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General Music Methods Summary of Learning
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General Music Methods Summary of Learning
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In this podcast episode, the hosts discuss the importance of understanding child development and applying that knowledge to lesson design. They emphasize the need to know your students individually and create age-appropriate and inclusive lessons. They also talk about the concepts of understanding by design and universal design for learning, which focus on accommodating all students and creating an inclusive classroom environment. Long-range planning is discussed as a beneficial approach to breaking down lessons and standards into manageable chunks. Spiral planning, incorporating repetition and building upon previous learning, is also mentioned. The hosts highlight the importance of scaffolding and finding ways to include all students in activities. Assessment in general music is discussed, with the challenge of finding appropriate methods to assess learning in a subject that is more experiential and subjective. Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another Red One and Blue podcast. Today we have a very special guest, Alyssa Boyd, also known as Green. Hey, hey, what's up guys? We are here to do our summary of learning for our general music methods class with Professor Bird. So let's get started. Yeah, let's dive right in, shall we? All right, so the first thing I think we should talk about is why is knowledge of child development important and how can we apply that knowledge into lesson design? I feel like it's pretty important to know your students so that way you can craft effective lessons around them. Like you need to know what they know beforehand, what they don't know, what's going to work with them. This comes with experience, by the way. A hundred percent. What works with them, what doesn't. So you can craft specifically age appropriate lessons. Yeah, knowing your audience for sure. Context is extremely important, especially like the climate of the school, the culture of the school. Those extra details can really, really be effective and helpful in the classroom as you go forward. A hundred percent. For sure, and it's also good to know like when you're planning where your students should be at. You know, because it's good to know your children individually, but having the knowledge of that to have good standards for them to reach for. I think it's important for that as well. For sure. On that topic, you know, creating lesson plans, how can we kind of connect that to the relationship it has with understanding by design? You know, what does that mean in terms of creating flexible and inclusive lesson plans? Yeah, so by knowing your students, it doesn't matter any type of student you have. Your lesson needs to be inclusive to all students, and you need to have multiple points of entry for these students. You can't just be very one-sided on your lesson that it can exclude other students that might not understand something in that way. You need to have multiple points of entry that allows multiple ways for the students to understand what you're talking about so they can connect back to something else. Right, and everybody learns differently. Every student learns differently, and just getting to know like what students struggle with and how you can better reach them is a great way to, I don't know, just think about your lesson plans and think about the students in your class that you could help by, you know, making accommodations, making modifications for them. It's as simple sometimes as like having a visual aid. Yeah, and that's on us. It's not the student's responsibility for that. We have to really be adaptive if we want to do their education justice, and it's helpful to know the students and their families for that. So, yeah. Yeah, great. Next, so we talked about understanding by design. What about universal design for learning? Let's talk about what it is exactly and how it benefits all students and families. So, just like the lessons, universal design for learning is basically the same thing where you want to be inclusive and accommodate for all students, but just in your environment, like your classroom, or that could also include the lessons that you're teaching. Just in general, making sure that the students feel seen and accepted in the classroom when they're in there, that's probably the biggest point in UDL, I think. For sure. Also, yeah, I mean, the environment, I think, is a key term to discuss as well, just like the actual classroom, how it's set up, what's around that can be an accommodation for some students who have disabilities or, you know, just need a little extra encouragement. For sure. Our next thing that we do need to cover is long-range planning, and I can start on this one. I haven't touched on one yet. Long-range planning, I think, is really cool. I personally had never really experienced any form of long-range planning before coming into this class, and I actually believe that it is one of the more beneficial things that I have taken from this class. I think breaking down your lessons, breaking down your standards into smaller chunks can make it seem so much more doable, especially as maybe a first-year teacher. It's going to be very daunting to be like, okay, how do I plan every single one of these lessons for this entire school year, and, you know, it can be applied to other areas of music teaching. You know, it can help, you can come back to certain lessons and, you know, switch it up every now and again. Yeah, it definitely saves a lot of