Interesting journal article.

I came across a journal article which caught my eye as soon as I read the title, "Parents' goals, knowledge, practices, and needs regarding music education for their young children in South Korea'. The reason was probably because it contained the words 'music' and 'South Korea'. I was born in South Korea, never lived their but spent my whole primary school life with Korean parents and grandparents. However, when I started to read the article, I found the focus was not on 'Korea' but more on music itself, which is why I continued to read it. 

Youm (2013) states that music education is crucial for the development of children not only in the Creative Arts but within all areas. This is likely as music is a positive factor that enhances the emotional, social and cognitive development in children. However, primary school students are under the care of their parents and the music provided to these children is mostly not by choice, but by what is approved by their parents.

It is also stated that music can serve as an 'emotional bonding' activity in which the parent and the child grow a connection. I remember in primary school when I used to dread private piano lessons, but I still loved playing the piano at home. My favourite part of playing the piano would be when I would practice at home and grandfather would pop a chair next to me, watch me play and ask me to "teach" him. Although I was just learning the notes of the piano myself, at the age of five, I was teaching my grandfather all I learnt from these lessons. I think the only reason I continued to go for these lessons was so I could come home and 'teach'. This is where I grew a strong bond with my grandfather despite the fact that he was so strict and strong on discipline.

The article discusses that parents feel lost when teaching music to their children. I find that this is the way most M.Teach (Primary) pre-service teachers will feel if placed directly into a music classroom with a class of students all wanting to do something. The article continues by saying parents "seek direction wanting to do something good for their children but not knowing how" (Youm, 2013), I think this depicts my thoughts on teaching not only music but the whole Creative Arts stream. I love the Creative Arts, absolutely love music, drama, dance and visual arts. But before and during the unit of study 'EDMT5530 Creative Arts K-6', quite often I wondered, "Is it enough to love it?", "Does enjoying something mean I can teach it and teach it well?", "Will my students learn? If so, how? If not, why?". But then I think back to when i played the piano with my grandfather, I taught him what I knew and by doing this, I consolidated my knowledge and learnt even more than I knew. I think the underlying principles in teaching the creative arts can be quite similar. Although at the moment, I am still not 100% confident in going into a classroom and delivering an excellent lesson where all my students will be engaged and passionate about their learning, I have gained quite a steady knowledge of how to plan and where to look to be able to teach this KLA. This unit of study has really helped me learn about how to teach and why we need to teach the creative arts in primary school. I believe that with further practice, with further research and with further planning, I think I will be able to place myself in a position where I teach to learn and ultimately learn to teach the Creative Arts!


Youm, H.Y. (2013). Parents' goals, knowledge, practices, and needs regarding music education for their young children in South Korea. Journal of Research in Music Education, 61(3), 280-302.

Week 13, Music 2

Music Workshop (Wednesday)

Tillman (2001) states that the most important period for the development of musical abilities starts as early as kindergarten. In primary school, children should develop listening skills, to listen selectively, and enhance their attention to detail (Gooding & Standley, 2011). The workshop today focused on one of the most important factors when it comes to music - listening.

We listened to different pieces of music and discussed the five musical concepts. I thought that learning about the five musical concepts was very useful and important as although children will enjoy music nonetheless, if they understood the underlying concepts of music, it may trigger a spark of greater interest.

- Pitch: Notes being played.
- Duration: Rhythms, tempo, time signatures.
- Dynamics: How it is played, loud-soft. Creates the mood.
- Structure: Orchestra/solo. Placement of music, i.e. Verse and chorus in a song.
- Tone Colour: Which instruments plays the main melody, which are in the background. Types of sounds.

What we did was listen to a piece of music and analyse its features in terms of the five musical concepts. I thought that this was an excellent teaching activity to teach theory (Which can often be regarded as 'boring') in an interesting and engaging way. Asking children to memorise definitions does not help them develop a conceptual understanding. By asking them to listen and to discuss then to analyse and share gives them the opportunity to explore and further develop meaning in music.

Reference

• Gooding, L., & Standley, M. (2011). Musical development and learning characteristics of students: A compilation of key points from the research literature organised by age. Update: Applications of Research in Music Education, 30(1): 32-45.
• Tillman, K. (2001). Conference keynote musical development theories revisited. Music Education Research, 3: 227-242.

