What Music Learning Looks Like

On a weeknight around 5:15pm
Five preschoolers and three adults are gathered on a blue rug. Joy and Monica are building bridges for frog Agogo out of a Clatter-pillar. Neville makes buoys out of plastic rain sticks and ­finger cymbals conducting two of the adults in their ‘warning bell’ sound. Jade and another adult experiment with the sounds of a triangle. Ximena sits on the edge of the rug taking it in carefully. She is holding on to two bells strung together with a red rope. After watching the buoy ‘warning bells’ being sounded by finger cymbals by Neville, she examines her bells carefully. With two hands she takes the bells and causes them to collide making a lovely ringing sound. She smiles.

The vignette cues us in to what it looks when a child is master of her own learning. Throughout the 10-week course the participating children had their own individual moments of learning. This time set aside for exploration in music and the time spent carefully crafting plans for exploring musicianship are important to the child’s development musically.

Synthesizing "A Head Taller"

Many days I finish a teaching day or walk out of one of my classes feeling so beaten. I have tried to keep my mind and my heart open to the content presented or I have tried to stay open to what the students give me, but at the end of the day I am drained. Those are the days I know have not been a great teacher or a great student. But then there's days when I walk out of class with a pep in my step. The trip home leaves me flowing with many ideas of how I can build programs, improve my teaching, how I can be a better student, how I can be a better person. That's when I know I have achieved Flow.

I'm singing along to my play list and coming up with solutions to problems I have pondered over for weeks. I wish I could have this high all the time. I wish I knew how to give my students this high when I teach. Music has the power to transform us, but that doesn't happen when don't allow for Flow to happen.