Music Programs on the Chopping Block

The last few posts I've been addressing how music can be used in schools as memory devices and as content in the 4 subject areas. This post I'll show the benefits of musical training (especially for low SES students) in public schools and the issue of budget cuts that are threatening these programs.

• A article published in the Neurological Research journal showed math skills improve with exposure to music training. The article also discusses how UCLA found that high exposure to the arts among 8th to 10th graders resulted in a decreased dropout rate.
• The director of the Institute for Music and the Mind, argues that even a year or two of music training increases attention and memory abilities.
• Students with experience performing music scored on average 57 and 41 points higher on the SAT verbal and math sections respectively.

Some people look at the above research and argue that students who have access to musical training (instruments, private teachers, etc) are generally from higher socio-economic backgrounds. The fact is musical training costs money. Students who can afford music lessons also have resources to help them succeed at school. Thus their background (not the musical training) would account for the increase in academic achievement.

I argue this view is incorrect, and here is why.

Although it is obvious that high SES students have more access to musical training, all students can experience the benefits of musical training no matter their economic background. Many schools offer free music programs (symphony, band, choir, etc). For example, my cousin went to a school in Kansas where any student could have free access to instruments and instruction. Programs like these can have a huge impact on low SES students. Check out this study that tracked more than 25,000 students for more than 10 years. They found that among lower-income students without music involvement, only 15.5% achieved high math scores but among the low-income students with music involvement more than twice as many excelled at math. James Catterall, the lead author of the study, said, "It's not a matter of economic advantage. It's a matter of something happening with the arts for kids."

The unfortunate situation is that schools across the board are facing budget cuts, and typically the music programs are the first to go. It seems counter intuitive to me. If these music programs help low SES students achieve academically, have lower drop out rates, and lessen the gap between achievement among the economic levels, then low SES schools especially need these programs. Without them, students at these schools oftentimes have no other access to music instruction and thus no access to its benefits. It's not all doom and gloom though, organizations such as Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation,the Lang Lang Foundation, and others are working to put music back in public schools. I understand budget cuts are a complex issue, but I don't think music programs should be the first to go.

What are your opinions about the cutting of school music programs?

Harnessing the Power (Part III)

Last time I introduced 6 Teacher Tips for incorporating music in the classroom. Those tips focused on utilizing music as a memory/mnemonic tool. This post we're gonna change gears a little bit, and I'm going to give some detailed examples of using music as part of the actual content (not just as a way to remember other content).

History
There are seemingly endless possibilities for involving music from throughout history in lesson planning. For the sake of time, let's just look at a unit on the American Civil War.

• Pick some songs created/sung during the war to play for the class. Use songs written by a soldiers or a soldier's family member to cope with the effects of the war, to grieve, or to hold on to hope. Through music, students can learn individual stories/struggles of people involved; hopefully the Civil War can become more than a bunch of facts about battles. Check out this website for a plethora of mp3 downloads and info on Civil War songs.
• Have students answer a prompt addressing Robert E. Lee's quote, "I don't believe we can have an army without music." Ask students, "Why might have Lee thought this? Why do you think soldiers made music? Why do you listen to or perform music?" Help students see the ways that they might be similar to or different from the people of this period. Students might be surprised by the similarities and differences.
  
• Use song lyrics as documents for DBQs (Document Based Questions). Southerners during this period created many parodies of the well known song Yankee Doodle. Have your students compare and contrast the Northern and Southern versions. What do the songs show about differing opinions of the war?
  

English

• Play a song to introduce a novel. For a lesson on The Great Gatsby play the songs that you imagine might be played at one of Gatsby's parties. If the book has been made into a decent film, the soundtrack could be a useful resource to start your search.
• This article explains that many famous literary works (Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies, etc) have inspired songs by popular artists (Pink Floyd, Coldplay, The Rolling Stones, etc). Use these songs for an introduction to a book, poem, or short story to form a connection between literature and songs students probably already know. It's all about the connections!
  

Math

• Pass out a piece of sheet music. Teach students about whole, half, and quarter notes and how fractions relate to composing music. For more info on connections between music and math check out this website.

I hope these examples will help you become more creative with your lesson planning. Music as part of content can really enhance the learning experience of your students!

Harnessing the Power (Part II)

In the last post, we compared and contrasted some different "educational" songs to discover what qualities make a song an effective memory tool.
Quick overview...cut the fluff, put the most important content in the chorus, and make it fun!!

