School Daze : Revisiting A Quick Reaction Story
Comparing and Contrasting Elements in a Story
A Facebook chat group had a post that I found interesting. The teacher was looking for a movement “activity” that the students could perform without the teacher leading. They were thinking about a video or “move along” in which the student would be engaged for 5 or so minutes to move with the music. As you can imagine, I have a nuanced view of this idea. First of all, I think its totally possible to let the students explore and discover their own connections to a piece of music and to make their own decisions. HOWEVER… I would reserve this for a group that had already built some solid fundamentals in movement! In this post I’ll share an activity I use to build some of these foundations in the primary grades. But first…
Housekeeping:
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From the Archive:
The Latest "Buzz Word" in Ed
It seems that lately the word flying out of the mouths of administrators more than any other is “engagement.” In some ways I’m glad, because its something I’ve been preaching for a long time. MusicXT subscribers know that I have a specific idea of what it means to engage with music, and how transformational this can be for a music classroom. That being…
I first encountered “stories” in the Dalcroze practice from a series of videos by Fritz Anders. When I began my own training in the method, Leslie Upchurch was a big influence on my approach to stories. I also have picked up some thoughts on the topic from Monica Dale and Lauren Hodgson. This is all to say that there is a rich tradition in the Dalcroze community of using stories to create a musical experience for children. Many practitioners have used this format to introduce a variety of musical elements, encourage expressive gestures, and generate moments of discovery.
One of the most important things to remember when you embark on these stories is that the children should be free to react to your cues through movement, and you should attempt to react to their movement as well. At its best, these exercises are collaborative, they’re following your story but you’re altering it to incorporate their ideas and inspiration.
When I was discussing these kind of activities on The New Dalcrozian podcast, with my colleague and co-host Lauren Hodgson, she had some great recommendations for folks looking to incorporate them into their classes. One of her suggestions was to really commit to the imagery… if you’re asking the children to walk like a T-Rex, then you have to really buy into it with your whole person. This has been my experience as well. Modeling is really important for getting the students to embrace the feeling and sensation of the gestures.
Another of Lauren’s suggestions was to start with stories that aren’t so far-fetched. I have found that in my public school teaching, especially the students in 4th or 5th grade, this idea of realistic imagery is highly impactful. For whatever reason, I am more comfortable bringing these kind of stories to them than say, something more fantastic or imaginative. This particular story was inspired first by a suggestion Lauren made on the podcast, and then I grew it out from that into some different areas. I have experimented with this particular story arc in all classes from K to 5, and with some adaptation it works every time for all levels.
I begin the story with sleeping. Many of my stories start with sleeping, which I find useful from a classroom management standpoint. This allows me to begin with calm stillness, and also a jumping-off point that can go in any number of directions. I begin by using the opportunity to explore the contrast between tension and relaxation. Sleeping music is gentle and a major key, but as I add dissonance and dynamics, it builds tension and they feel it in their bodies. Then when it resolves, we can relax and sleep again.