My Students Won’t Sing
What are some ways to think about a situation where students don’t sing?
This is a big topic, because there are lots of different reasons that students might not sing, and non-participation can take a lot of different forms! Let’s think about some ways to frame the problem, and some questions to ask as we move toward a solution.
In This Episode…
00:00 - My students won’t sing
02:25 - Umbrella Understandings
03:21 - We can’t see motivation
05:22 - We like our students, and our students like us
05:40 - We have consistent routines and procedures
07:02 - We have good relationships with our colleagues
08:23 - This is normal, and we can probably relate
14:33 - What does musicing look like and sound like?
20:09 - Whose music is this?
23:54 - Have we constructed the right task?
25:39 - Activities for scaffolding up
34:54 - Activities for scaffolding down
39: 06 - What’s our experience with managing discomfort?
My Students Won’t Sing
This is a big topic, because there are lots of different reasons that students might not sing, and non-participation can take a lot of different forms. So the setting is going to impact how we feel ….
Probably the situation will feel different to us based on if we’re working with kindergarteners or 5th graders… If we’re working with students who also have a lot of other social and behavioral challenges, as opposed to students who are kind of just checking out quietly…. If it's one student or the whole class… If we’re preparing for a concert or teaching a regular class.
There are going to be so many variables in how we interpret the situation, and how we define the issue.
There’s no way for this one episode to speak to every variable of this situation. So let’s move from the general to the specific. We’ll establish some umbrella understandings, we’ll look at how normal this is - perhaps even normal for us, we’ll jump into some elemental questions, then we’ll look at some specific activities.
Umbrella Understandings
Let’s assume these things are in place before we move forward with singing activities
We can’t see motivation. We can only see behavior
We don’t have a way to know why students aren’t singing.
We like our students, and our students like us
All of the things we talk about today are predicated on this assumption of mutual respect and care.
We have consistent classroom routines
Particularly for how we open class
Let’s assume the class operates smoothly from a routines perspective, and students know how to practice routines
We have good relationships with our colleagues
I know we feel like we’re teaching on an island sometimes, but we’re actually one piece of a whole ecosystem.
For the purposes of this conversation, let’s assume that the ecosystem is healthy, and we can reach out to our colleagues for support
This is Normal
Talk to a grade-level teacher and they’ll say things like, “I have a few students who will write me three pages without me checking in. But I have a handful in the class where it’s like pulling teeth to get them to write anything at all.” The same is going to be true of teaching PE, reading, or math.
We’ve all sat through staff meetings or professional development trainings and been less than enthusiastic with our participation
Elemental Questions
What Does Musicing Look Like and Sound Like?
There are many ways musicians participate in music.
In the Schulwerk, we use the media of singing, but also speaking, moving, and playing instruments.
In the Kodaly concept, we absolutely stand on singing as the primary instrument. But we don’t just sing. Singing is a pathway. Because another critical piece of Kodaly pedagogy is developing active musical skills beyond singing like reading, writing, aurally identifying, improvising, and arranging.
So let’s imagine a mind map of all the different ways we can teach music, as far as musical skills.
So in the middle of the map, let’s put the phrase ways to music. Then as the offshoots of that middle bubble, let’s put singing, speaking, playing instruments, playing body percussion, moving, reading notation, writing notation, improvising, arranging, composing, listening, and aurally identifying. Now out of that list of 12, if we take out singing, we still have 11 to actively music.
Christopher Small coined this term, “musicing” and you’ve probably heard it before. But it means participation with anything that is connected to the music. Singing a song in your head is musicing. Playing an instrument in a garage band is musicing. Playing the hand clapping game down by the banks on the playground is musicing. Choosing when you’re going to make your lego guy dance in lego fortnight is musicing. Bobbing your head to Taylor Swift is musicing.
Musicianship is big. There are so many ways to music.
What Are They Singing?
Whose music is this?
When we think about children’s musical culture, we’re certainly going to be thinking about singing games, like playground games, and other uses of music in children’s lives - lullabies, silly songs, etc. These are a type of children’s musical culture. And for so many reasons that hopefully we can get into another time, I think it’s absolutely critical that we continue using singing games, where social skills are an embedded part of the interaction, and where students are producing the music themselves. Again, this is for another time.
Because like the rest of us, children are members of multiple musical cultures at once.
So when we look at what they are singing, or rather, because we’re talking about kids who don’t sing, when we look at what they are not singing, whose music is it?
How much pop music are we using?
And how much input do students have in the musical selection?
Is it possible that they’re not singing because it isn’t their music?
Have we Constructed the Right Task?
Where is the intersection between challenge and support and interest and skill level?
Activities to Scaffold Up
Singing, plus body percussion
Singing, plus a steady beat
Singing, plus a game
Singing, plus an instrument
Singing, plus another part
Activiteis to Scaffold Down
Choose which line you’ll sing
Use speaking voices, not singing voices
Sing for them (give it time)
Thank you for listening!