Week 13, Music.

Music Workshop (Monday)

Creating a 'soundscape' was the focus of the workshop today. When I head the word 'soundscape', I had no idea of what the word meant and I had no idea of what the workshop was to be about. Just as any teacher would, our teacher began to scaffold the lesson by asking us to write down thoughts that came to our minds whilst we listened to a piece of music. We were not given any other knowledge on the piece of music we had to listen to. I thought that this was a useful strategy as with children, although giving relevant information is important, providing them with too many details may reduce their creativity as they get worried to what is 'incorrect' and prefer to replicate the example or idea provided by the teacher. We were asked to create an image in our heads of what this music was expressing and telling us. Once we listened to the piece of music, we discussed with our peers about what we thought about it. I had written 'jungle' but we soon found out that the piece of music was called 'Rainforest'. 

In groups, we then got a piece of paper and began to draw our own soundscape plans. Our group selected the theme 'thunderstorms' and I drew our ideas on the page in a progressive form. 

Our story began with a person driving home on a cloudy and windy day. It starts to rain lightly and then more heavier as the person gets closer to home. The rain develops into a full thunderstorm and the person runs out to his house and slams the door. 

Once our soundscape, illustrated plan was complete, our group collected some percussion instruments and we started to play our instruments so that our story would be represented by our sounds. 

- Large drum: Moving fingers on the surface to represent driving car. Loud banding for thunder. 

- Shaker: Light rainfall

- Maracas: Heavy rainfall.

- Tambourine: Lightening 

- Two-tone block: Alternating sounds to represent running footsteps. 

- Claves: One loud sound to represent door slam. 

This type of lesson is great to develop collaboration and communication skills with children as they need to discuss, plan and create a soundscape as a group. I would love to use this workshop to base a future lesson on. Personally, I think this activity would work best over a couple of lessons with a higher age group (Stage 2 or 3). For the younger stages, I would adapt the activities a bit. Perhaps, Asking students to draw a comic strip that represents a piece of music they hear. 

We then, in the same groups as before, learnt to create a simple rap. It was to be four lines, not necessarily rhyming. This task made me remember my professional experience this semester, I was placed in a Stage 3 classroom and the children composed their own raps on the theme of saving energy. Children generally show interest in music even without having any experience listening or making it (Morehouse, 2013). Although they may not be confident at first, with an appropriate amount of scaffolding, I found that children would be engaged with a task like this. 

However, I had never thought about teaching students how to rap. I had never thought about teaching students to put emphasis on certain words and to keep with a beat. I had been ignorant to the basics of music in creating a rap. This lesson helped me learn that I need to take a couple steps back and really break down components of teaching and student understanding that I assume children may know. 

For our rap, we had a beat-boxer, two people rapping the four lines together, and the remaining helping to put emphasis on certain words. It was fun but quite embarrassing as our rap was not 'educational' at all. But, I can definitely see children enjoying a task as such and engaging in these types of activities. 

References

• Morehouse, P. (2013). The importance of music making in child development. YC Young Children. 68:4, 82-89.
• NSW DET. (2006). Creative Arts Syllabus. Sydney: Author. 

Percussion Instruments.

Percussion Instruments I couldn't name:

Rachet

Two-tone block

Hand Castanets

Claves

Guiro

• Percussion instruments produce sound by being struck. They help establish the rhythm of a musical piece along with melody and harmony.
• Percussion instruments can have a definite or tuned pitch (such as marimbas, chimes, triangles and xylophones) or indefinite or untuned pitch (such as drums, cymbals and castanets).
• In primary school students will compose music in 4/4 time, or tempo. 

http://www.schoolatoz.nsw.edu.au/homework-and-study/other-subjects-and-projects/the-arts/percussion-music

Week 11, Music.

Music Workshop

It is never too early to introduce music to children, and it is never too late to start (Reid, 2006).

This first music workshop reminded me of how much I really enjoyed music in primary school. I went to primary school in a country called Botswana in the Southern part of Africa. My primary school was very enthusiastic about music and I remember every week, I attended every single musical extra-curricular activity the school provided. Recorders, marimbas and choir. Then on my more 'flexible' afternoons I would have private piano, flute and violin lessons. Funny enough, I loved school activities but the private lessons I would dread. 

