Today we learned about the importance of music and had our first dance session.
In the lecture we spoke about ‘why music matters’. The class was shown a video of why music can improve a child’s ability within the curriculum. According to the video clip shown, music is more important to the child’s education than first thought. I was interested to find that college-age musicians are emotionally healthier than non- musicians. To me, this proves that music plays a very important role and shows it can make our lives healthier and happier. As an aspiring teacher, my thought is that musical experiences should be given to children in the classroom, school and community. In my opinion, it is unacceptable for a teacher to refuse to teach music in their classroom in the 21st century. There is significant proof that music has many advantages for children’s cognitive development, therefore every educator should consider the role of music in the classroom.
I was very excited to find out what the dance workshop entailed. I have danced in previous years and find it relaxing and fun. We did a variety of starters to ease us into the lesson which I thought was beneficial. It was obvious that some people were nervous and the starters relaxed them. One example starter we participated in was to get into one large line and move around the room in any way we pleased. The front of the line lead the group and created a dance move that the music playing made them feel. For example, when a rock song came on, a person may play the guitar. This starter was enjoyable and very beneficial in making everyone feel comfortable in the workshop.
In dance we worked on a variety of different exercises in teams. For example, I worked in a group with 6 others to create a body template and label where bones, muscles and organs should be placed on the body. Overall, my group struggled with bone placement but did fairly well.
At the beginning I was confused how this exercise linked to dance, but we then went on to speak about how it important to stretch muscles before a dance session. I found out that it was important to stretch from head to toes as this gave the most effective stretch. We focused on each body part solely and stretched for 8-10 seconds on each one. This is a fantastic lesson that can be taught to the younger ages in primary schools and then children can create their own stretches in later years.
The last exercise we completed in dance was creating a movement for each element in dance: spin, hop, slide, gesture, balance, jump, roll, reach, twist and turn. This was very helpful because these 10 elements can be taught within schools for children to create and understand dance.
The music workshop consisted of theory rather than practical. Firstly, we looked at an article by Susan Hallam to understand the importance of music and how to link music with other curricular areas. We split into small groups and focused on a particular part of my reading, my group’s extract being ‘creativity’.
In Scotland today, ‘creativity’ has a high profile in education and is a big part of Scottish Government policy and Scotland’s education values, as stated by Education Scotland (2013). For instance, Bloom’s taxonomy (2009) is a hierarchical model that is used within schools throughout Scotland to develop higher order thinking skills. Bloom’s taxonomy places creativity at the top of the hierarchical model which shows that it is therefore important within Scottish schools’ curriculum. It was interesting to find out those who play a musical instrument are generally more creative than those who are non-instrument players or participated in visual arts. It was also interesting to find out that the more interaction a child has with music, the more creative they will be.
Reflecting on the idea of creativity, my group was then asked to create a music lesson plan that used a lot of creativity. My group came up with the idea of linking the weather and music together by creating musical instruments and comparing them to weather sounds. This was helpful because it allowed me to put the workshop into a teaching mindset and create future lesson plans.
Today has increased my knowledge of dance immensely and has made me more confident in my teaching abilities and has given me an abundance of ideas to teach to future pupils. Music has also allowed me to think in a teaching mindset and create lesson plans which prepares me for the future. This lesson has also allowed me to link dance and music together in that music is incredibly important for both. For music and dance to be successful, teachers should reflect on their practice and creativeness in order for the child to have a rich experience in these subjects.
References:
[Accessed: 17 October 2017]
Churches, A. (2009) Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy. [Online] Available: http://moodle.uws.ac.uk/…/3/Blooms-digital-taxonomy.pdf [Accessed: 17 October 2017].
Hallam, S. (2010) The power of music: Its impact on the intellectual, social and personal development of children and young people. International Journal of Music Education, Vol 28(3), pp.269-289.
