"The Plan" - Part I

WARNING:  this week's post (and the weeks to follow) are not inundated with pictures, so if you're a visual type, you've been warned!

Due to a couple of personal emails and past concerns by music teachers, I decided that this week's blog post should be about curriculum.  It seems with all the preparation and ear training combined with performances and exams, colleges and universities traditionally leave out one of the most important aspects of teaching music in their music education programs - what do I teach and when do I teach it?  Imagine how wonderful it would be to exit college with a full year of music teaching under your arm for grades K-8...but alas, we're left to figure it out on our own or follow the outline in a textbook series.  If anyone had a different experience than this, please leave a comment - I would love to give props to your Music Ed. program!

I've taught through four textbook series at this point in my career.  And I have to say with all candor, until recently, not one of them has been worth their price when it comes to curriculum.  I say "until recently" because the current text I am blessed with in my classroom comes the closest to getting it right.  And I mean that...it comes "close" but it certainly isn't set up the way I could teach from page one to page two and so on and cover the curriculum.  I've always used my texts as anthologies rather than curriculum guides.  We could easily be on page 4 one week and page 397 the next.

I was fortunate enough to be one of the curriculum writers for my school district this year.  Many teachers around the country criticize their state standards as being too vague.  I will tell you this is done with intention to give you guidelines on what should be taught without dictating to you how and when you will teach it.  If teaching ever came to this, I think I would run!  I have the expertise and, after all these years, I have amassed the techniques and materials to impart my expertise (and continue to add to my "bag of tricks!").  I don't need a step-by-step dictated curriculum to accomplish this.  However, I know early on in one's career something like this could be very much appreciated.  When we wrote our district curriculum, I wanted a hand in it because previous guides seemed to lack "musical substance" and focused more on the materials (patriotic music, music for fall, etc.) than it did on the elements of music.

So, I was thinking this post over for the past few days.  I was going to "lay it all out" in this one post, but realized it would end up being more like a novel than a blog post, so I'm breaking it down into chunks, hence the "part one" title.  Not only will this make for easier reading, but it will also ease up on the time it takes for me to write it.  I know you all think I sit and write my blog all day every day, but...um...no.  LOL

Let's start with the lesson.  What should a good general music lesson look like?  I have always held this in mind and it has never failed me:  every lesson should include some music reading, some singing, some listening, some movement, and some playing of instruments.  If you can stick those five activities into your lesson - all focused on the same topic, you are almost guaranteed success in music teaching.  Sometimes, through discussions with other music specialists, I think they think their class is "song class" or "singing/playing/moving" class without actually being music class.  They prepare a series of activities to do with their students that are, indeed, engaging and fun...but if you were to pull one of their students aside and ask them "What did you learn today?"  they will most likely tell you the name of the song(s) or dance.  They will have no idea of a concept that was to be taught for the day.  While not necessarily "damaging" to a child's learning (they may be able to "figure it out on their own" later on), music instruction should be focused on just one thing - learning music.  The songs, games, dances, and instruments are not the end goal themselves - they are the means to the end:  a deeper understanding of music.  If you prepare each lesson with the goal being a deeper understanding of a particular musical element, your students will learn music.  With this in mind, the materials (songs, games, dances, instrument parts) are irrelevant.  You can use anything that you wish as long as it provides a solid example of the topic.  If you're preparing a performance - that's fine.  Use the song material to teach the concepts outlined in your curriculum.  Don't let "the performance" be the only goal (although, on one level, it definitely is a goal - performance is important!).

This takes me to a side tangent that needs to be addressed.  There seems to be two camps when it comes to music education philosophy - those who believe music exists in the school curriculum because it is an art that is worthy of study in and of itself; and those who believe music exists in the school curriculum because it enhances learning in the other core academic subjects.  In case you haven't guessed by now, I am of the former rather than the latter.  Our students get enough "academic subject teaching" in their day - if they needed more, why not just put more math and reading into their day, why music?  If we as music educators perpetuate the idea that we exist for the sake of the other academics, we are surely shooting ourselves in the foot and putting ourselves in peril of being eliminated altogether.  Does the study of music actually enhance and solidify learning in other academic areas?  Absolutely!  There are a multitude of studies on the subject out there (do a quick Google search).  Is it the reason we study it?  No.  Enhancing and solidifying learning that occurs in other academic areas is a "happy accident" as a result of music study - not the sole reason we have music in the school curriculum.

There, I'm off my soap box.  Now...back to the curriculum.  In the coming weeks, I will be outlining what has been successful for me in teaching music.  I will outline grade level by grade level what I include for each of the musical elements.  I will not, however, be telling you when I teach it.  That, dear reader, is up to you.  Personally, I don't think it matters, as long as all of the material gets covered.  Some teachers like covering the same topic with every grade at the same time - that's fine.  For me, I get bored easily and like to mix it up.  So while I'm teaching meter to one grade level, I may be teaching form in the next.

I like to think music instruction is divided into two areas:  musical elements and music-related topics.  The musical elements are:  beat, rhythm, meter, melody, harmony, form, and tone color.  A subcategory can be included here that we'll call "expressive elements" - tempo and dynamics.  I include these as subcategories because you can't discuss a tempo without having a beat and you can't perform dynamics without combining it with one or several of the other elements.  Music-related topics are:  style, composers, music history, and music as related to culture (other cultures, patriotic music, etc.).  When teaching musical elements, the music-related goals can be addressed within those lessons.  For example, when addressing the element of meter, you can include some listening examples from Strauss imparting the knowledge that Johann Strauss was known as "The Waltz King" and was a 19th century romantic composer from Austria. 

Stay tuned for more details.  Until next week....