Going through the last rotation of the school year, I like to try to do some really fun things, organized things of course, but things that aren’t going to be assessed either formatively or summatively.  Like today for instance with 4th grade as we watched a YouTube video of a class in Kentucky doing a parachute routine and then worked to do it ourselves.

Oh sure, we were still learning things.  Like moving on the beat, feeling phrases and tempos but most of all working on collaboration and teamwork.  The kids we saw in the video were able to pull off some really cool effects by working together, so that was the lesson today.  See what you can do by working together.

“Life should be like this every day!” exclaimed one student with a broad smile on her face.  This was big because while I believe she very quietly likes music, she tends to be pretty stoic about most things much of the time.  Yet here she was, with that big grin expressing how she felt about time in my class.  Music through teamwork can do that to a person.

These same kids were given their recorders to take home over the summer.  I purposefully gave them the recorders at the end of class, assuming they would line up and go out the door with them.  I should have known better.  The second they were in their hands, they were in their mouths making noises – I mean sounds.  Nope, put them away and I’ll see you guys as 5th graders next year.

Later that afternoon during after school duty, I’m walking along the sidewalk and you can tell the kids are feeling the end of the school year.  It’s a bright, beautiful, extremely warm spring afternoon and all of a sudden I’m hearing music.  I tend to hear music in my head constantly so this wasn’t THAT unusual, but it was more than that.  Little renditions of “hot cross buns” were floating with the warm breezes.  Sure enough, the minute the kids hit the outdoors, the recorders came out, one boy playing for his grandfather as they walked out to the car together.  Sorry parents, but I do tend to tell the kids to take them home and have fun making you crazy over the summer.  At least you don’t have to hear 20-25 of them all at once….

So yes, there are only four more teaching days left and we’re still making music.  I hope that’s not unusual.  After all, music is meant to be made for a lifetime.  The last four days certainly shouldn’t be without music.  Let’s go back to my student’s exclamation – “Life should be like this every day!”.  Would she say that about each day she learns and makes music in my classroom?  If not, should I be concerned?  Have I lost the reason why I’m teaching music in the first place? It’s certainly something to think about.  Music, while a difficult academic subject should also be a time of joyful music making.  When a teacher drops them off with me and says “have fun”, I hope they do, and at the same time develop a deeper understanding of this organic subject matter, that subject each of us is born with.  The ultimate goal for me is that with music, life will be better for my students every day.