Martha’s Musicpad

May 8, 2011

Musical Advance

Filed under: Music,narrative,recorder,teaching — Martha @ 10:29 am

Not everyone gets excited about old things, but I am excited about new applications, rediscoveries and the adventure of experiences in classroom activities that increase potential and offer opportunities for creativity.

Several years ago I was transitioning from a boring full-time job to “being”.  A former music teacher, I had been playing recorder with a local group of talented and very dedicated musicians in my (then) mountain town, Charleston, WV.  My concept of the recorder was unconventional.  My recorder friends had tradition in their heads, but there was another stream I also had encountered that kind of freed me up from those boundaries.  For years, though classically trained,  I had been playing folk music, blues, and with a worship team, very contemporary music in a more popular worship vein, alternating with guitar and harmonicas.  Following a more Celtic concept, my style was more about sound and breath and sass, less about convention.  So it was a bit of a cross cultural experience, playing with the conventional recorder group, and pretty hard to convince them that my first recorder teacher had been Ken Wollitz, a member of the New York Pro Musica, a fairly well sanctioned early music group in the sixties and seventies.  But we worked it out and I learned a great deal from my fellow musicians in the Players there in Appalachia.

As I played in worship for many years, many non musicians came to me for lessons, who thought they would like to play at the recorder -  a very clear, simple and poetic instrument that enhanced the music we played, fittingly contouring the vocal lines, making agile fills.  It was the young and uncertain that the instrument attracted.  Seemingly less complex than guitar or keyboard, they thought they could do it.  And that was good.  Because I think anybody can, within the limits of their finger agility and breath sensitivity.

Life takes you down a lot of trails, some you choose, some you find thrust upon you.  But delays and sidetracks not withstanding, fast forward twenty years, and here we are.  The book is nearly finished, outlining a method, a teaching/learning strategy I “discovered” as I worked with these wannabe musicians.  Many of them are, to this day, very accomplished musicians.  So I find it proven true that the step by steps I found actually do work.

What I found is that playing the recorder is like dancing for breath and fingers and for the heart.  It is about aesthetics and attitude first, and then about patterning certain finger-gestures, avoiding stress, concentrating on sound music making, choosing your own traditions.   It is a great instrument for beginners of any age, there are no reeds to break, no strange tunings to keep up with, no fancy schmancy keys and wires.  Just a simple, slightly conical pipe with finger holes and a fipple (whistle cut).

After taking a class of third and fourth graders through the finished outline recently I am excited to find the same enthusiasm in me for teaching that I had twenty years ago in being something of an instrumental rebel.  Breaking new ground, whether conceptually as an artist or personally as a teacher, whether the world notices or not, is a joyful experience.  As I prepare for the birth of my first great grandchild, I am expectant about new creation.  It’s not a tired world, but a vibrant one.  I love the old, simple things!  And I relish the new expressions!

May 18, 2012

Tribute to those who light the way

Filed under: Carl Orff,education through movement,Kodaly,narrative,teaching,Viola Spolin,Weikart — Martha @ 10:26 am

I have used the elemental music material of composer and teacher Karl Orff since witnessing an inspiring demonstration he made with a group of inner city children in Charleston West Virginia before an audience of music educators (MENC national conference). His results in a few minutes of work were breath taking. I immediately bought everything written I could find with his name on it and gradually incorporated his ideas and Schulewerk materials into my teaching, although I did not have personal contact with the man or any of his disciples. Years later I began to craft a little recorder method for teaching beginning students that I based on my impression of his ideas, and was invited to share it with some music educators in West Virginia where I had come to live many years later. In a question session, one of the teachers asked what I would do differently in my then quite long career, and I said, “Get Orff Training.” A couple of years later I ran into her and she said with enthusiasm, “Now I know why I teach and how to actually do it.” This woman was an accomplished musician but teaching had frustrated her. I was then so inspired, I soon went on to Belmont University and took the Orff training myself, encountering many inspiring educators in that setting and completely reimaging Karl Orff’s methodology.
In the world of teaching and learning, sometimes it looks like a game of chance. Some kids learn, some don’t, hard to say why, so we look at the demographics. But it has become plain to me that engaging young and old alike in a learning process requires a substantial understanding of the actual content – it’s elements and refinements – and the learning process that goes beyond superficial introduction of facts and practices on which we sometimes rely.
Arrival on target requires a delivery system that connects content with the inner person, and thinkers and practitioners, designers and seers have to have a conversation that brings about the kind of awareness that forces change.
The Weikart/HighScope Education Through Movement; the Kodaly and Orff outworking of elemental details; Spolin’s Theater Games for the Classroom are beauties I would not want to do without. You can use their methods to teach any curriculum with impact.

