Pu-er Orff Schulwerk

This workshop in Rochester was a bit unusual as they booked me four years ago! I remember at the time thinking, “Really? 2024?!!” And then it came. Not something to be crossing off each day—some 1, 456 of them, more or less— like an advent calendar. But having finally arrived, it was a meaningful 4 ½ hours, made especially pleasurable by getting to dig into English rhymes and poetry. 

 

I started by reciting my favorite Yeats poem (The Son of Wandering Angus), all holding hands in a circle. Following my dictum of teaching classes with an “enticing beginning,” that certainly caught everyone’s attention. On we went to bring the music of language alive in ways neither English classes nor music classes usually do. It was a field day of rhythm and rhyme and alliteration and consonance and assonance and vivid imagery and both whimsical and profound meaning, with a bit of onomatopoeia thrown into the mix. There was syllabic awareness and homonyms and limerick poetic form and nursery rhymes. There were nonsense words poems, an old Latin text, a short personal story told in Spanish that non-Spanish speakers had to translate (and they did!), storytelling as a strategy to teach music on the Orff instruments.

 

Most delightful of all and fresh for me in recent workshop work was an activity where people spelled words in small groups using their whole bodies and then moved the words to confirm their meaning— words like grow, melt, turn, jump, hug, eat, sleep, exit, hello, park (the car). A great problem-solving activity with both aesthetic and hilarious results. 

 

Stitching it all together were my bold and unequivocal pronouncements about what I think teachers are meant to do. Things like watch the children to learn everything they need to know about what is effective, fun, musical and makes children happy, all of which gets lost in our off-task adult mania of testing, the next greatest thing and the perfect lesson. Asking what else can we do with this or how else can we do this to keep things fresh and vibrant and engaging and imaginative. Advising people to refuse the Kool-Aid about what they can or can’t say, what material they can or can’t do, whether the conversation-stopping mandate comes from either the left or the right. 

 

In short, firmly but gently, seriously but with a smile, reminding people about the things that keep getting left out of the conversations about teaching and education. I feel the room response as a combination of vigorous head-nodding, thought-provoking rumination, relief that someone is speaking hidden feelings or mild shell shock that I dare to say what I do. But the fact that we’ve all had the most marvelous time making great music and creating great movement, with me encouraging and affirming and celebrating them each step of the way makes it easier to hear and consider. 

 

My work is a strong cup of Pu-er tea that I know is not to everyone’s taste, especially when they think they came for Diet Coke. But like that gourmet Chinese tea, these ideas, insights and convictions were hand-picked and sun-dried, fermented and oxidized over a long time to give both exquisite flavor and tonic health benefits. As always, grateful for the opportunity to serve the drink. 

Now for an early bedtime and a 5:30 awakening to return home.