On Monday, October 30, my music education class at Western University went on a trip to St. George Catholic Elementary School. There, we participated in a music class for one hour amongst a class of third and fourth grade students. Overall, I had a very enjoyable experience as it was interesting to be in a class as a potential future educator. I noticed that I was critically analyzing why we were doing the activities we were doing and I found that I was cautious of how I was acting around the children. It was interesting for me to see how I was thinking differently and more critically.
Before we even got into the classroom, one thing stood out to me that really spoke for what this school is about and the character of the school. That is, the way that the administrators and teachers greeted us. As soon as we walked in, the secretaries welcomed us into the office and greeted us. Then, the principal took time out of her schedule and day to come and shake all of our hands and individually welcome everyone of us to her school. This really spoke volumes for the character of this school because as Cathy said, it is not everyday that the principal of the school will take time to greet everyone that enters her school. This gave me the impression that the school has a very welcoming environment and the staff gave me a positive first impression. When we entered the classroom, it was obvious that the kids in the class were intimidated by a large group of adults coming into their classroom. They were very shy and reluctant to make any kind of conversation. That is why I think that the icebreakers we did at the beginning were so beneficial. We started off by greeting one another by doing things such as shaking hands, waving, and fist pumping each other while singing a song and moving around the room. This was a great activity to start the class off with as it got us familiar with one another and moving around the space in a way that made us comfortable with the new group of people we would be working with for the next hour. In my opinion, it got rid of any awkwardness and tension that was present when we first entered the room. Next, Kelly led us through the game called “human orchestra.” In this game, each person creates a short rhythmic pattern or melody and the conductor stands in the middle of the circle and controls who is “on or off” by tapping them on the shoulder. I noticed a few things about how Kelly led this activity. The first was that she gave many examples of different rhythms or sounds you could make. This was good because it gave the kids an idea of what she expected for the activity and if the kids were too scared to take a risk ad create their own rhythmic pattern or sound, Kelly gave an example of what they could use so that they could still take part in the activity. I also noticed that Kelly was the first conductor. I also thought this was a great teaching technique because again it gave the children an example of what to do as she showed how to play the role of conductor. I think this made them feel safer as they had an understanding of what to do and weren’t just left to figure it out by themselves. She then asked for volunteers from the third and fourth grade class to act as conductor and allowed the child to be creative and be the conductor with no help from her. After two children conductors, she let kid choose one of us university students to be a conductor alongside them. In my opinion, this connected the two groups together and showed that we were working together and not two separate groups. After this activity, Cathy took over the class. I do not know the name of the song that we sang but I will describe it as snap, clap, pat, stomp. The activity first began with Cathy demonstrating the actions. She went through the motions a couple of times by herself and then invited us to join her. Like Kelly, Cathy demonstrated what she wanted first and gave us time to process what she was doing and then try it out for ourselves. Cathy then, began singing a melody to go along with the actions. She sang through it a couple of times before we joined in. This is a great teaching technique because musically, it develops the children’s ear. Being able to sing back what we heard is an essential skill to have in music and by Cathy singing to us and then us repeating what she sang, we develop our ear without the kids even realizing that they are doing so. After this, we ran through the song a couple times altogether combining both the melody and lyrics with the actions. This got the kids to think about multiple things at the same time; ie the lyrics, the pitches/melody, and the actions and gestures. This is an important skill to have in music as we have to constantly be thinking about so many things at the same time when performing or practising. Again, this activity taught this skill in a fun way in which the kids would not even realize that they were learning this. Then Cathy performed the song at a different time than we did, in a canon. The kids did not know that this was a canon but were able to identify that Cathy had started her song after we had and also finished it after we did. The kids were able to define what a canon is without knowing that it was a canon that they were defining. This activity taught what a canon in a much more exciting way than sitting at a desk and writing down what the definition of a canon is. It was a very hands on way of discovering what it is. Cathy really let the kids discover hands on and let them speak freely of what their observations were. After this the large group, split into two groups where again we did this song in a canon. After every run through of the song, I spoke to the third grade girl beside me. Through my conversations with her I realized a couple of things. One thing was