Final Lesson Proposal

For my final lesson plan I am going to do a lesson on how to integrate music into teaching simple words and word sounds to Kindergarten age readers.

Controversial Issue: Should Teachers Be Paid Based On Student Performance? What Makes An Effective Teacher?

Should teachers be paid based on student performance?

No.
I think that would be very unfair way for teachers to be paid. There are teachers in many schools that do not have as many moments where it is very hard to get students to perform up to expectation. The learning comes a lot easier in many areas as opposed to others.

Some schools are not like this. Some schools reside in low income, and/or high risk neighborhoods where students have a lot more to deal with in their lives than just learning at school. Sometimes in these schools where students are already carrying so much, at times it is just a winning day when certain students make it to school.

The numbers here are not exactly right but do not need to be to be exactly right. I read a study in a class last fall where in average families children hear an average of 1,000 to 1,500 words per hour which is comparable to school. In many at risk families the study reported that children hear on average 300 to 600 words per hour, then come to school and are expected to retain the 1,500 words per hour that are thrown at them. This is very hard, even almost impossible for a student to do in this situation. For a brain used to retaining so little information at home on a regular basis so much more information per hour is like sensory overload so a lot of what the child hears will be lost. This is not a strike against the student, or against the teacher. What this means is this learning situation is much more challenging than in an average, or above average neighborhood school. What this means is at an at risk school while student performance, on average, may be lower, the teacher may be working much harder to accommodate different student's learning abilities. 

So, in short, where in some schools higher student performance is attained easier as opposed to an at risk school where at times harder work is to be done to help students should in no way reflect what a teacher is paid. Teachers are already being asked to perform to many different expectations. I believe that student performance reflecting pay would be completely out of line.

What makes a good teacher?

Someone who wants nothing more than a child's success, and happiness. Someone who wants to help all of their students meet and exceed their expectations and potential. A good teacher is someone who defends and takes care of their children. A good teacher has effective classroom management and trust. A good teacher is someone who is spontaneous and flexible. A good teacher wants nothing more than happy and comfortable children and to give them every opportunity for success.

Controversial Issue: Tenure and Teacher Unions. Is Reform Needed?

Whenever I hear about unions my mind is automatically drawn back to why Unions became prevalent in the first place in this country and "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair. Unions are a good thing to protect worker's rights and to ensure that work environments do not become abusive.

Tenure seems to be a way to give recognition to teachers who have paid their dues in the teaching career.

But, it seems that no matter what it is in life, too much of a good thing, or something placed with good intentions, can become something not so great.

I believe that reform is needed in both of these topics.

As I write this post I am back and forth on how much detail I want to go into since I am working in a public school now and as you can see working to make my way into the teaching field. To keep things short and sweet I have seen the benefits of the teaching union at work. There are good things the unions do and very good reasons for it to exist. Unions are good, within reason.

The issue that I have as an aspiring educator is how come if I am working so hard to learn and evolve with the ever changing times of education and to soak up as much knowledge as I can in many different subject areas and then, when I am hired have to worry about having a job at the end of each school year, and placating the desires of the principal, how come some teachers are allowed to become so comfortable that they are essentially allowed to stop learning for their kids benefit and can be comfortable being subpar just because they have a certain amount of years under their belt as a teacher?
Now, I am not saying this is the case for every teacher with tenure. I am merely basing this off of some cases that I have seen or heard about.

I think when given the chance to do such a crucial job of raising our kids, helping shape young minds, and preparing our youth for their future we should not be comfortable. We should always evolve and change with the times. With something so important as our kids we needs to keep striving to be better. Job security should be guaranteed for those who work hard but none of us should become so comfortable as teachers to not keep changing shape and working constantly to be better through learning from peers, or other avenues.

In conclusion, I believe that reform is needed for bother tenure, and unions. I do not believe that either should be completely done away with but I think both should be required to hold themselves to certain set of standards to be used.

Controversial Issue: Balancing Extra Curriculars

The theme that I keep finding time and again when working on assignments for MUS 214 that ask us to share our own personal opinions is that Elementary School is a forum for students to have a very diverse education where they are exposed to many different things. Some topics are mandatory for students to learn, some are considered extra, or extra curricular activities.

I believe that in our society that young children are asked to play sports at a far too early age. I think that children of 8 or younger should not be put into sports so quickly. I believe that the pressure to win in sports is instilled in our youth at much too young of an age. Now that I have said that...

I think that with our young learners Extra Curricular activities should be presented to our children so that they can choose for themselves what they want to try or don't want to try. I think that this should be  this way for sports and other activities like say, orchestra, or plays.

I think that the best way, but not the easiest, to encourage students to try anything that they might life in a sports driven society is to not masculinize sports. Boys in particular are pushed too much to play sports and turned away from music and art because its not masculine enough. This in turn discourages girls from sports and causes them to think that sports are for boys, which is wrong. I think this is where the problem lies and needs to be put to rest. Boys, and girls should not be encouraged to try something based on gender. Elementary school is the first place where gender roles should be discouraged and in turn kids should be encouraged to try whatever they think would make them happy, no matter what it is. We the people raising our children need to remember that it's their life to find their passions and happiness. Our guidance should not consist of making them play a sport instead of playing music, or acting, or joining art clubs. I feel as though where the pressure on young people in sports is too much I think that the chance to create in the arts is exactly the opposite for the young person - relaxing and therapeutic.