This got me thinking to the reason why I enjoyed school music but dislike private lessons. Now that I think about it, I believe that it was because at school I had more reasons to be engaged. I was given the opportunity to 'try things out' and always had friends who would giggle at silly mistakes but we would help each other when in need. Whereas the purpose of the private lessons were to complete the music grading examinations, nobody was there to have fun with and every mistake would be an extra round of practice for homework. This workshop gave me ideas on how to keep the class engaged so that my future students will enjoy music as much as I did. 

The main part of this workshop that I enjoyed the most was the part-by-part joint performance of Purcell Canon using various xylophones and met allophones. I think performance is about sharing and music itself is sharing as well. With a group, music needs to be played in synchronisation and this raises awareness of others and only if the proportions are equally played within the group, the sharing with another audience will go well (Reid, 2006).

Allocating small groups to a specific part of the whole song is a good strategy to ensure that all students try to perform as a whole group rather than trying to progress by themselves. This strategy ensures the children are listening to their own playing of instrument but as Reid (2006) states, their listening skills will be enhanced as they need to be aware of the rest of the class to make sure where to fit in a play their part. Working in small groups also allowed students who were more capable of playing to help those who were struggling. After the allocated parts had been practised, specific combinations of parts were to be practiced until the whole class could play their parts together and perform Purcell Canon.
With this idea, I am eager to try 'break down' pieces of music into parts to practice and perform together with my future class!

Reference

• Reid, S. (2006). Introducing music to young children. A Fine FACTA, 7(1): 39-40. 
• NSW DET. (2006). Creative Arts Syllabus K-6. Sydney: Author. 

Week 11, Dance.

Dance Workshop

This was our first dance workshop. My prior experience with dance at school? ZERO. I don't even remember doing any dance-like movements during primary school in our end of year productions. So I didn't have any negative or extremely positive feelings towards dance at all. 

During this weeks dance workshop, we did some warm-up activities: 

Roaming around the given space

Trying not to bump into each other, using the movement skill the teacher asked (i.e. skip, low movement). 

Follow the leader

Music was put on and to the beat we had to make our own movements in a line of five. Each movement had to be different and we had to swap when we were signalled to. 

These warm up activities are quick, fun and inclusive to all students. I found that with activities and games, it is important to give alternatives to 'elimination'. Elimination is an uncomfortable topic with children. They do not want to be eliminated which increases the likeliness of 'cheating' or 'competitiveness'. 

Following this, we were put in small groups to make a quick dance routine that integrated alphabet representation, high/low movements to music in a specific number of beat counts. I can see this type of activity working well in a primary classroom as small groups allows the 'shy students' to feel less intimidated and giving them specific dance movements to work on, gives them flexibility on what they want to do whilst developing their skills. 

During my professional experience at Homebush West Public School, I was lucky enough to be part of the school musical. Of course I didn't take a role in the musical itself, but as a prac-teacher for Stage 3, I observed many lessons in which the students made dance routines for the musical themselves. The children really enjoyed this time that was given to them. Nobody was disengaged and every single student wanted to participate. I think it was because they were given the freedom of choice to make their own dance moves, which gave them a sense of authority and responsibility.

Professional Experience 1

Homebush West Public School, 2013. 

Although it has already been four weeks since placements finished, I still feel that I should leave a note of memory in regards to my first professional experience. I was placed at Homebush West Public School in a Stage 3 classroom. 

First of all, when the time came to select schools and stages/years of preference for professional experience, I couldn't decide which school to select, so I did some 'research'. I looked up each of the schools on the list to read their website information, school newsletters and annual reports. As I have experience with ESL students, I was eager to go to a school with a high ESL population in which I could start to develop my own 'unique style' of pedagogy that was constantly emphasised in theory and especially to take my ESL teaching experience further. With this research done, I clicked on five different schools in which I was eager to start my placement at. Five different schools all in Early Stage 1/Stage 1 classrooms. Only to receive my 'Professional Experience Package" and email allocating me to a school, which first of all was not even on the list of schools given to us for selection but in a STAGE 3.... YEAR5/6 CLASSROOM. Despite the fact that I have been teaching mathematics and English to Stage 3 students for the past five years, I was devastated. I felt that a full class of "soon-to-be-high-schoolers" would be very intimidating and imagined them to be big and tall and disinterested... But, no. Not at all. They were not as big and scary as I had anticipated and I must say, I had an unforgettable professional experience and the most sad, last day of school. 