Arts are refinement

Filed under: early learning,education through movement,Kodaly,narrative,Viola Spolin,Weikart — Tags: — Martha @ 10:02 am

I went to college on a veteran’s scholarship of sorts. My father died in World War II, and as a benefit of his service and death my sister and I received a “free” college education. Before entering college I was required to go to a V A counselor and take tests to determine the suitability of my choices. His advice upon examining my scores and my high school career was for me to diversify to the arts, not just one art. It seemed to crazy to me in the climate of the times, so I “settled” in music education. However, as I look back I see the wisdom of his advice. Creeping into my music classes are movement, dance and theater, games and activities, visuals and verbals, writing, story telling, and creating. I am restless to find alternative approaches, deeper models, associations and outcomes that go beyond the artful sounding of notes and singing of songs. And so are my students. As I develop my portfolio of training and reading, it diverges and contracts…diverges in my studies and contracts and concentrates in my teaching. Sensory and motor coordinates are the very ground of all our learning. I feel that it is my job to help lay the foundation or repair the faulty ones. I draw from Viola Spolin and Neva Boyd in games and theater skills, Phyllis Weikart and the fine Education Through Movement movement of High Scope, Carl Orff and Zoltan Kodaly in elemental music and activities. Bible, folk and Mother Goose characters and stories arch over my lessons. My coteacher and I examine our methods daily, working our way through our personality quirks and the quagmire of opinions we’ve picked up like the mud balls that inhibited the stride of my family’s lhasa apso on our rain soaked West Virginia hillsides. But we’ve been kicking free and finding pay dirt. And our impact has blossomed as we hone in on our children’s development and wash in refreshing streams of awareness these pedagogical giants have carved out for us.
We are after a quality experience for our students, and a quality grasp of their development potential. We know you cannot watch the grass grow, you fall asleep trying. And great oaks from little acorns spring. So we Sow our garden in diversity and expect a big crop to emerge over time.

July 9, 2011

Patterning is parenting

Filed under: early learning,leadership,parenting,patterns,teaching — Martha @ 10:26 am

Children are pattern finders. Give them a puzzle, an array of blocks, and they will find the pattern in time. Soon they are whipping that thing into shape. But life is a very complex array, and finding life’s patterns takes a lot of time. Apprenticing a young life is often tedious work, unless you are very sensitive to what is developmentally appropriate (right for their age and stage of readiness). Keeping life simple, allowing time and space for the pictures children receive to become organized in their minds, is a challenge in a busy world.

I love HighScope (www.highscope.org). It has made me a guru (in my own mind, by contrast to my prior understanding of facilitating among children). I have happy kids in my class. Of course I point out that I only have to work with them for an hour at a time. But this approach has wisdom. Overall our business is about establishing patterns and disrupting patterns, whether as teachers in classroom or as teachers who are parents, teaching in the home.

A recent article in their magazine “Extensions” addresses conflict or hurtful behavior among children. I think as parents we sometimes lose sight of how important our presence is, and don’t feel effective. You are being more effective than you know. And, knowing your own effectiveness is an important aspect of keeping motivated in the right direction. At least that is what has happened to me in my own classroom. Six bullet points points out things you are already doing, and the power of them. Here’s my take on what they had to say. (You can access their article at highscope.com)

For instance use of force is a power issue. As a little kid I am wanting to have power over the situation so I can get my way about something. I want to feel effective. It’s tied into survival, however distorted it might look. You want them to want to survive and thrive and get their portion, but not at the expense of your nest. So (bullet points):
1. It is really important to keep communicating that you do not like or will not support disrespectful hurtful behavior as a way of you or them getting their way. You are FOR their protection, all of their protection. This you do constantly.
2. Problem solving steps they employ at the end of the article are designed to help children find solutions and learn constructive communication skills. (Power) it’s one thing to Give them the solution, another to teach them to fish. Teaching them to fish takes time, over the long haul. Making rules is quick. Your rules are for you, mostly. But of course they have to have the rules, too. Rules represent you, they teach them about YOU which is good; but they don’t necessarily inform the child strategically. Infraction consequences do need to be relevant. But then instruction is something else. The law shows us our need for help. Instruction in heart motives and processes should be part of the help.
3. They say that it is important to address the child’s need for power and control in a different, more constructive way. (That doesn’t mean just getting “their” way but entering meaningfully into the value and meaning system you are establishing in your family.) It’s YOUR house. Documenting helps you discover what the children’s patterns are so you can address them, interrupting the destructive ones.
4. Then you facilitate by creating opportunities for them to exercise care, power and control in a positive way (which I see you do often). This develops strong sense of personal entity. Helping others, doing chores, pleasing behavior.
5. Role model means what they see me do they will do, and the incongruity of disrespect in the setting of respect kind of puts you in a shipwreck. On the other hand if you do what you say, it’s two or more witnesses.
6. Relationship building, you are doing this all the time. This points out some helpful strategies, I think.

