‘Sit down before facts like a child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing.’— Thomas Huxley

I have been away for the past 2 weeks getting trained at UNC for my Level II Orff Schulwerk certification and though most of you probably haven’t noticed, the blog seems a bit of a distant memory. Don’t worry, my class is almost over and the entire summer patiently awaits more regular blog posts. I’ve decided this week to post my reflections on the past week and a half. And if you were wondering- No, this is NOT an assignment for class, though I’ve had one every night except for tonight, so you should feel lucky that you’re geting a slice of my precious time!

‘When I feel well and in a good humour, or when I am taking a drive or walking after a good meal, or in the night when I cannot sleep, thoughts crowd into my mind as easily as my mind might wish.’
— Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

I have had a lot of time for reflection on my way to and from Greeley, with my hour and 15 min. commute and one of the things I have enjoyed most is listening to pieces from the Volumes. These pieces are so rich with musicality that I truly am being invigorated as I am driving. Much like attending a live concert, I am feeling emotions and evoking  a sense of oneness with the music. I am overcome by a flood of ideas for my classes and want to pull over to write them down. I need to start carrying a voice recorder in my purse like writers do;). After I arrived in Greeley and got oriented to the streets (they have both numbered street and avenues, and I can’t see the mountains!) I couldn’t help but be in awe of the beauty that is the UNC campus. The trees in full bloom and the finely cut summer grass is truly God’s perfected creation for me to behold first thing in the morning. It helps that it has been in the 70s and 80s all week. The mornings have been early, but the summer sunshine helps wake me up and I wish that it would be like this during the school year instead of the dark, cold, make-you-want-to-stay-in-bed mornings of winter.

‘We all operate in two contrasting modes, which might be called open and closed. The open mode is more relaxed, more receptive, more exploratory, more democratic, more playful and more humorous. The closed mode is the tighter, more rigid, more hierarchical, more tunnel-visioned. Most people, unfortunately spend most of their time in the closed mode.’ – John Cleese

As our class began last week I naturally emerged as the skeptical, gifted student. I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging, but I have always been a fast learner and have been able to “see” where the teacher is going with the lesson. I found a lot of similarities to high school classes where I would become very fond of the teachers and they of me, like a kinship found among peers. Some might call this the “teacher’s pet”, others just see it as “brown nosing”. In this regard I had to warn myself to not become too boastful and reach far beyond the class, but to find avenues to challenge myself, and to remember to keep a humble mind and attitude. The songs and material we have learned in Basic are excellent and I have enjoyed myself immensely, even though most of the material has been too difficult for my current students at Harrington. I have learned so much more, though, about the PROCESS of teaching the Schulwerk. Our Level II pedagogy and recorder  instructor, Matt McCoy, is a MASTER of reduction and bringing the pieces to life without you even knowing it! In movement with instructor David Connors, I have learned to be more sensitive to the subtle nuances of movement and how to communicate without saying anything. (That sounds cliche for dance, but I never pushed myself really to think about it and DO it.) In recorder, I had played alto and soprano quite a bit in Level I and in the ARS, but I learned more about ornamenting and really enjoyed improvising in different modes.

‘Minds are like parachutes — they only function when open.’— Thomas Dewar

In all, this experience will accomplish something I never thought of before- to make me a better teacher, not simply by giving me more ideas and lessons to try, but to sculpt me and shape me as a musician/dancer/human being. The art that I have created in Level II will hopefully stay with me and be carried into the artistic endeavors I share with my students. The idea of open-mindedness and creative possibility that is required for the Schulwerk is obviously my greatest weakness and is something that I can continue to work on.

Become a possibilitarian. No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see possibilities–always see them, for they are always there.’— Norman Vincent Peale

The idea that my students will achieve the highest level that I set for them was beating at my proverbial door. I know this, but it was evident through this course that I had not been applying it.  Teaching in an urban school can make one set lower and lower expectations for your students and yourself. Don’t fall into this trap! (I’m reminding myself here… ) The kids deserve nothing less than our absolute best artistry and musicianship. The Schulwerk can overcome the “dumbing down” that seems to have to  accompany low performing schools by providing material that is not only accessible, but beautiful in its most elemental forms. I highly recommend the Levels course for anyone looking to get into elementary teaching. It is not only great for your students but, simply put, good for YOU.