When To Introduce Certain Musical Instruments and Why

When reading in our text, "Using Music," on the portion for Inside The Music: The Basic Elements of Music Chapter 3 I ended up likening this to a previous class that I have taken this year: Elementary Physical Education. The reason why is much like in P.E. when it is important to start at the ground level of introductory movements and then work up to more proficient movements it is just the same in musical education. Students just learning music, rhythm, and tone, etc. cannot just be handed a recorder, or woodwind instrument and be asked to play something. Students just being introduced to playing an instrument must start out with the basic elements of music.

The instruments we have been asked to discuss on when to introduce them are: Recorder, xylophone, rhythm sticks, finger cymbals, and kazoo.

The first instrument that I believe should be introduced when reading Chapter 3 in the text should be:
rhythm sticks. I think that this is so because students being taught the basic fundamentals of rhythm with a very simple instrument is a great foundation laid down for the rest following. The next instrument that I think should be introduced is finger cymbals because this takes the rhythm aspect one step further. This could work great when asking students to play the cymbals at certain points in a song or at a steady beat. I then think after these two instruments are being performed proficiently one could then bring in the kazoo where not only rhythm could again be emphasized but pitch, and breathing could be practiced as well. The kazoo is a great lead in for the next instrument the recorder. I believe that this is the biggest step up of all of these instruments from one to another here because of the introduction of notation. More time could be spent on this instrument learning notation and sheet music. Again, though, rhythm, pitch, and breathing are also able to be worked on with the recorder. Then finally, I believe that after notation, and being able to read sheet music has been learning one could then introduce the xylophone. After building up to this as student should be able to correlate what they are reading on sheet music with what is being asked to be played on the xylophone in correct rhythm, and timing because of all of the steps leading up to it.

I think that each instrument should be introduced in this order because each one acts as a stepping stone to the next. Once students are to the point of the xylophone introduction and mastery they would then have a huge chunk of what will be needed to play well on any other instrument.

Carl Orff's Educational Philosophy

The Orff-Schulwerk, an educational concept for elemental education in music and movement which has been disseminated worldwide in over thirty countries, has had a significant impact on musical education for children around the world for over fifty years.

The Orff-Shulwerk involves the stimulation and encouragements of expressive, creative musical behavior within a close relationship between music, language, and movement. The Orff-Shulwerk, or OSW, involves improvisation in rhythm, melody, tonal events, structure, and musical interaction.

Specific material is to be defined through experimentation, repetition and alteration which progresses from exploration to the use of notation on a secondary level.

Call and response of improvisation, and fixed content to open up a variety of performance levels.

Movement – integration of movement, speech, singing and additional instrument playing. Allows the element to develop from another, and the combination of all in the final creative project.

A building block structure with small manageable portions of elements to reduce excessive demands and any point in time.

This philosophy seems like a very open to creative ideas version of the sequential and rote-note learning styles. While there is a common thread of a goal in mind in learning pieces of music the OSW also seems to be completely wide open to branching off into improvisational, "jam" type elements whether it be with instruments, or voice. While this creates a common path for the musician to follow it also opens up the creative juices to the project as well as making it extremely fun and not constricting to the musician at all. This concept reminds me a lot of the concepts applied to Jazz bands where their is a common theme of a song but many spots where there is jam parts, and solos. This can be extremely fun and create some very inventive projects. 

I think that the Orff-Shulwerk learning concept is extremely relevant in today's musical classrooms because it plays right into sequential learning, and Rote-Note learning, and well as the wide open encouragement to be spontaneous and creative. This is what music should be all about - learning, but very inventive, fun, and creative.

Sources: http://www.orff.de/en.html

Sequential and Rote-Note learning.

The importance of Sequential learning:
It seems that sequential learning is much like a step ladder. In order to get to the next rung of the ladder one must take a step on the rung below that one. Sequential learning is the processing of information in a step by step manner where the end result is the result of the entire process. The importance of this type of learning is that students are not being put on overload being asked to learn something all at once. Instead students are asked to take an objective piece by piece so that they can understand each part of the whole.
Some learners are inherently sequential learners where they naturally feel the need to diagnose problems piece by piece rather than as a whole from the outset without even being lead to or asked to.
It seems that this type of learning style has an advantage over other learning styles because many lesson plans in schools are set up to be taught in a sequential order of process.

Rote-note learning:
In my personal experience this was the backbone of our style of learning musical pieces in middle and high school bands. Rote-note learning is a repeated action of memorization of information.

It seems that sequential learning and rote-note learning can be tied together in musical education because to learn an entire piece it must be learned piece by piece rote-note learning style in sequence and practiced that way until it can be performed by the band, or choir all the way through as a whole.

To teach students a musical piece in rote-note style:

1. First find out what the objective is, as a whole, and daily. Make sure that students have what they need to perform the musical piece that you would like to teach them.
2. Look at what you know of your group and what you can ask them to learn each lesson in the rote-note sequence. It probably will not work if too much information is piled on too fast.
3. Give direct instruction on the piece of the whole to be learned and memorized each session. Work on it until proficiency is achieved before moving on. Review with all of the learned pieces together as you go.
4. Give a chance to let students practice what they have learned under your supervision.
5. When the entire piece is learned in sequence of rote-note learning of each portion, put closure on the learning by rote-note learning and mastery of the entire piece of music.
6. Assessment of what was learned and performance.