time. Yeah, it's a big time save and less hassle for the teacher because you're just returning back to stuff that the class already knows, so you're just adding a little bit to it every time, which is enough to make the lesson different and unique for the class, but it's still less tasking on the teacher planning-wise. They're not learning a brand new thing every single class. Yeah, and it's nice, too, because, like you said, this is probably one of the more beneficial things that we could have brought from this class, Jesus, taken from this class because such a high percentage of teachers was in like their first five years dropout, and that's like a mix of reasons. It's burnout, feeling like they're not good at their job, and this is one of those things that I really think will help us get through those first initial steps of teaching. How often do you even see your students in a classroom, like especially in a music classroom, Yeah, right, and it's like, you know, they have to kind of, you have to meet them where they're at, and if they're constantly like, if you're just throwing new things at them, they're not going to get what the heck you're doing. No, especially if you're only seeing them once a week, you're going to come back and be like, hey guys, do we remember it? And no, the answer is going to be, they're not going to remember it whatsoever. That kind of segues into like spiral planning, which is, I'm pretty sure spiral planning is like the repetition, right, kind of like building and coming back, kind of like we did the one project where we did the haiku, and then like next week we did something else and kind of coming back to it, right? That would be a spiral plan, where everything that we learned beforehand kind of combined towards the end, and it all like made sense. We all had that aha moment, like, oh, this goes here, the hi-yah song goes here, and then the friendship song goes here. Everything that we were taught previously did have a purpose, and it was taught intentionally, so that way when we got to the end result, which was our entire performance, everything seemed more doable and achievable. It wasn't like, oh, we have to create all these dances, and then act out, and then learn this song, and then learn this recorder song, and all these words. It was all broken down, and it was very achievable for us because we had practiced it for weeks and weeks beforehand. All of the foundations were already there. Part of my question, though, is like, is it scaffolding as well? Is that part of spiral curriculum, spiral planning? I feel like they all kind of intermingle, and they all kind of work together. I think so, too. I think that they play a different part. I think scaffolding is more focusing on taking like a singular song and continually adding more and more, whereas this one project was a little bit of both because we kind of branched out and did some different things. We did recorder, and then we did a dance, and then we did the haiku. I would consider that more spiral than scaffolding because even though it was adding on, it wasn't necessarily adding on to the exact same thing every time. I also just love the fact that anybody could find themselves in that ensemble that we created. It wasn't just a couple of students playing the recorder and doing an instrumental thing. It was like doing movements with your body and also incorporating music at every level opposed to like, okay, everybody is going to take out the recorder now and play the friendship song. I think it's really helpful for those who have a little bit more energy, and they want to move around. They want to act. They want to dance. Yeah. I think it's a way for people who didn't maybe want to be included as much to be the narrator. We love Sam. We love Sam. Shut up. It's a great ... I mean, that's how it's going to be when you're teaching children. There's going to be some that want to be way more involved than others, and it's just all about finding a spot for each child so that they feel included and their opinion is valued. Yeah. Find their strong suits. Build their confidence with that as well, which is nice. 100%. 100%. All right. Our next topic is assessment in general music. Does anybody have a very strong opinion on this? It's important. Assessment. Well, there's different types of assessments, and sometimes you end up assessing the things that ... You're like, how do I prove that these students learned something from what I taught them? Coming back to the main question, but I think it can be generally difficult as a music educator to create assessments that are typical. You know? Yeah. Checklists end up being really important, or informal. A lot of it's informal and it happens in real time, so you kind of have to ... You don't have data that is designed like, oh, they all took this math test and got 100%. That's great. Yeah. 100%. When you have math, you can have that stuff be tangible, but if you're learning a song, it's really hard to gauge, do they understand this? When I did my fieldwork, a lot of mine was informal formative. It was very much like, I'm just watching as I teach and gauging how many students are raising their hands, how many are answering my questions, how many are actively participating, and gauging the understanding based on that, rather than a quiz, because especially something like a dance or a movement, you're not going to be like, all right, were you able to do that? Yes or no? I'm not going to give them a sheet of paper and have them check off. It's going to be more of a mental checklist. Did they understand yes or no? If they didn't, maybe adding some things later on. It's a lot harder for music teachers, too, specifically, because