As I was up late tonight formatting all of my students’ Garage Band pieces into mp3’s to look nice and clean for my new inline Yahoo! Media Player, I came across this little gem for those who are looking to use Garage Band for the first time in the classroom or need to brush up on some of its basic features.  Granted, the “tutorials” are for Garage Band versions 2 and 3, but that’s all the higher I go in my lab anyway. (Actually I’m still running version 1.1 on most of my iMacs because they have less memory than my phone! But that’s a rant for another post… )

John G. Hendron of Goochland County Public Schools published these Garage Band Tutorials, and  I think you’ll find them useful and can even give to your students as self-learning guides. Topics include Mixing, Transposing, Musical Forms, Exporting to iTunes, and a Bonus Section which includes 2 composition lessons. He even included an update for Podcasting Using Garage Band in 2006. I’m also impressed by the questions at the bottom of each section. I can use these as review questions to check for understanding after the lesson!  I’m out to find out if John is still around and to shoot him an email about how awesome this resource is.  In the meanwhile, you can check out some of my students Garage Band pieces on my newly table-ized projects page.

Blessings,

~S

Summer is finally here and I am anxious to have more time to do everything. It’s already been 2 days and I have washed and folded 4 loads of laundry, done 5 loads of dishes, scrapbooked for 6 hours and enrolled the kids in swim lessons and day camps. Now I can turn my attention back to blogging, which I have been steadily neglecting for months. I have high hopes of organizing the blog a little bit, at least the Harrington section, to include most of my kids recent GB works, and make it a little easier for them to access next year. I plan to do this using tables in a Word program and then pasting it into WordPress. We’ll see how that turns out. I’m also going to update my links and check for outdated ones. This seems to be a problem, esp in my keyboard webquest. I have had several emails discussing my nametags I use for assessment, so a blog posting on that is in order. Also, I need to really go back and look over the mission statement I wrote for the blog and see if I’m staying on track or if it needs a little tweaking.

June is a busy month. Our 10th wedding anniversary is on the 12th and we are going camping 2 weekends. I started an online second job with ChaCha as a Guide Specialist, but it’s puttering out. I have to answer 1000 questions by July 15th to get a good payout of $100, and I’m averaging 5-7 questions per day! Not worth my time anymore…. Oh well, so I lost $8.74 and worked my butt off for about 10 hours just to get that. It was a good lesson in learning where my priorities lie. Bible study, working on this blog, and scrapbooking the memories of my family will be a much better use of my time and energy, even of I’m not getting paid $2 and hour!

So those are my goals for the Summer of 2009. Spend more time with the girls, beef up the blog, scrapbook to my heart’s content, and work on making future memories for my family. Sounds great to me for now.

Thanks for reading. See you again soon.

~S

I just added a Fliggo site to my repertoire of Web 2.0 tools. Check out MrsJ’s Musical Oddities at http://urbanmusiceducation.fliggo.com. I will post funny and amazing videos that I find while browsing YouTube and also use the site to post videos from my classroom projects! Enjoy and feel free to leave comments!

~S

So here it is. The Washing Machine analogy. I came up with this after weeks of contemplating why my music students cannot perform at the level of a “normal” school. It’s because we are being compared to this washing machine :

You see, this is the music program  with the young, vibrant teacher in the new building- the one just built in the district to the north with fast-selling houses and pretty lawns. It has all the bells and whistles of a new washing machine, even multiple magnetic surfaces, and a ton of helpful settings to play with. The kids are the white, slightly soiled 100% cotton socks gently placed into this machine to “cleanse” them of their ignorance in a matter of just under an hour (50 minutes to be idealistic). They have lots of room to agitate and tumble around. The curriculum and materials given to help “clean” these students is the brand name detergent- mild and organic- never any harsh chemicals added to irritate their delicate fabric.  Set everything on Warm and give it a run and these unmentionables come out brilliant and sweet smelling, a thing any mother would be proud of folding and putting on the shelf.