And then the steps at the end of the article: They focus on empowering the child, who – after all – is the object of all this training, feeding, cleaning and protecting nest. Otherwise you’d be sipping mint tea at a local outdoor cafe, chatting with celebrities.
And whether you have one or sixty children (whew), each one is ONE. But each one is also part of the community of your house. Each child has their own world and the “others” are objects in that world. How they learn to interpret and treat the object property of the “others” will determine their social skills. You ARE the key. Because you are POWERFUL. And SOCIAL.

June 24, 2011

Patterns, Patterns everywhere…

Filed under: astronomy,early learning,Kid life,narrative,parenting,patterns,teaching — Martha @ 3:06 pm

Patterns, Patterns everywhere…as a kid I lived in a tiny suburb of a tiny town,  in a quiet neighborhood surrounded by fields and woods. I observed and experienced keenly the weather shifts and the sights and smells and feels of the seasons. We were just far out enough that there were few lights to disturb my view of the night sky.  And I loved lying out on the grass at night watching the sky.  It was ‘way better than anything on TV.  I studiously observed the constellations, the clockwork motion of the sky lights.  I loved my star charts, and I strained with my dull and untrained mind to understand and remember the connections, the rhythms of change, the names of the configurations.  Then, there were the planets moving among the constellations in my view and random airplanes flying through.  And, I remember nights of exceptions, when unknown objects moved in contrary motions to these established patterns, with a satellite or as meteor showers  filled the sky for hours.

In 1957  there were two bright comets visible on the East coast. In the spring Comet Arend-Roland was  in the sky. This comet had a tail 30 degrees long and an anti-tail pointing sunward, which was about 15 degrees long. Arend-Roland had a magnitude of about 1 and was seen with the unaided eye.  Then in late July to September the Kome Mrkos was in the sky. This comet had two tails one very bright tail was curved and at a length of about 15 degrees.  If it moved in the sky I loved to see it.  And everything moved, whether slowly as the rotating constellations, or quickly as the streaking meteors.

How formative this environment was to me.  Lying in the grass, a huge field stretched out in front of my house, a rim of woods behind it, I watched, I observed, I wondered.  Though I chaffed at the isolation then, I now am so grateful for the solitude of my situation.  Without too much distraction I fell in love with something so vast, dimensional and powerful and nuanced and mysterious, that my own smallness became the defining feature to myself.

Okay, so I was fickle, and moved on to other interests, did not become a scientist, but rather and artist/teacher/survivor.  But that particular patterning may have set the course of my desire for understanding, for finding connections and relationships that cannot be so easily seen.  It may be what keeps me interested in the unfolding process of teaching and learning, with the multiple workings that produce it.

Currently I focus on people in movement, children really, patterning in that interface of sound-sight-motion  relationship.  I am amazed to find a lanky third grade boy willing to pose on one foot, arms gracefully extended as a floating swan in response to the sounds of Saint-Saens’ evokative concoction, a group of leaping and graceful primary school campers.  I am delighted to see a tall, hesitant fourth grade girl improvise a quick four count to Rod Mcgaha’s Spiritual Improv, and smile with embarrassed pride at her accomplishment.  Classroom meteors.  I am delighted to see musical development as gamers become ensemble players (constellations in motion), soberly addressing a large audience with calm entrances and exits.  Comets of accomplishment.

As for myself and my fellow teachers, we are setting up our (figurative) cameras to catch these phenomena, and studying to understand their behavior.  We are all about creating climate where learning and exploration can occur.  We want to be ready for a big time.

September 24, 2010

plan do review

Filed under: early learning,Kid life,teaching — Martha @ 11:02 am

PLAN – DO-REVIEW

Isa 42:16

I will lead the blind along an unfamiliar way; I will guide them down paths they have never traveled.  I will turn the darkness in front of them into light, and level out the rough ground. This is what I will do for them. I will not abandon them.

My first thought when I awoke yesterday morning was the four year olds I would see at 9:30. My methods teacher used to say, if you have to teach preschoolers I feel sorry for you.  He was so wrong.

So, I thought, what would I do with their distractible, bouncey little selves for forty-five minutes. And what was my purpose with them? In that order. Activity first, reason second. But I often have things backward and have to turn them around. I heard this: set them on the road of decorum.  Wow.  Now that is really the big problem for four year olds.  They just don’t have enough of that decorum stuff to get them through the day, and they are soooooo silly.  They know they goof up regularly. I figured being friends requires some decorum, so we pocketed some “friend” songs.

