In the Rundale School Cafeteria, the children were making their own rhythms, chants/songs, and movements while they were eating. There wasn’t a lot of singing or organized play and interaction, the children were just doing what came naturally to them, such as reenacting a fight and having a rhythmic way of telling the actions, and other children followed what he was doing. There were some children singing, one calling out to her friend and a boy and a girl singing something to themselves. There were a couple of girls that were having a hand-clap game and some boys drumming on a bench and table, and during clean-up there were some boys calling out in response to their sweepers. To most of the teachers there it didn’t seem like there was any music-making going on, until it registered as too much noise.
After looking at the kinds of things the children were coming up with, I would think about these “I can…” statements: 1. write my own rhythm 2. sing a song with another person 3. move to a song in my head 4. make my own song about life. With these children and with the “I can…” statements, I think that I would have the children do a lot of creating. There’s not a lot that they can’t do, so I would like to have them make a song about what they are doing, and see if they can do it with someone else. I would also teach them some basic hand-clap games that they can do with each other to make them have fun in a group setting. I think they would like something with a combination of a set pattern or song that they can have turns changing something about it to make them feel like they are doing as a group but also have their own thing that they are doing. These would be things that they can do at lunch, some of these things would just feel natural and they kind of do them already, or they could be games that they can take from the music classroom to recess.
I found it interesting how Ramona and James viewed music in their everyday lives, they both had some sort of music making and their own ways of classifying each type. They looked at the world as having music, in a natural way, by doing things that everyone else does and things that they liked. They already have their own musical preferences, and their own skills and goals that they are already aware of. I don’t remember knowing what kind of music I liked until I was already in junior high. I think that it is great that they had a plan for music in their lives, Ramona wants to dance (which she said would require music) and James wants to play the trumpet and keep learning songs. Looking at their responses to what they do that is musical in their lives shows me that you can make almost anything they do musical. James saw saying the Pledge of Allegiance as a musical activity because it was something that everyone does together with the help of a director. Ramona was already seeing that music can help with any situation and is a social activity. Children can see the world how they please, and all you have to do is ask them what they are thinking and they can find an answer for you. Both of these children had a lot to say about the music in their lives once they had a starting point.
What stood out to me the most about these two children was how similar they were, when coming from completely different backgrounds. These backgrounds shaped the way that they experienced music and knew about it, but they still viewed music as music, something natural. This makes me think about asking students what they already know and what they like about music, so that I can gauge their abilities and find activities that they will enjoy doing and are able to do well.
If I had students like Ramona and James I would try to give them tools that they need to be able to share what they know about music. Both of them were able to make connections with their personal lives when they had something to guide them, and in a music classroom you can give them the tools they need to share it with others. With a student like James that already has a lot of songs that he knows, I would try and give students the chance to show off for their peers and even try and teach each other, because when he heard something that sounded familiar to him he helped his brother to figure it out. I think that being able to make connections would be a big focus, something that I didn’t really think about before. Students like Ramona that have music at home, it would be nice to find songs that can be done at home, with or without instruments. It would be nice to be able to give students the vocabulary to be able to describe what they hear in music, and also be able to talk about the effects non-musical aspects (like lights) have on the music, and be able to do this in a musical way rather than having them memorize a boring list.
Andrea Henderson 