Then there’s the Urban, Low-income washing machine like ours. Take twice as many semi-soiled “socks” and dunk them in motor oil since they start out with such “stained” home lives, even before they get stuffed into the lower-capacity machine. I don’t even want to get into a racial debate- but let’s just say the demographics of this load are 80% brown socks, 15% black socks, and 5% white socks, so it’s hard tell how much these socks really do need to be cleaned. Many have “special ed” holes in them, or are wearing thin due to emotional/behavioral problems. Let’s also say, the variety of fibers in these socks are as numerous as their variance in color. These socks need generally the same amount of time to wash as the others, but for some reason, someone decided that this load only will get 40 minutes and most of the time the person delivering the load is late getting them in so that time is even shorter. Add a minimal amount of detergent (curricular materials) that is generic and doesn’t “invigorate the fibers”. Then, since the thermostat is broken (and it seriously is in my music room right now!), these socks will have to be washed on the  FRIGID COLD setting for the duration of the cycle, and every so often, the cycle will be interrupted as one or two socks will be pulled out for testing. The washing machine itself is working hard, but it’s tired, over-used, and worn down-  nothing to brag about. Paint is off-color, parts are squeaking, and there’s so much piled on top of it that it’s hard to even load the darn thing. Did I mention the coin-operated part? That means that these socks only get washed when the operator has the money…and you know what they’ve been saying about this economy.

And there you have it. Take the socks out of both machines and compare them. We can say they’ve both been in the washing machine, but scrutinize them and it’s easy to see they are not equal. The socks(students) in the older machine are doomed to fail even from the start given all of the variables against them. How can we standardize this process when there are so many differences among “washing machines” around the state? How can my students even measure up when they only get the simplest of worn-out, used machines and come in stained and worn beyond repair?

I don’t have the answer right now. But, perhaps summer will see this washine machine off to repair. It’s getting new paint(literally-my whole school will be painted when I come back!) at least and the thermostat is scheduled to be “looked at”.  I will clear off the top so it’s easy to load back up in the fall, and I will try my best to find enough grant money to at least upgrade the detergent to some middle-of-the road brand. Seriously folks, this machine needs a rest!

I’ll end this analogy by giving some advice that I will be taking as well: Take care of your washing machine. Clear off anything that may be getting in the way of a smooth wash cycle. Save up and buy the best detergent possible. Don’t skip regularly scheduled maintenance. And most of all, don’t give up on getting those socks clean. Try innovative products that may amaze you by their “stain-removing” power. Give it all you got even when you think have nothing left to give and you have to put yourself on Craigslist or Freecycle and hope someone picks you up. There will always be dirty socks that need cleaning.

~S

Turns out that I just had to un-check one tiny little box in WP and now the comments are flowing once again! Thanks to my SIL for helping out with the quality control! BTW- check out her blog. She is learning how to integrate more technology into her 4th grade classroom in AK.

More later on the brilliant Washing Machine analogy I came up with for teaching the arts in low-income, urban (stressful!) populations. Stay Tuned.

~S

I’m starting to wonder if anyone is even reading this blog? I used to get 5-6 comments per post, (granted mostly spam), but I haven’t had a comment since February and I’m starting to wonder if it’s some new spam filter on WP that is filtering out other comments as well. I’ve tested the comment box, and my comments are showing up….So What’s Up? If you are reading, please leave a comment so I know you’re still out there!:)

Check out this powerful video about the sad reality of school budget cuts in our current state of recession. Our school has already cut library and PE. Will music be next?

So I haven’t blogged in a while, but I have been regularly checking stats for the site and have been pleased with the steadily increasing number of hits that UrbanMusicEducation.org has been getting lately. I find it fascinating to read the popular search terms that lead one to the site and find it even more scintillating that people are actually USING the site! (Woot!)

I do, however, need to comment on a particular finding I discovered while checking the places this site was accessed from. I always find new blogs that feature the site and appreciate those who have linked me in their blogrolls, but today I found a plagiarizer. I am shocked that a fellow educator would cut corners like this. Ok, I admit, I like to beg borrow and steal just about anything I can, but I always try to ATTRIBUTE. AT least if you are going to copy and paste text from my site, include a link to MY PAGE!

Anyway, if anyone is not clear about this, I will repost my Creative Commons license for this site:

You are free:

• to Share — to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work
• to Remix — to make derivative works

Music Education Can Help Children Improve Reading Skills
ScienceDaily (2009-03-16) — Children exposed to a multi-year program of music tuition involving training in increasingly complex rhythmic, tonal, and practical skills display superior cognitive performance in reading skills compared with their non-musically trained peers, according to a new study.