An Enticing Beginning

These days, the various groups I teach in Orff training invariably create a WhatsApp group to keep in touch during the course. But they tend to stay active for a few years more, as folks keep sharing their successes and challenges. At the start of the new school year, here are two that came from my Level III class of 2025:

“Today’s PD was one of the most painful and useless that I’ve ever experienced. I’ve been re-reading Teach Like It’s Music and realizing just how much this applies to all classes. I wish all teachers could experience learning in this way!”

“Ours yesterday was also painful. An overview of the CA State Standards for all VAPA for TK-12. So boring! Where’s the joy? Where’s the excitement about getting back in the classroom with the kids!”

The premise of my Teach Like Its Music is to consider creating lessons like a musical composition. Invite students in with an enticing beginning, keep them engaged with a connected middle and lead them toward a satisfying ending, all of which, like music, give a feeling of refreshment and uplift. As with each class, so with the whole school year. How a school begins the year, including those teacher meetings on the first days back, makes a difference. As the two teachers above note, their re-gathering with their educational community was far from enticing. Like starting a composition with the instruments out of tune and hitting the wrong notes. How I wish I could help lead those opening teacher PD’s. As noted above, I would draw from my Teach Like Its Music  book to show what it means to step up to the sacred charge of educating children. With particular attention to the chapter Blend In, Stand Out: Class Agreements. An excerpt below: 

Everywhere I travel, I see posters on school walls reminding children to: 

• TAKE CARE OF MATERIALS 
• RESPECT THE TEACHER AND EACH OTHER 
• WORK QUIETLY 
• TRY YOUR BEST 
• BE SAFE 
• WORK TO SUCCEED 

 Lovely thoughts all. But are they working? Are our high school graduates uniformly respectful? Do they put their best foot forward in each and every endeavor? One would hope so. One would be wrong. 

Would that spoken words were enough to instill character. They’re a good start, but without a living culture to support and sustain them, they don’t sink into the marrow. “Do as I say, not as I do” was the motto the adults in my childhood preferred and it made no sense whatsoever. 

 Yet words are important. They can name our intention and start us moving to the things that matter. If we are to post the school’s core values on the walls, might we capture the children’s attention with a more intriguing list? Something like: 

      

• USE LOUD VOICES/ RUN INDOORS 
• TAKE RISKS/ BE SAFE
• BE SERIOUS/ HAVE FUN 
• LIE, CHEAT AND STEAL 
• DON’T WORRY/ BE HAPPY 
• BLEND IN /STAND OUT

 

Now the kids might be thinking, “Is the teacher really telling us we can lie, cheat and steal? Use loud voices and run indoors? And how can we stand out and blend in at the same time? Take risks and be safe? Be serious and have fun? Does he really care more us having fun than learning all the right answers for the test?” Now you have their attention. 

 

As all teachers know, a classroom is a miniature culture held together by rules and agreements as to proper conduct. It’s necessary to say them out loud and be clear about how they work. Yet as all teachers also know, simply posting them and agreeing to them doesn’t automatically bring them to life. Here I suggest treating them artistically, showing how the good and bad, proper and improper, can be held in an artful way. Society chooses this over that, but art shifts the question to “When this and when that and why and how and how much of each?” When approached artfully, the tone shifts and kids see good behavior as an artistic discipline and naughty behavior as something that can be expressed artistically.”

 

Intrigued? The children certainly are. Then you proceed to engage them in the activities that bring these all to life. Or better yet, start with the activities and then discuss these ideas that lie behind them. 

 

The first homework for my Level III Orff students due before they begin is to reflect on how Levels I and II changed their teaching. Then name the challenges that they hope the Level III training might address. No surprise that “class management” is high on the list. Especially in these days, when following the example of high government officials, simple courtesy, kindness, focus and effort to grow their intelligence has taken a severe downturn in today’s students. Yet all is not lost. Children are resilient and if you give them what they both need and deserve, my experience is that they step into their better selves. 

 

But the first step as a teacher is to refuse the term “class management,” which treats the students like corporate workers who need to be “managed” or worse yet, dogs who need to be trained to sit, heel, come, roll over, beg. I prefer to think of the teacher as a conductor releasing and shaping the flow of the beautiful music that each child is and group of children can be. (Hence, “teach like it’s music.”) When you re-frame management to guiding group energy, everything changes. Behavior is less of an issue when kids are wholly engaged doing worthy things that fit their way of doing and thinking. 

 

And when things go off the rails—they always will, of course— the musical metaphors can help. Talking about how things feel out of tune or not in the rhythmic groove or filled with discordant notes gives a different tone than “You are bad!” All of the above can be improved—re-tune the instrument (yourself), find the groove, avoid that dissonant note. 

 

Each of the list below deserves elaboration and I do so in the book. If you invite me to do a teacher PD, I would lead the activities that bring them to life. But meanwhile, here’s a short summary of each that are included at the end of the chapter.

 

USE LOUD VOICES/ RUN INDOORS: Project your lines in the play, but also whisper to draw the listener in. Run with vigor, then freeze on a dime. 

 

TAKE RISKS/ BE SAFE: Go beyond where you think you can, make it safe for others to do the same.

 

BE SERIOUS/ HAVE FUN: Have fun by doing things well, accomplished by your serious effort and enthusiastic enjoyment.

 

LIE, CHEAT AND STEAL: Lie like a good storyteller, cheat by leaning on your neighbor, steal like an artist. 

 

DON’T WORRY/ BE HAPPY: Relax about making mistakes, keep happiness—yours and the group’s—at the forefront. 

 

BLEND IN/ STAND OUT: Offer your small voice to the large voice to be a part of the greater music, offer your solo voice in the way only you can. Know when it’s time to blend in and when to stand out. 

 

 Welcome back to school!