like you said before, a math class, you either got the right answer or you don't, so then that's a check or a minus. Music, it's a little tough, because you have to be pretty fair to everyone that you're grading. If you're, say, testing them on knowledge of a song, correct pitches or rhythms and stuff like that, the first person to go is always going to be the tough one to grade, specifically, because as it goes on, people have heard it, the other people singing it, and they're going to get better and better. How do you, as a music teacher, take that into account when you're grading, as well? It's kind of a tricky thing to tackle. On top of that, too, it's not like in other classes where everyone's taking a test at once and you get that exact feedback of where they're at. You have to plan appropriately for it in music, because it's harder to go through and see individually where students are at without taking up your whole class time. That's why when we were looking through some of the different learning approach methods, the lessons we were reviewing and doing observations for, I liked watching the teachers do an activity where everyone has to sing, but even doing that in itself is something that takes time. It's just hard to really accommodate for that. It is. That's where I think she wants us to go with this conversation, the different types of assessments that you can utilize in the classroom, like checklists or peer assessments or exit tickets or rubrics or stuff like that, and which one to use in what specific situation. I think it completely depends. When I was doing my fieldwork, I had my mentor teacher do a full Google form quiz. It took the entire period. I felt like it was very unproductive, but at the same time, he was asking them questions about rhythm and sound waves. I do think that using some kind of quiz would be more helpful in that scenario to make sure that the kids know stuff like that, but at the same time, I don't know. It seemed really silly to me personally. I really like the idea of asking a question that engages students to use their higher level thinking skills, and then coming back to that question at the end and seeing, did they answer it? Is it something that they can show and express that they know? Did they have that aha moment? Those questions are also, the kids are more able to actually have an answer as opposed to, because I think so often, you have the, oh, ditto, or I agree with them, or they're able to actually express their own thoughts as opposed to just hopping on the bandwagon. True. All right. So adaptive classroom instruments and other equipment in the general music setting, what do, does anybody have any strong opinions or thoughts and feelings on this topic? I mean, if you want to do your job, making sure all your students get equal opportunity, you've got to be willing and ready to have these things accessible. I think it's pretty straightforward. You don't want to have, I know it's hard depending on district, but you want to try to have as open as options as you can for them. But I really did enjoy learning about it. It's fulfilling to be able to help students out with them. So I think a lot of times students with disabilities aren't going to advocate for themselves because they're still kids and they're still learning how to be a human. And I think it's really... I struggle advocating for myself. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Same here. And I'm a 30 year old person, but like it is, it's just part of being an advocate for your students is knowing them and knowing what could help them succeed in this environment. And truthfully, like if you're not accommodating, if you're not adapting the classroom to fit the needs of the student, then that student is going to end up somewhere else or, you know, feel othered, feel left out. And, you know, we all know what that feels like in a classroom, you know, it's not a good feeling. No. No. And there are many resources out there, you know, people who have better experience and who have more, better equipped to teach music to students with special needs. And there are places out there who make adaptive instruments. They make instruments specifically for students with different kinds of disabilities. And so I think that's a great, great resource and a great thing that we have. All right. Educational theory. Do we have any thoughts on this? How is it applicable to general music teaching and learning? If we don't have any thoughts, I'm also happy to take a maybe 5-10 minute break, a little commercial break. With our sponsors. With our sponsors. All right. We will be back shortly. And we will be back. Wait. Who's our sponsor? Who's our sponsor? Nesquik. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome back to the Red, One, and Blue podcast. We're going to continue on with the next half of our summary of learning. We are going to start with educational theory. Let's get back into that. Now that we've had a second to kind of think and reflect, does anybody have any strong opinions on this? Well, we were just trying to think of examples of the educational theory. And essentially, what it comes down to is whether or not your class is teacher-centered or student-centered. And I think that we can all agree that during our general music class, when things were more student-centered, when we were able to really have like a creative idea or a thought come through in the classroom, like it just gave us autonomy. And it gave us the ability to, I don't know, just like be a part of the classroom in a really cool way, opposed to being lectured 24-7. So I think that, yeah, learning, when it's learning-centered and centered around