Music-Driven Classroom Management
Session notes
This post will serve as the session-notes for the NAfME webinar entitled “Music-Driven Classroom Management” presented on April 18th, 2023. Thanks so much for coming to this webinar and being a part of this important conversation! Please subscribe for free to this SubStack newsletter, and I’ll upgrade you RIGHT NOW behind the paywall so you can access the archive of lessons, take part in ZOOM masterclasses, and use the various tools we have in the TEAMM (Totally Effortless Approach to Musical Movement).
I remember early in my teaching career, classroom management was a huge barrier to success. Creating beautiful music with my students seemed to be elusive, as we couldn’t seem to create the necessary conditions for music making. A well-managed classroom environment is crucial if one expects to immerse children in music. It took me a full three years of struggle before I had “a moment of clarity.”
It dawned on me that I wasn’t using all of my strongest skills to solve this problem. My training, my passion, my talent; all of these revolve around music. How could I marshal these abilities toward building the structured classroom environment I craved? The “low hanging fruit” was to create musical accompaniment for the transitional moments in the lessons that seemed to derail my progress.
After years of developing this way of thinking I have really found immense power in this simple question: What can we do to make every moment in the class “feel” musical? In order to answer this question, we need to ask “what makes something feel musical?” I have studied very deeply the Dalcroze Method, and it is something that has transformed my teaching practice. The Dalcrozians say that music is a manifestation of Time, Space, and Energy. This concept runs underneath everything that I do as a teacher, including manage the classroom.
For each moment in a lesson, I have learned to evaluate based on these three elements. When students are engaged with Time, Space, and Energy; the musical sensation it elicits DRIVES the class forward effortlessly. This is the key to Music Driven Classroom Management. The focus on time, space, and energy is the CURE for chaos in the music room.
Strong Music-Driven procedures have the following characteristics:
Physical
Temporal
Mutable
When I began engaging my students PHYSICALLY with specific playful and compelling movements, it changed the whole dynamic of my room. The instinct of many teachers (and my instinct as well) was to limit chaos by restraining the children’s desire for movement by asking them NOT to move. This was a disaster. Instead of trying to restrain that desire, I simply directed it toward productive musical expression. When I stopped asking children NOT to do things, instead asking instructing them what I wanted them TO do, it was transformative.
It is important to be very specific about the physical expectations in each activity. For me, I almost never have a moment in the class where it isn’t clear what the students should be doing with their bodies. Certain transitions might seem simple and obvious… for instance asking the children to “sit down.” The assumption would be that the children will simply sit down and be ready for the next instruction. This is NOT my experience. An instruction like “sit down” is woefully vague. How do we sit down? When should we sit down? How long should we take to do it? What should we do when we get there? These are questions that need answers.
The TEMPORAL aspects of music are crucial. Music is a medium of time. Often, I describe music as being “made of” time, like how a pot is made of clay. If we want these moments of our class to feel musical, we need to consider using time in a similar way. When we perform music, we have a clear starting point. Usually this is cued with a preparatory beat or a “count off.” There is a tempo, or an agreed upon speed that keeps us together. There is also a clear ending or cut off. Any procedure or transition in my class has the same considerations. When do we start moving? How long do we take to get through the procedure? When do we stop? These all must be communicated to the students before the procedure is executed.
Using songs is a great way to insure that the procedure is temporal, but it’s not the only way. It also might not be the best way in certain contexts. I’ve found that songs can be overwhelming, if there are so many transition songs the students get tired of them. Some students don’t connect to singing and we’re insufficiently addressing this diversity if we have a disproportionate focus on vocal activities. Using recorded or instrumental cues can be very effective. Maybe a certain rhythm on a hand drum or a chord progression on a guitar could be used, depending on the musical skill set of the teacher.
The third component of a good Music-Driven procedure is that it should be MUTABLE or nuanced. Dynamics, articulation, expression, phrasing, balance, and many other subtle considerations make a musical performance enjoyable. These same choices can be implemented in a good procedure. Ideally, they can be variably changed in order to keep the procedure fresh and exciting. The teacher can use these variables to reinforce a concept being introduced in the lesson. In this way, transitions and classroom management can serve the dual purpose of an experiential learning opportunity, as well as a valuable tool for battling chaos.
Activities for Teaching Body Control
Troubleshooting Behaviors
There seems to be a lot of teachers struggling right now with behaviors in their classroom. Some might hypothesize that it has something to do with COVID policies, or it’s part of a longer sociological trend, I’ll leave it to experts to debate the reasons. My focus is on solutions. Whenever I have behavior issues in a lesson, I take an opportunity to reflect. For me, classroom management is really a simple equation. It’s only two things:
Teach really great lessons.
Teach them with strong procedures.
That’s it. That’s the list.
Ok, well I admit these are each quite complicated tasks in their own way. In fact each of them is a lifelong career of growth and mastery. “Teach really great lessons” is the eternal struggle, and presents a limitless challenge. This workshop is not the place to really tackle this issue, but I will say this: If I have behavior issues in my class, 9 times out of 10 it’s because my LESSON wasn’t engaging enough. It didn’t satisfy the children or satisfy their desire for musical joy.
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