HWPS divide their classrooms by Stage and not by Year so when I was allocated to a Stage 3 classroom, the children were a mixed bunch of students from Year 5 and Year 6. During my pre-prac visit, I learnt that this school had a bit of a 'high school system' with their Stage 3s, in that they had a home class for a variety of subjects but for English and Mathematics, they split the students by Year and by Level. So, in the long-run I got to know and teach more than one class of students than most of my university peers on placement would have been teaching. I loved teaching the students in my classes, I loved learning from my cooperating teacher and being part of the "community and family" that HWPS emphasised with their students. The children were very responsive and incredibly engaged. They always wanted to participate and the "Who can tell me ....?" questions soon changed to "_____, can you tell me...." as whenever I spoked the word 'WHO', the whole class would throw their hands in the air wanting to contribute to the lesson. I was lucky to have a great supervising teacher, friendly staff and even more lucky that the children were so responsive and interested in everything I wanted to teach. There wasn't a single day I woke up wishing I didn't have to go to school even if the weather was way above thirty degrees or pouring rain. I learnt so much from this experience. Not only did I get  flexible chances to try out different lessons, I learnt about the in-and-out of school responsibilities of being a teacher. 

On the last day, my co-teachers started making bets on what time I would start crying... HAHA. I can't remember who won, but I started bawling my eyes out and it wasn't even 12pm. My students, although they were the 'cool' Stage 3s, the leaders of the school burst into tears at random times of the morning. How could I keep my tears in with these children sobbing away? Yes. It wasn't a pretty sight and my co-teachers and my supervising teacher mocked and laughed at me the whole day. I received so many touching letters, drawings and cards from the children and when I finally came home on that last day, I sat down to read all of them and felt very unsettled and was still quite emotional haha. I think I slept at least 20 hours straight that day and woke up feeling... tired. Those weeks of experience were amazing and even though it is 3 weeks back into uni now, I still think of the staff and children and still share the funny episodes that happened during prac with my friends.  

Something Special.

During my professional experience at Homebush West Public School, I came across a little stage 2 boy who had the cheekiest smile. Students who were 'in trouble' and had to see the principal and or associated teachers would sit in the corridors near the staffroom during lunch. On my first week, I didn't know this so I thought this little boy was looking for a teacher so I asked him who he was looking for and he said he's not looking for anybody, he was just in trouble... again. He grinned like it was nothing new so I told him to try and be good. During the four weeks at HWPS, when I walked towards the staffroom for lunch, I would see the student in that corridor at least once a week. I repeated myself every time, "Try to be good, okay?". So I've never actually had this student in my class, I didn't even know his name until the last week. But during my last week, his teacher told me he had something to give me, it was this picture. His teacher told me she was surprised that he kept to himself the whole lesson and concentrated in drawing the picture during art. I was surprised that this student, out of all the people he knew, just randomly decided to draw me a picture. It's amazing how just one smile, just one nod of appreciation and just one sentence of encouragement can brighten a child's day.

Something Special.

A while ago, I quit one of my part-time jobs working as an ESL teacher at a tuition centre. Whilst I was there, I did a intensive 2-hour session with two ESL girls, one had come to Australia about two years ago and the other a bit longer. They were in year 3 and they were always so excited to learn new things. When I told them I had to leave, they thought I was leaving to teach at another place but I told them it was because I had to study to become a better teacher. The girls wrote and brought me some farewell cards in the following, last lesson.

I was very proud when I got these cards, not because I got the cards but because of how much they wrote and how hard they tried to use the correct sentence structure we had been working on! Even more, we had been doing 'shape poetry' the previous lesson and one of the girls wrote me some shape poetry in the silhouette of... well... me. Despite the spelling errors, the improvement these girls made during the year I had them was immense. As a teacher, when you can see the improvement in your students, and when you see your students truly enjoying the process of learning something new, nothing is more precious than that.