this section was really cool, because I realized that my piano teacher (with whom I studied for 10 years) followed most of these seven principles. (1) and (2) don't apply so much - I didn't begin studying until I was 8 or 9, and she believed that reading music should come along with learning musical skills and performance techniques. I really liked her teaching style and her influence is some of what led me to want to become a music teacher.

p. 198 "Some of these instruments can be made by a teacher or a parent, or by children as an art project, although their musical quality may be questionable."

As part of the promotional efforts for "Waiting for Superman," a documentary/film on America's educational system, www.donorschoose.org gave away $5 donation "gift cards" to people who pledged to see the film. I pledged, and received a $5 donation to put towards a classroom project of my choice. The project I chose was this one, The Incredible DIY Musical Instrument Project!, in which children were building their own electric guitars. I think DonorsChoose.org is a really awesome idea and I would love to continue to support them in some way...

p. 212 "The Autoharp is a zither, commonly equipped with twelve, fifteen, or twenty-one chord bars that are depressed by pressing on buttons."

I've seen an Autoharp played in movies (one in particular comes to mind - Christopher Guest's 'A Mighty Wind') but never had the opportunity to play myself. I think it looks like a really cool instrument with a lot of possibilities for students and teachers. I'd be interested in getting the chance to play around with one.

Music for Exceptional Children (Reflection on Ch. 16)

p. 404 "Children who are classified as mentally retarded (MR)..."

Okay, seriously. Are we using this word or not? This is something that really frustrates me, because I can't seem to get a concrete answer. I understand that this stems from the fact that there really isn't a concrete answer to the question "how do we refer to children who are __(insert chosen term here)__?" I do not mean to be offensive in any way - quite the contrary - I want to be as sensitive and kind as possible, but I just don't know what to say here. Frankly, I wonder if at least part of the reluctance to talk about special needs education is because many people aren't even sure how to do so without accidentally hurting feelings or being insensitive.

p. 409 "The term emotional or behavior disordered is increasingly used to apply to children who might have previously been labeled emotionally disturbed, socially maladjusted, or psychotic. Schizophrenic and autistic children and those with affective disorder and anxiety disorder are also included in this category. The behaviors may have either a biological or a psychological cause."

While reading this section, I kept thinking of specific people I have known and worked with. I think this is the area of exceptionality (as defined by the book) I have personally encountered most often, possibly because it encompasses such a wide range of situations. I struggle with this because I am personally affected and influenced by own experiences with several of my relatives who struggle with anxiety-withdrawal related disorders. I hope that I am able to take that experience and draw positive insight from it, rather than relate my future experiences to the frustration and anxiety I have experienced in the past. I think I owe it to my future students that this is something that I try to work on personally.

p. 417 "Children who are gifted (who show advanced, natural abilities, usually in the preschool years) or talented (who have a disposition toward something that they work hard to develop)..."

I had no idea that there was a difference between "gifted" and "talented." It makes complete sense that there would be, though, because it would be redundant to have two words to describe the same thing. I don't remember my schools having a "gifted and talented" program specifically, but that they offered different levels of instruction through specific classes (honors and AP levels), although that opens up and entirely different can of worms (around the idea of "tracking") as we happened to be discussing last week in Intro to Education...

Motivation and Management (Reflection on Ch. 11)

There are so many things in this chapter that I think are interesting... but here's 3.

p. 282 "Cooperative Learning (CL) is a system developed by David W. Johnson, Roger T. Johnson, E. J. Holubec, and P. Roy (1984) to improve student learning of subject matter and help students become more interdependent, better self-managers, and more effective problem solvers."

I thought the Cooperative Learning method was really interesting - my first reaction was surprise that someone would advocate the "team captain" method of choosing groups, but further reading revealed that this was a specific choice to identify leadership capabilities in specific students, which makes sense (and the groups would be changed every six or seven weeks).

p. 287 "Another technique to motivate appropriate student behaviors is designing a 'Special Person.' In each music class, a Special Person is elected every two weeks."

Again, I was really surprised that students were given so much authority (not that I think giving students control of their own situations is in any way a bad thing, but the idea of students electing the "Special Person" brought up concerns of a popularity contest, bargaining, etc.), but on further reflection, the process is controlled enough that it seems like each student would get the opportunity to be praised and rewarded for his or her strengths. Especially notable was the idea that "The Special Person designation is a highly coveted award, because students' peers elect them, not the teacher" (p. 288). This makes complete sense, because the students naturally value the opinion of their peers (which they see as unbiased) in a different way than that of the teacher (which they see as being biased - the students see that the teacher has to treat everyone equally, which could have a negative effect on praise to some degree).

I don't have a specific quote for this last point of interest, but I'd like to comment on the "Judicious Discipline" system developed by Gathercoal (1993), "based on the principles established in the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution" (p. 291). I like this system specifically because it's something that the children can easily understand and (for the most part) hopefully learn how to function successfully in. It is intrinsically fair, which appeals to students sense of wanting to control their own environments, and allows them to understand the rules (expectations and procedures) by which the game (the classroom) is going to be played (run). This method advocates gathering information and deeper thinking without undermining self-esteem in the process of improving and understanding inappropriate behavior. Having grown up in very strong school communities where respect is possibly the most highly emphasized value, I can feel confident in thinking that this method is probably very effective. I would also imagine that this system is probably effective in situations where students are feeling out of control in other areas of their lives, because they can come to school and know what behavior is expected of them, what consequences and rewards they can expect based on the choices they make, but also feel safe in the environment provided for them and by their peers.

The Moving Child (Reflection on Ch. 6)

"Movement balances the academically passive parts of the school day with the children's characteristically active nature" (p. 121).

I like that our textbook so strongly encourages us to incorporate movement into the music classroom. I can remember sitting in some music classes that were just as dry as several of my non-music classes... movement would have made an enormous difference in my perception of the environment and my participation in the experience. I'm even surprised by how much difference just getting up and moving around makes in the energy level of the classroom - even in college.

"Children enjoy discovering the capacity of their bodies to move as suggested and to act on command; such exercises are inherently motivating" (p. 127).

We've talked about this in other classes - setting up a situation for learning in which children will be faced with both challenging and easily attainable goals (and a range in between) to give varied opportunities for success and hard work.

"The Socratic method should be used prominently as the teacher guides children's movement through such questions as the following: "How do squirrels scamper?" "What parts of the squirrel's body move?" "Can you swing like a puppet blowing in the wind?..." (p. 139).

As a student, I've always like the Socratic method, and I can see how it would be especially useful in guiding children in creative movement. As the textbook mentions, questions allow for "individual solutions," allowing for creativity in finding an answer to "How do squirrels scamper?" One child may interpret the scampering of a squirrel in an entirely different manner than another child; neither is wrong, both are interpretations. I think creative movement would be a great way to foster an environment in which "mistakes" are acceptable - mostly because there are not "mistakes" in creative movement. It gives children an opportunity to observe the fact that sometimes people see things differently.