students. And they both have their place. They both have their place and their time. You're not going to always have the students be in complete control. You need some times where you're the one in charge. They both have their time. And I feel like the students are a lot more engaged and generally just have a lot more fun with whatever activity they're working on when they're collaborating with each other in groups. And there's not much teacher say. They're just kind of observing and making sure they're staying in the general realm of what they should be doing and not going completely off task. But I think both have their importances in the classroom, some for certain situations, some for not. Like you're obviously not going to sit there and have the students lecture each other about the book. But yeah. I have nothing to add on to that. That's perfectly fine. That's fine. We'll move on. All right. Let's on that topic then, on topic of managing the classroom, let's talk about it. Do you have a specific approach that you prefer? I think you need to be very flexible when it comes to classroom management. And you need to know the situation that's happening and when to use different types of management things like authoritarian. If something extremely dangerous is happening in the classroom, you need to know what to do about it. You need to know what to do about it. You need to know what to do about it. 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So kind of having these things where, you know, you have a certain set of rules that are always, and then you have a certain set of rules that are a little bit more flexible, a little bit more, you know, able to change depending on the situation in scenarios like that. I think this is a sticky subject because, like, we all have different approaches that we use in different environments, and those classrooms can be very different depending on the environment in which you teach. And management can look very different. Essentially what we want to do is we want to create intrinsic motivation, and we want our students to want to be a part of the classroom atmosphere, to have these discussions with each other, to contribute. And it can be a sticky subject in terms of, like, how do you create that intrinsic motivation? Like, a lot of times you'll walk into a general music classroom and you'll notice that they have, like, a system, whether it be, like, a point system or stickers or something like that. And sometimes I question the validity of those methods just because is it really that's extrinsic motivation, right? Like, how do we get our students to respect us, one, and how do we get our students to participate, to just, like, actively be engaged in the classroom? And that can look different for everyone. You know, I'm often in classrooms where it's in a lower income neighborhood, and sometimes these issues trickle down to, like, a very systemic issue. So you have to consider the context in which you teach. And I loved what Rebelle said about context, like, giving them the why, like, why this is important to them, like, what they can really get out of this lesson outside of just, you're here at school today, you have to learn because your parents told you you have to learn. Why? Because I said so. Right. But also making sure that students have a voice and a choice in the classroom because I think you can mitigate these challenges by allowing students to be student-led, to have decisions to be autonomous in the classroom, and I think that's extremely valuable. Alyssa, you should start a podcast. I'm like, actually. So well articulated. I think you're such a – Alyssa, I very much am impressed by how well articulated you are as a person and how so well you're able to talk about certain things. Granted, you are a few years older than us, and so I think that you've had more experience, but just, like, in the way that you're able to convey your emotions, I just love it. I think you're so smart. Oh, thank you. You convey yourself as a very intelligent person. This is, like, a lot of stress now. Okay. Let's move on to teaching for musical understanding. All right. So for this, I think we talk about two topics that are most important to our growth as musical – as general music educators. Understanding by schema. Schema. Schema. Metaphor, image, embodied. Are you asking? I mean, I feel like I don't have a good opinion on this. I think, like, I feel like this is one of those things where they kind of all melt together in my brain. Yeah, so the different types of understanding that students can connect to, like a lot of them are visual learners when it comes to that. So maybe an image would be better for them, like understanding with an image. Or the same with the metaphor. I forget what example we specifically used in the class. I don't remember either. But if you're, like, comparing something to something else, like this is like this. That would be, like, understanding through metaphor and stuff like that. Embodied, I would say, like, those are the very hands-on, let's do this dance together, let's play this instrument together, let's experience this musical concept, like, in itself, like as it's happening. And, again, like we talked a little bit about different types of understanding earlier in the podcast. But it gets easier with time as an educator once you know what works and what doesn't work for specific types of classes and students and stuff like that. And you can kind of maybe, like, after five-plus years, ten-plus years, 15-plus years of teaching, you understand as a teacher what's going to work and what's not going to work. in your first couple of years of teaching, figuring out how you're