Now maybe you're a teacher; you've read the last two posts and would agree with everything I've said. However, you still think "this music thing just isn't for me". We've all heard people say stuff like, "I'm just not the musical type" or "singing in front of a bunch of kids...not my cup of tea" or "I sound like a dying cat when I sing". Honestly for me, the idea of singing in front of a whole class room full of teenagers is a little daunting. Teaching the Best Practice Way explains how many teachers have what the authors call "art phobia", a fear of using the arts (which includes music as well as other visual arts) inside classrooms. So if you fall in this category of teachers, don't worry! You are not alone, and this post is for you. I'll give you 6 Teacher Tips on how to overcome this fear or use music despite your fear.

1. This tip is for all who consider it actual torture (for both you and your audience) to sing. If this is the case, I would suggest assigning group projects for your students to complete and present. I touched on this last post so reference "Harnessing the Power (Part I)" for more info.
2. You don't always have to "reinvent the wheel" so to speak. There are a many great songs (as well as not great songs...see video A on the last post) on the Internet. Use this resource to your advantage. Here is a website called Smart Songs for all you history teachers out there. Watch this Smart Song video on the Bill of Rights. They have songs that discuss in detail everything from the Stock Market to State Capitols to Benjamin Franklin's Way to Wealth and more. What I love about these high quality videos is they contain so much information and very minimal "fluff". You could easily play a song or video as your Anticipatory Set. This would be a great way to introduce a unit or new topic. However, keep in mind if you really want students to remember the lyrics (not just be familiar with the lyrics) repeating the song more than once is important.
3. Use someone else's voice. If you write song lyrics using your content, find someone else to sing the song in class or make a recording to play. If your school has a music department, a choral teacher could make an excellent resource.
   
4. Try rapping. Maybe you can't sing, but you can rap with the best of them. You never know til you try. To get your creative rap juices flowing here are some videos... Math Rap & Science Rap. These videos are both from a YouTube channel called Rhyme 'n Learn.
5. There are ways to make yourself sound better than you actually do. Watch this video. How cool is that? It's true...there is an app for everything. Use an app like the one mentioned in the video, and it will even compose music to complement your song.
6. Lastly, accept that you can't sing well and roll with it. It's our job to teach students. If you sound silly singing, but your students are learning...it might be worth it. Also, asking your students to sing along with you could help relieve nerves and overcome that fear. The more people singing the less they'll hear your voice. Make sure the melody is familiar.
   

Those are the 6 Teacher Tips of the week. I hope I've helped convince you that every teacher can use music in the classroom. And if that wasn't enough to convince you...what about money? You can actually get grants for using music in teaching. Check out the Music is Revolution grant information on this website.

Harnessing the Power (Part I)

Last time I discussed how music could be a powerful tool for a teacher. But what good is a tool if you don't know how to use it? Below are two ways that I think music can most effectively be used in a classroom.

1. Using music as a memory tool/mnemonic to learn other content.

2. Using music as part of the content.

#1 is a way to use music to teach pretty much any subject. Whereas, #2 is typically used more in history classes, but it could be creatively applied to other subjects as well. In this blog, I'll be discussing #1. (Don't worry, #2 will be clarified & discussed in a later blog.)

For this blog I want us to take a look at two videos. Both videos use a song to help teach the quadratic formula. As a math teacher, I would list this as one of the top 5 formulas everyone of my students should know. Um yeah...it's that important.

Ok, let's pretend you are a math student cramming for a big quiz on the quadratic formula. You know you're not ready (mainly because you've been surfing YouTube all day). So you decide to look for a way to easily remember the formula. In your search, you come across two videos...

Here's video A. Now that you've watched that video, what's the main thing that stuck out to you? I know for me all I could remember were the words "quadratic formula, quadratic formula, quadratic formula" but not the actual formula! Back to our imaginary scenario, I'm taking the quiz the next day and trying to hum this song, but all I can think about is snap bracelets, meeting a man on the street, my tombstone, and the words "quadratic formula". Super annoying huh? I mean really...what does any of that stuff have to do with math? These lyrics are what I call "fluff". They take up space in the song but don't assist in learning the main objective (in this case the quadratic formula). I'm not saying this song is terrible, but it seems ineffective to me.

Now watch video B. Make sure you watch the whole clip. How is this song different from video A? Which one would you rather learn to help you with the big quiz? I don't know about you, but I'd choose video B any day. I'm not saying it is perfect, but here are some of the reasons I found this video to be a better choice.

• This song is short & concise. A student can watch this song about 4 times during the time it'd take me to watch video A once.
  
