This week, we watched a short video about some students in
Paraguay who have created an orchestra using instruments made from garbage in
the landfill on which their community is built.
In the video, one person mentions that instruments are worth as much as
homes in their community, so having instruments is a huge blessing to the
people.
In the video, one girl says that listening to the sounds of
her violin makes butterflies in her stomach.
She is so excited to experience music, and she is obviously thrilled
that she can play music on a good-quality sounding instrument. It seems clear that she would not have music
in her life without her instrument, and she knows the gift it is that she can
experience it, even with an instrument that Americans would consider
garbage. Another girl says that her life
would be meaningless without music. It
is wonderful to think that she can find her passion because of a recycled
instrument. Music is obviously valuable
in people’s lives if they are willing to go through the effort to create their
own instruments from trash. I imagine
that obtaining the kind of tuning and acoustics that they need is difficult and
involves a lot of science as the instruments are being made. Even that effort seems very meaningful when
it means that children can experience something wonderful in their lives. These children were unlikely to have music in
their lives at all if not for these recycled instruments, and they seem to
recognize how valuable it is. How sad
that we must imagine music being removed from our lives or difficult to obtain
in order to grasp its power and magic in our lives!
I feel like I have to fight the battle of why music is
important every day. In fact, it is easy
for me to say that I am tired of fighting the battle of why music matters
because I feel like I have to defend it so often. Therefore, I have made every attempt in my
job to demonstrate the power of music as I work with my students and as I speak
to their parents about music.
The first way to educate people about the importance of
music is to directly speak to the students and facilitate a discussion with
them about why music matters. Since the
students are the ones who are being taught music and are experiencing music, if
they do not find value in it, who else will?
I have done activities with my students at all grade levels to inspire
their minds to think intelligently about why music is important in their
lives. For example, I recently did a
project with first graders in which they had to answer the question, “How do I
use music in my life?” and then draw a picture that showed their statement. Not only did the activity allow me to
incorporate reading and writing activities into music as well as art, the
students inspired me by coming up with what I considered to be very meaningful
and creative responses for first graders.
One student wrote that listening to music calmed her down when she felt
angry. Another student wrote that
singing along with songs in the car made him feel close with his family.
The second way to education people about the importance of
music is to show and speak to the parents about how music is positively influencing
their children’s lives. With the first
grade activity mentioned above, I displayed the student answers on the wall
outside my classroom for Open House.
Many parents came by my classroom and discussed their child’s answers
with me. At performances, I always try
to include a short segment where I outline the children’s musical activities
for the year to give parents an idea of what their children are doing in my
classroom. I also try to inform parents
that there are three areas of music experiences: performing, creating, and responding, and
that I try to incorporate these into my class activities as often as
possible. I think that many parents are
simply uninformed or uneducated about how to learn about music, and organizing
musical ideas into these three categories is a great starting point to get
parents thinking about music in their own lives.
A third way to education people about music is to make music
experiences something for the whole community or even the world to
understand. In the technology in music
education course that I recently completed, we discussed forms in which
technology can help spread musical ideas.
One of the discussions that began was the idea to blog about lesson
planning and activities that occur in the music classroom and regularly remind
parents of the link so that they can be updated. Making a blog also allows anyone in the
world, or anyone with access to the blog, to be inspired by and/or experience
music in my classroom. I intend to
develop my blog over the summer and update it weekly beginning next school
year. A friend of mine who teaches music
in the Chicago suburbs created a blog a few years ago. She stated that the blog has really helped
her validate her music classes to fellow teachers, administration, parents, and
other music teachers because there is proof of the value of what she does in
the evidence of activities from her music classroom.
Lastly, everyone participates in music in some ways. A great starting point for education people about
music is helping them to see the cognitive value in the music they already
listen to. Whether for expressive
purposes, just for fun, or to experience something wonderful that one would not
otherwise be able to experience, such as the recycled instrument students in
Paraguay, music can bring all people to a new and better level of meaning in
their lives.