going to try and get this information and convey it to your class. I think one of the challenging things to really wrap my head around when I was doing this reading was, like, the dimensions, the meta-dimensions and stuff like that. But then it kind of clicked for me. And, like, circling back to what we were talking about in terms of context and, like, creating a bigger picture for our students so that they can find themselves in this topic. You know, it's not just one. You're not just teaching rhythm. Like, okay, today we're going to learn about rhythm, and tomorrow we're going to learn about rests. You know, like, it all has to encompass something larger than just that one thing. I think the fancy terms make it seem a lot more daunting than it really is. Yeah. It makes it seem way more complicated. I know when I was learning about, like, meta-dimensions, like, what is that? Like, you know, it definitely seems a lot more complicated than it really is because at the end of the day it's just kind of teaching, you know, multiple things at once. It's not, you know, you can't have melody without rhythm. You can't have a rhythm without, you know, something being played. Like, you know, things, they all connect somehow. I'm happy to move on to Hamel and here again. Yeah. I so, so, my opinions on teaching students with special needs are so great because I've always loved working with students with special needs. If I did not go into music education, I would have gone into special education. I just have so much love for people with special needs. And I think that, like, you know, it's all about inclusivity. It's all about adapting lesson plans, making adaptations, making, what's the word? Accommodations. Yes, thank you. Accommodations, making sure that your lessons can reach everybody regardless of, you know, of their physical disabilities, mental disabilities, you know, even little things, you know. When I was in school, I had a 504 plan. I was able to leave band because it just got very overstimulating for me. I was able to go take breaks and get water. And so, like, you know, it's not necessarily going to be a student who is missing a limb. It's not necessarily going to be a student with very clear intellectual disabilities. There is a very wide spectrum. There's a wide range. And it's all about being able to cater to every single one of those students' needs. And it's going to be hard. And, you know, there are some times where it's not going to be perfect. And, you know, sometimes if you need to teach a certain lesson, there are going to be times where you can't quite make it perfect for every single student. But it's all about the trying and, like, the making those adaptations. And because every student deserves the exact same chance to learn, they deserve the same amount of learning as everybody else. Right. And on top of it, everything we learned about it gave us a very real perspective as to what our futures are going to look like with that. Like, even just going through and learning about all the forms that are there, how you need to work with your parents and the staff at the school, there's so much that goes into it. And, I mean, hopefully we all get into places where, like, the staff does really care about helping students with special needs because it's very unfortunate, like, when we're learning about places that don't accommodate as well. But on top of it, even, like, I found it really interesting learning about students that are gifted and how there's not, like, unless you as a teacher are individually making plans to help, there's nothing that has to be done about it. Do you remember when we learned about that? Yeah. You have to flag the gifted student. But they don't have to do anything for them. But you don't have to do anything for them. Yeah, like, they have to do something that shows that the student is gifted, but they don't have to give them any accommodations or do anything for them, which I think is so crazy because I grew up in the gifted program. When I was in elementary school, I was flagged as gifted. And then I grew up and kind of received nothing after, like, third or fourth grade. And then I very quickly fell behind in school. And school became very hard for me because I was so used to things being very easy for me. But then I wasn't being challenged properly. And so then I never learned how to properly study. I never learned how to properly, you know, I was, like, struggling because I was, like, why are these regular classes so easy for me, but these honor classes are so difficult? And so, like, it just was something that, like, I hold very near and dear to my heart because I experienced. They're on complete opposite ends of your bubble. Yeah. Your zone of learning. It just illuminates, like, the vast need to accommodate, to modify, to make sure that you know your students. Like, it honestly just all boils down to, like, how difficult teachers have it in the classroom and, like, all of the things that they have to do in order to meet these students where they're at. But, yeah, this text was extremely valuable. I hope to continue to read it. I think I will definitely rely on it in the classroom majorly. Like, even just knowing the difference between the forms. I didn't know that 504 and IEP was a separate form. Yeah. I had no idea. I didn't even know how, like, you reach out to an aide. And now we have all of that language to look back at. And seeing that work being done when we were in class together was also cool, too. Just an example of how to work with that, like, with that in general. Like, when we were doing the rhythm activity and we sat on, like, little groups of four. