For some background information, I have to tell you that we don't have a music program at our school. We have band for students who are interested, and we have a choir. We are a small school, with a small staff, and we haven't had a music teacher that has taken on choir and music. I tell you this just so that you are aware of where we were starting from. Our students, largely, do not feel like they are musical. The few students who have had music training were in hiding, and it was fairly difficult to get them to take a risk and stand out in front of their peers. This certainly doesn't seem to be the case anymore as we've had a piano in our room for over a month and it now seems like everyone is a composer!
We knew that we wanted to write songs about the environment and consumption. My grade seven class would take on the role of ecologists/tree-huggers in our play, and the grade eights, who were ecology experts last year, would take on the role of developers and consumers. What I had hoped for was that I could front-end load the ecology information as quick as possible so that my students would have the necessary background to be able to write songs pertaining to the environment. Six of my current students were in my 6/7 class last year, and this information was not new to them. I believed that they would be able to lead the way. To say this was a challenge would be an understatement.
Here's the thing, song writing is risky business. You have to be willing to put your ideas out there. That's not easy. I have also come to see that creating comes from your heart, and learning about different ecosystems from a text book and a few videos does not really foster the kind of love for nature that is needed to write a song about it. I could spend the entire blog telling you all about the mistakes I made, but instead, I will briefly touch on my mistakes as I tell you what I would do differently if I were able to go back in time or if I ever take on a project like this again.
1.) Get outside!
I would spend more time outside learning. We took on this project in January, in Saskatchewan, which might not be the best time to be learning about ecosystems. I should have done some outdoor educaiton in the fall. We could have gone to Eagle Creek, and taken nature walks down by the river. We also could have spent time writing poetry in nature. I could have given the students a format to follow and let them go sit under a tree to write a few poems. The poems could have been sensory in nature, describing the beauty of what they saw, felt, smelt, and heard.
2.) Using photos to create wonder and awe
I should have thought bigger. I should have given the children something to be inspired by: a photo, and small news piece, short videos, things that would have caused awe and wonder. I could have added this little piece to our daily morning Language Arts routine. Our planet is awesome and we should have been celebrating it every day. To be fair, I did show the students many fascinating and interesting articles and videos, but I only started the eco info when we began this project. The kind of deep learning that was required for the song writing needed to be taking place all year long in small doses.
3.) Build confidence through scaffolding
I could have given the students time to create a small music piece. (Not just once, but several times.) I should have put them in groups of 3-4 students and given them a the task of creating a small song. I could have started really small and built on their growing skills as time progressed. At first the tasks could have been simple, like create a poem about an animal following this three line format.:
The (noun),
(where it is)
(verb).
Ex:
The bird,
in the tree
sings!
After the poems were created, their next job would be to make a simple beat to speak the poem to. Students could have been given twenty minutes to create the poem and beat, and then been told they would share their creation. After each performance the creators could bow while the class cheers and claps. This would have been a way to scaffold the process so that by the time we worked with our artists, the students already saw themselves as creators of music. This would have also helped their confidence.
I am an introvert. I was the last kid that would have been creating music or volunteering for an acting or dancing part. In fact, this project would have likely scared the heck out of me. I would have wanted to create the props and background. All along I have been aware that what I'm asking kids to do is take a risk and that for some of them this makes them uncomfortable. I also know that this is where growth comes from: those moments when you take a risk not knowing if you will succeed or fail. If you succeed, the growth is in confidence. If you fail, the growth is in trying again in a different way. While I am telling you the things I would change, I realize that this could be taken as failure. I haven't failed, I have just learned that a different approach may have worked better.
We have talented artists, and thankfully, even though I may have failed to prepare my students adequately, we do have amazing songs and raps. The artists met several times with our students and would start by sharing what they had already created. Often they had already worked out the melody on the piano and the chorus and then asked the students to help them create the verses. This was often done in small groups instead of the whole class. A few of the songs were songs that the artists had already started, but this project gave them the inspiration or push to complete the songs.
Over the past several weeks we have been practicing and learning the songs. One song called In the Beginning was created by my class from start to finish under the direction of Elizabeth Bekolay. They created the melody on the spirit flutes and worked on spoken word poems to describe different animals of the forest. These lines are often beautifully told from the point of view of the animal they describe. After the song was finished, we asked for volunteers to create dances to go with each animal section of the song. Students were tasked with creating a dance that worked with the melody and beat of the song, but also symbolically represented that animal. The flute players were needed to play the songs for the dancers as the dancers collaborated and created their dances. During these sessions I saw some of the best student collaboration. I watched a student in my class, who often has trouble with collaboration, openly and willingly collaborating. She was open to other suggestions and actively giving positive support as well as sharing her own ideas. I wonder and hope that this positive collaboration will transfer over into other subjects. Collaboration is a learned skill, and I witnessed that learning taking place.
So we have 9 days to go before we perform our play for the entire school and wider community. I would love to say we are all done with the creation, but we are far from it. My class still has two dance pieces to create. We plan to push really hard over the next two days to create and memorize those dances so that when we get back after the spring break we can start running through the play every day. I know that it will come together and be quite amazing, but it's really hard to not be anxious at this late stage in the game.
I will share a few of our songs with you through the links below. We haven't created a recording of the students singing yet, but these are the early versions of the songs sung by our artists, Elizabeth Bekolay and Jordan Schultz. The last few are the flute pieces created by our students with Elizabeth.
Rap Battle
Impact Song
Spirit Flute: Butterfly
Spirit Flute: Owl
Here is the official invite for anyone who is interested in attending. We may open up a second showtime once we have had a chance to get some feedback from parents.
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