Lifelong Learning

"Teaching in schools will improve 

if we first train good teachers 

who develop the student's ear 

and give a general musical knowledge."

~Zoltan Kodály

With Kodály's words in mind, I am taking a musicianship class at Holy Names University to continue my musical education. It is a challenging course, but the class size is small, so I have a lot of potential to grow! It has been helpful to be a student in the subject I'm teaching, to experience the same kinds of exercises at a much higher level. This helps me to have an eye on the long-term trajectory for my students in terms of what they could accomplish with continued support over years of study. Another reason for the course is that it keeps me connected to my local community of musicians and educators. Because this is a newly-created position at my school, I have no colleagues within the organization who are teaching what I do. This weekly connection in class gives me an outlet and sounding board that are important for sustainability in my new role!

Kindergarteners Create Their Own Paths

"And I would advise my young colleagues, the composers of symphonies, 

to drop in sometimes at the kindergarten, too.  

It is there that it is decided whether there will be anybody 

to understand their works in twenty years' time." 

~ Zoltan Kodály

It has been so fascinating to watch kindergarteners make sense of the material I give them. I have never taught students so young, and for most of them, this is their first year in a structured learning environment. We have spent much of our time practicing expectations during these first two months of school. Now that they are used to the Music and Dance room, I have begun to introduce content, such as vocalization practice.

The process of vocalization practice started with me leading "roller coaster" activities, where students would copy my voice and body as it went high or low in pitch. We then used our fingers to trace the paths of animals and cartoons with our fingers and voices. The activity below is our youngest students' first attempts to make their own paths using stick puppets and yarn "roads" for their characters (and voices!) to follow. I have much love and give credit to Janet Greene for inspiring this lesson.

This was very exciting to watch, as it is the beginnings of these young minds forming ideas about what it might look like to represent sound in a visual and physical way. I was able to catch a couple of brief moments on video, seen below.