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And they weren't even told. No. Like, you would never know. I think that is so cool. There were some moments in this class where I'm like, I don't quite understand why we're doing this. But it was in that moment when we did that activity that I was very much like, oh, that was clever. Like, I didn't even realize that we were given different things. And the students wouldn't either. And I think that's so cool. And that was one of those moments where it's like, okay, seeing this in action is very. Right. And that ties into everything we've been saying about it. Like, if you don't know your students, you can't do something like that successfully. And you'll kind of screw over certain students if you don't really pay attention. A hundred percent. I think we can kind of connect that to our observations, our experiences, and our field work. I think we each kind of talked about that a little bit. Alyssa, I didn't really hear much about your field work. Is there anything that you took away from yours that was positive? I know you had a mostly negative experience. I mean, I wouldn't say it was mostly negative. I would say that accommodations and modifications weren't happening in my classroom. They ended up putting a lot of students with IEPs in the same class, which is a deeper issue than we have time for, really. I mean, essentially, you don't want other students. You want them to have an equal opportunity to learn. And I think sometimes school districts think it's easier to just put everybody and lump them in one class because then the teacher will just have one class that's more disruptive than the next. And I don't believe in that. I don't think that they should do that at all. But I am not an administrator. I am not, you know, employed at that school. So we will leave those names unsaid. That's perfectly fine. Randy, what about you? So besides just observing a lot of lessons, generally the one thing I got to look a lot at is how my mentor teacher managed the classroom. There were many days when I was observing that I'd say 85 to 90% of the class was actively participating and learning and singing and dancing and doing the activities that were planned. The other 10% of the class, which was maybe like two to three kids at a time, were just not having a great day or didn't care or didn't want to participate. So I saw like a broad range of management styles depending on the student, and it looked like she knew which style would work based on the specific student. It looks like there were reoccurring problems with students, and she knew how to handle the situation very well, whether that was just go take a break and think about it, go sit in the chair, or I've had this conversation with you multiple times. It's not going to work. Let's just call the administration to come down here and figure it out. Interesting. I feel like I had a very interesting experience because a majority of – so I observed second grade classes and then kindergarten. The kindergartners were preparing for their concert, and so they did a lot of actual learning of songs, and the second graders had already had their concert, and so their lessons were on the instrument families, and so every week they made a different instrument. And so it was very cool. Everything was recycled. It was very cool and informative. I just felt like it was hard because I could tell that there were a lot of kids in there that had ADHD or just couldn't sit still, and it was so interesting to me because students – I just remember this specific little boy. He was always generally causing problems, talking, moving around, not necessarily causing problems but just being vocal and not very much paying attention, kind of trying to make others laugh around him. And then when I taught our movement lesson, he was, like, the quietest he's ever been because he was moving around, and he was engaged. And, like, they were engaged when they were making the instruments, but when he's just teaching them about them, it's kind of hard to, you know, keep them engaged and moving, which, you know, they're not always going to be. That's a normal thing. They're not always going to be so engaged. And it was also interesting for me to see how they treated each student differently. Like, you know, one student could do something that I personally felt like wasn't that big of a deal, and they were very harsh. They were very much like, you know, hey, come sit over here by me. You know, it just was interesting to see, like, one student do something that they took very harshly, and then another student do the same thing and no reaction depending on the student. That was a big one for me. For my observations, there were a couple moments that kind of stood out. One is that, like, I – okay, so it kind of ties into cluster management, but I was trying to teach a lesson, like, for one of our field work things, and it kind of goes into, like, instrument care and stuff like that, but even the timing of how to go about your class because, like, granted, we don't know the students and we're not there, like, the whole time to figure things out, but, like, when I was passing out instruments, it's one of those things where it took, like, way longer than expected. I did not think it would take that long. I thought, okay, we'd pass it out, get our lesson going. And I know you had something similar, but it just – it made me, like, realize how much planning goes into it. And granted, once you do it for a while, it gets easier. You can, like, move through things quicker. Yeah. And experimenting. Yes. You know, I was able to do a few classes in a row, and so in one class, I would watch, do something, and then I could