The educator war I am in involves helping them to use space for creative movement without everybody loosing their mind.  My strategy, as it turned out, involved their names, their eyes, their hands, as we sat on the floor and greeted one another and learned a “greeting” song.  Then I did something I have never done with four year olds before.  I opened our next activity to conversation so that we could Plan-Do-Review.

I said, Does anybody know how we could make a circle?

And did they have ideas?  Do little pigs squeal?  They had ideas!  And so we had a big discussion, complete with raised hands and succinct if occasionally enigmatic assertions, and arrived at a plan.  And then we rose and executed a circle as sweet as any group of adults could pull off, and everybody partied with joy.

Moral to my story?  Well, for me it is this:  take time.  Lay the foundation.  Establish decorum and by the way, include the child.  There are leaders among them.

And (PS) I can facilitate with four year olds.  My High Scope* models have risen high in my estimation.  http://www.highscope.org/

September 23, 2010

Revelational Teaching

Filed under: leadership,narrative,teaching — Martha @ 9:12 am

Isa 42:16

I will lead the blind along an unfamiliar way;   I will guide them down paths they have never traveled.  I will turn the darkness in front of them into light, and level out the rough ground.   This is what I will do for them. I will not abandon them.

An amazing teacher named Mark Virkler in his work LAMAD EDUCATION  has once more encouraged me along the road of being who I am in my calling.  Teaching is an admonition.  We have got to do it, or the next generation is going to be up a creek without a paddle.  And the creek has risen, so that would not be a good situation.

We are admonished in Biblical Text to bring up a child in the way he or she should go and then later on they won’t get lost, or words to that effect.  We have to lay a foundation or the building will collapse when the rains come.

Reading Elizabeth George: A woman’s high calling, it is a sticky business to get around Titus 2 – we have to become examples and engage in instructive behavior or we will not be doing that job.

It behooves us to examine how we are able to do both.  It’s possible that the kid I kick out of class will be my help in a nursing home one day.  I trust that we will have bonded in Shalom.

The classroom of life is real, and I need to employ the mental space granted me to calculate the cost of my carelessness.

http://therefinersfire.org/meaning_of_shalom.htm

February 27, 2010

What’s my destination?

Filed under: Music,narrative,teaching — Martha @ 1:22 pm

I have been telling the story of the three bears to my energetic grandchildren. In countless tellings I have concluded that Goldilocks might never have had the standard of that delicious porridge to cook to in her later years, never have seen the limits of a little chair, or come to the conclusion that bigger is not always better had she not ventured forth that sunny day and tested that cottage door. The bears may not have had the delight of seeing such a wonderous human child in their own habitat, had they not gone for that walk and left the latch undone.

Many of us stop in our creative tracks by not going past our best estimate of our chances for success in an endeavor. And I personally hate it when I am not “right.” But I have a deeply held belief that reality is far higher, wider, deeper, and more complex – nuanced, as it were – than my brain prefers to acknowledge.

At the same time, balance being always a good idea, I am thankful for the Wisdom of the Word that sees before and beyond my moments. So let that every word be at work.

With that in mind, I have made a new determination – not that it will probably change the frequency of my errors, but it changes how I feel about them. I am going to do everything I can to honestly acknowledge at least one mistake per day.

February 4, 2010

we gather to sustain

Filed under: narrative — Martha @ 12:52 pm
Raleigh WorkshopJack, Bob, Janeth and other attenders go anecdotal. We are looking to draw from a wide spectrum of data in order to derive meaning that can help us help others (and ourselves) see “whaz happenin’” with greater clarity. Here, after reading and hearing (podcast) material galore, we practice the focused process of deriving and making use of prompted anecdotes among common stake holders. And take the occasional chow break.

Working Lunch

Raleigh Workshop  Jack  and other attenders go anecdotal. We are looking to draw from a wide spectrum of data in order to derive meaning that can help us help others (and ourselves) see “whaz happenin’” with greater clarity. Here, after reading and hearing (podcast) material galore, we practice the focused process of deriving and making use of prompted anecdotes among common stake holders. And taking the occasional chow break.

Unlimited

Filed under: narrative — Martha @ 12:31 pm

My mother was a woman who knew her limits. She loved to work away from home, and she loved everything to be perfect. I mean perfect. Disorder threw her into a panic. So when she came home, entered the house, she would take her glasses off. Simple. Then she did not see the imprefections.

As I navigate through complexity theory and attempt to bring it under my control (anybody else want to laugh?) i am struck by what a sinner I am. I do not wish to relax ANY of my assumptions and try on the glasses that allow disorder to be what it is.

The further I read, the more I experience, the clearer it is to me that there is an order that emerges when I am willing to look.  Then I see what I have to work with.  Then I really enter in.

Older Posts »

Powered by WordPress