• Most teens would recognize this melody immediately, unlike the first video.
• The song does not have those"fluff" lyrics I talked about earlier. Literally the entire song is the quadratic formula. If you remember the song, you remember the formula. Teacher Tip: If you're writing a song to help students, put the most important information in the chorus not the verses. The chorus is repeated more often so it is more likely to be remembered. Here is a video C that illustrates this point well.
  
• It seems the students created this song themselves (with a little help from Soulja Boy) and had fun doing it. Teacher Tip: The book DRiVE suggests that autonomy (or choice) is important in increasing student motivation. A good project idea would be to let students come up with a song to study for a test. The students get to choose which style of music, song choice, & whether or not to add dance moves, motions or other props. If they create it, they're likely to take more ownership of it. Leave room for their creativity.
  
• This is a collaborative group project (a key characteristic described in Teaching the Best Practice Way). Teacher Tip: If you do plan on assigning a project like this, keep in mind that not all students desire to sing/perform, especially alone. A group project could help offset that fear of performing alone. Also, make sure you have a safe environment. It is not about being an amazing singer or performer. It is about the lyrics and the song's ability to help students remember content. These students may not all be in tune or the best singers, but they know the content so that means success.
  

There is a lot we can learn from these videos as shown above. Here is a recap of Teacher Tips for using music in the classroom

• Cut the fluff
• The chorus should be the most important information (definition, formula, rule, etc)
• Make it fun!
  
• For student projects, leave room for student creativity and decision
• Group rather than individual projects

Hope this helps you teachers in future musical endeavors in the classroom!

The Power of Music

Why is it that when it comes to remembering every U.S. president or the elements of the periodic table I usually fall short, but when asked what the lyrics of any number of Disney song are, I could easily recall every word? Why is it that if you asked me to name all 50 states, it would probably take quite a few minutes and a pen & paper, but when one asks this young girl to name all 50 states she can recall them confidently in 34.5 seconds?

...Music

Music is a powerful thing. Just ponder for a minute how many songs lyrics you have hidden away somewhere in your mind. How many songs would you estimate you've memorized...50, 100, 500, maybe 1000? Sometimes while driving down the road listening to the radio, I will shock myself when I realize that I'm singing along to a song I haven't heard in years. It seems to me that music and memory can go hand in hand. I'm a hopeful teacher always looking for good ideas for the classroom...soooo...if music can help us remember lyrics that we'd almost rather forget (The Macarena, The Song that Never Ends, etc) then why couldn't it also help students learn content? (Oh, by the way, here is a link to an interesting article on songs getting "stuck in your head".)

I was taught by a teacher in 10th grade that had many of these same ideas. She was a short, fiery, redheaded English teacher. Each year she would assign a group project to help her students learn grammar rules. The project was to pick a commonly known theme song of a popular television show and change the lyrics to teach a grammar rule. We then had to present the song to the class and be judged. Every member of the winning group won a candy bar. My group was determined to win that candy, and we did. In fact to this day, I still remember (about 8 years later) our song on indirect objects and object complements. I've even included some of the lyrics for those interested in learning some grammar. Just imagine they are being sung to the tune of the Cheer's theme song...

"The indirect object tells to or for whom the actions being done
and when it's in a sentence you know it's the only one,
because there won't be an O.C.
'He painted me the house blue.' won't ever be true,
because the poor O.C. doesn't have a clue
so take out the O.C. or I.O.
...(now here comes the chorus)...
The O.C. wants to go
where the sentence wants it there
When there's an I.O. he can't be there,
because the object complement and indirect object

the two they never make a pair."

The activity was cooperative, social, interesting, creative, and obviously effective.

So that is where the idea for this M&M blog came about. I wanted to see what other teachers & researchers had to say about music in schools and classrooms. I wanted to know whether studies agreed with my theory that music could be a powerful tool for students. I wanted to learn how teachers could use this tool.

My research confirmed many of the things I was thinking. It showed me that I'm certainly not the only one to see a need for using music in the class. An article I read on Joan Munro, a reading specialist at Worcester Elementary School, explained how the use of music really made content come alive to students. "Music helps lift reading off the paper...[and is] almost an anchor to hold on to," says Munro. The author further explained, "the same way a song sticks in the memory long after facts have faded, the words connected to melodies stayed with the young readers." And music doesn't just help with reading comprehension. "[Munro's] research joins a growing body of work that in recent years has linked music to math scores, reasoning skills, brain development and intelligence." That is exactly what I want to delve into in this blog. In the next few weeks, I'll mainly be discussing...

1. The advantages & disadvantages of using music in the class room
2. The science behind this topic
3. Practical ways to incorporate music in a variety of different subjects

Music is powerful. So why not harness that power for the good of our students?