fix my lesson and change things for the next one. Yeah. And on top of it, too, granted, again, everything ties into, like, it's hard to know everything when you're on, like, quick field work things. You're not there to really get to know everyone. But something I've realized is I really need to understand the level of where the students are at because I – like, okay, Randy did this song called the choral song in our vocal tech class. And I thought, oh, okay, cool, I'll teach that. Definitely not a song for first graders. Like, it was one of those things where you want to, like, push – you always want to push them to, like, be better. It's like a second, third grade song, yeah. Yeah. Just knowing – You were just like, oh, this might be a little bit too much. Yes. And, like, as I was going, I was like, oh, okay, this is – this probably could have – this needed more time. Yeah. And that was something interesting to learn about. At least you, like, reflect on it. You learn, yeah. And you're just like, oh, okay, this is – this didn't work, but I ultimately learned something from it, and I will do it differently the next time I teach that in a class. You know, there's classes where it goes – everything goes really great and you didn't try that hard, and then there's classes where you try extra hard, and they straight up just bomb. Like, I think I was telling Rebelle a little bit about it, but I had planned, like, to a T, how I was going to hand out these percussive, unpitched instruments. Like, I was like, okay, like, they're going to line up at the door, and then they're going to be escorted in, and then I'm going to give everybody a number, and each number correlates to an instrument. They're going to pick up their instrument. But then they were sitting in rows, and everybody in the first, second, and third row had, like, different instruments next to each other. And the idea of the lesson was that I was supposed to, like, teach them different rhythms for each individual instrument. And instead, what happened was just, like, they couldn't hear each other's instruments, so they were, like, playing the wrong rhythms. And instead of it sounding very musical and, like, you know, it's like Roomba rhythms. Like, it was supposed to be polyrhythmic, and it was supposed to be – it didn't really end up that way. But improvisational skills are super valuable. This is why I love the ORF method of teaching. It's just, like, you can take what you're doing and then just be like, oh, well, you know what? Let's just create our own rhythm then. Like, what do you got? What do you got? This group over here, the three of you, you're going to come up with your own. Definitely. And then you come back to it, and you're like, oh, sweet. They actually learned something from that because it was skin and lead. Love connecting all of our ideas. Love it. It's a big inner web of, like, you know, like the links going – branching off to everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what everything is feeling like. Everything connects. Everything – yeah, really. Everything connects. I'll be fair. I will be the first one to say I was a doubter in the beginning of, like, any time Professor Bird was like, just wait until the very end. It's going to make sense, and it's all going to connect. I was a big doubter. I was like, this doesn't make any sense. My mom moment was when she was telling us, like, oh, and then when we read our story, the friendship song goes here, and I was like, that's what the friendship song is? I was like, oh, my gosh, it all makes complete sense. I was a doubter, but now I am a believer. For sure, for sure. That's funny. Do you guys have a preferred approach? I don't. No. I feel like just incorporating all of them together is the best way to go because they're all very valid in different ways and different situations to use. I don't feel the need to, like, pick one and stick with it. I think I'm very much a person that I just teach how I teach. And, like, I actually teach music time at church every Sunday, and so it's been an interesting thing to kind of compare my teaching for this class to my teaching in, you know, every Sunday. It's very different. And there I'm not doing orph. I don't have xylophones, and so I just kind of teach how I need to teach. And then if I need to teach it a different way, I need to teach it a different way. If I have kids who are really little and can't read, I'll use pictures, you know, but the older kids, they can read. We can use words. And so I don't feel a need to stick to one thing. I think it's just combining methods, doing what you need to do to get the lesson across. Yeah, just staying versatile. I think it might be helpful if you're trying to get a job and a district's like, we do this. Like, we are an orph school. Then, like, that's cool. I didn't think about that. But, like, in general, I'm not really, like, drawn towards anything, because it's fun to mix it up and not just strictly stay with the one. I feel like there's something else related to this. I saw a meme that was just like teachers and their, like, approaches to teaching, and it was, like, essentially saying that, you know, when you choose a method, it's like a cult. I kind of feel like that a little bit with ORF, only because I have received the most love and, like, positive feedback from those kind of lessons, and I think the misconception is that you have to have ORF instruments in order to teach ORF, and I don't. I teach a lot of, like, body percussion exercises, a lot of movement, and a lot of improvisation, and I think part of why I love it is because it implores this creative, innate creative, you know, being inside of me, and I feel