that I really had to be a good listener. She was very shy and I found that I had to try extra hard to be an active listener as she wasn’t confident in her ideas and me to reassure her. Being an active listener was one effective way I discovered of doing this as it showed that I cared about what she had to say and that I was actually processing what she was saying. Going off of that, I also found that I had to prompt her to talk and encourage her to say her ideas. It was evident she knew the answers to simple questions such, I just had to urge her to answer. Many times she said, “ I don’t know”, and I either offered up a bit of information or stated, “I know you know.” I found that by either starting the sentence off for what she had to say or bring more strict and saying that she does in fact know, urged her to talk. After this we sang two halloween songs. Again, Cathy would start off by singing through the song by herself and then got us to repeat by saying lyrics after her and then eventually by singing lines after her. Like I said before, this developed the kids ears and ability to sing back what we heard. A couple things stood out to me while doing this activities. One being that in the songs we sometimes split into different groups so majority would sing the melody and then a smaller group would maybe hold a note and then another would sing a descant on top of the melody. From an educators perceptive, this would great as it exposed the kids to so any elements of music. Already we have them singing a melody with a more complicated rhythm, lyrics and pitches and now we are introducing them to harmony by adding other notes that they are not singing in the melody. Again this is done without them even realizing it which to me is an extremely smart technique as they are exploring harmony and hearing it first hand. A second thins that stood out to me was when we were leaning the second song, we focused a lot on pitch and so Cathy used very specific hand gestures when teaching the melody of the song. When the lyrics stayed on the same pitch she would move her arm in a straight line across her body and then her arm would get higher when the pitch raised and then lower when the pitch also lowered. This was a great technique because it helped the kids to connect what they were hearing with a visual. In a way, it notated the piece without it being in a traditional way on a score. It helped the kids to realize that when her hands went up, they ended to sing higher and when she lowers her hands, they needed to also lower they pitch. Connecting a visual with audio is an excellent way to learn music. After this, we did an activity about a skeleton. This activity in my opinion had the most involvement and enthusiasm from the kids and I think the reason for that is because Cathy allowed the kids to take part in the creation of the song which allowed for a large amount of creativity in which the kids seemed to really enjoy. Cathy chose volunteers from the third and fourth grade class to pick what adjectives to describe the skeleton would be included in the song. I think that the fact that the kids got to be involved in the creation of the song sparked such enthusiasm because the kids enjoyed getting to sing what they had created. They got to sing their lyrics which to them is extremely cool because they feel almost as if they are the composer. I could tell that they felt as if they were truly part of something. This activity is excellent because it encourages creativity and allows the kids to take part in the creation process which is essential to music as it is where music begins. This activity taught about the creative process and taught about the creation of a song in a fun and interesting way. Lastly, we ended the class on a very nice note with little song about peace. I especially liked how Cathy modified the song to included the word God as it was a Catholic school. Even though it is a such a small thing, it is important because Cathy was able to relate the song more to the class in which she was teaching. It was also a good way to end the class because the song had a very good message and unified all of us before we went our separate ways. Two other things that I am taking away from this classroom visit stem from the way in which Cathy taught. Firstly, I loved how Cathy related about of her activate to Halloween. This trip took place the day before Halloween and I think that the kids were so engaged in the activities because they were about something that was of interest to them. I don’t know a single kid that doesn’t like halloween and so I thought it was extremely smart of Cathy to include actives and stings about Halloween in her class.Secondly, we spoke very briefly of this as a class after the visit was over, but I learned a lot from the way Cathy handled the children. Through her teaching, I learned that you have to be strict with the kids and strict in stating what you expect from them. Being too friendly will not benefit me as an educator as it will allow the children to walk over me if they think that I am their friend and can negotiate with them. Obviously being too strict would also be a problem but Cathy was never mean, just strict in stating her expectations which earned her respect from the kids and made them listen to her and follow instructions. Overall, this was a very successful trip that I am lucky to have gone on. I learned a lot about how to teach children and what sorts of activate to do that would be engaging and fun for them while also teaching them about the elements of music. I enjoyed getting to see what it would actually be like to teach a class at an elementary school as prior to the this point I had never analyzed a class in an educators perspective.
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