like I enjoy the lesson when I teach that way versus, like, doing something a little bit more rigid or more, you know, like, planned to a T, but that's, like, my only two cents on that. I mean, I'm open to trying other methods as well, but I do generally prefer ORF. I am curious what grade you guys want to teach, like, especially now that we're, like, wrapping up with this class. It's funny. This is a wonderful end to our podcast. I think that it's funny because I always told myself I do not want to work with kids. I said, like, I will do middle school, high school age, and I want to teach band, and I now feel like if I needed to take a general music job, I think I could do it, and I think I could handle myself. I don't think that I would want to necessarily stay there for the entirety of my career doing general music. I definitely see myself with older kids just because that's who I'm more drawn to, but I definitely am not completely against it like I was at the beginning of this class. I'm definitely—before this class, I was, like, high school choir only. That's all I would want to do if I was going to be a music teacher, but obviously that's not the case most times because that's not where a lot of the jobs lie. A lot of the open positions are in the general music classes. I guess I feel way more prepared if I had to take a general music class position, but I honestly just taking the class, I think it's a lot of fun, and it's a challenge because it's something that is a lot more difficult and more complex than older students in high school. It's a lot more stuff to worry about in those age groups, so I feel like the best job for me would be, like, a small district where the music teacher does everything, like, from all grade—from— That'd be a lot of work. It would be a lot of work, but I would absolutely love that job. Are you talking about, like, doing high school, middle school choir, and general music? So, like, very small districts where there's, like, not a lot of students at all, yes, where they have one music teacher that teaches all of it. Interesting. I think this class has—it really made me appreciate more the efforts of general music teachers. I also think it helped me realize I do not want to teach general music. There are a lot of really good takeaways and stuff that's going to tie in to teaching older students, but it's different. Like, the patience you need with students, they're different types. It's different because it's, like, it's one thing when you have a choir, and you're patient because, like, the sound you have in your head and the sound you want is going to click in a certain way, but that's because a lot of the students already have their foundations. But it's different when it's with elementary students, and they're just kids. You're teaching those foundations for the first time. Yeah, and it's, like, it's great, but I don't think I have it in me to do it for more than, like, here and there, personally, but they're cute. They make me laugh, like, when I'm at observations and stuff. I think they're cute, but I think they're cuter in small doses. Yes, that's well-worded. What about you, Alyssa? So this one's really hard for me because I just feel like teaching is more, instead of thinking about it in terms of what age range do I want to teach, it's, like, being a teacher is, like, a whole mindset. I learn when I teach. I teach everybody. I teach kids. I teach adults. I teach, you know, I don't necessarily know I'm going to be applying for all types of jobs. If I get a general music position, great. I'm prepared to do that. That's wonderful. I think sometimes the challenges with general music are exactly what Randy said, like they're learning how to people. There's a lot of snot. There's a lot of bodily fluids, and it's gross. Yeah, sometimes. My metaphobia cannot. But sometimes when you're teaching high school students, you're met with different types of challenges because then sometimes the students surpass even your skill set, and that's really wonderful to see. But then you can't. It's hard to help them. It's a constant battle of, like, I'm a teacher forever, and, like, I am also a learner forever. I'm always going to be in a classroom, whatever way, shape, or form, however I can be there. Like, music is something that I'm passionate about, and I love my community. And, honestly, the best job for me is one in which I'm teaching music to students in my community. That's great. Dang, I feel like a bad person. No, no. That's a great answer. I'm grateful for this class at the end of the day. I really am because I think that, overall, I feel prepared. I feel okay to take a general music job, and I think that's, at the end of the day, that's all I care about, you know, regardless of anything that happened. I think, overall, this class makes me feel more prepared, especially because we have everybody's lesson plans shared with each other. We have all these resources. I am grateful for that. I'm grateful for all the resources. I agree. It's going to be very helpful down the line having all these resources. And is that it? Are we ready to close it out? We've got to thank our sponsor for today. I think that that is it. Thank you, Cheese, our sponsor for today. Cheese from the cow. It's yummy and versatile. Kendall and I didn't sign off on it. All right. Thank you all, listeners, for tuning in to our Red, One, and Blue podcast with Kendall. If someone is mean and picks on me, I, for one, stand up and say, no, rebel and hell be. Red is hot. Blue is not. Randy. And the infamous green, Alyssa. Thank you so much. We'll see you next week. This podcast is so cool.
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