As an elementary music teacher in my twenty-third year of teaching, I have witnessed a huge growth in the use of media and technology in the music classroom. When comparing today’s technologies to those of years past (the tuning fork, ditto-mastered song sheets, scratchy vinyl records on mono turntables), it’s clear that we are living in an exciting time to teach music. For so many of us, the technologies seem to change faster than we can catch up with the learning curve of the previous technology. And it can be difficult to choose a technology worth the investment of time and resources without any guarantee that it will still be in vogue three years down the road. One recent development that has had a huge impact on my teaching is the ability to record each of my 600+ students using the MP3 format. The focus of this post is using MP3 recordings during classroom music time as an authentic assessment tool for each of your students. I will also cover a variety of great teaching resources for music and content-area classrooms. Throughout the month, your comments may direct us to additional media and technology tools that enhance teaching and learning in the elementary music classroom.

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When I asked the 7th graders to write about their goals for our summer program for at-risk English Learners, I expected something along the lines of “Get better at reading,” or “Learn more math.” Marco, who arrived in Houston from Cuba one day before the program began, wrote one line: “Yo quiero triunfar en este país” (“I want to triumph in this country”). It struck me then that English Learners’ first experience of a foreign language and a foreign culture is deeply shaped by their first experience of school. A teacher’s responsibility is weighty enough — I still think back on my first-year class of 4th graders and hope that they somehow made it in life despite my first-year fumbling. How much weightier it is for those of us who teach kindergartners from China, 8th graders from Mexico, and high-school students from Afghanistan.

We know that, on one hand, our students need the same thing from us that all kids need from their teacher — the new three R’s, rigor, relevance, and relationship, augmented by the fourth R that my friends who teach art and music remind me to include: richness. My 2nd graders, all born in either Mexico or the Marshall Islands, need a rigorous curriculum in math, science, and every other subject — even those kids who are still in the silent stage. They need a curriculum that’s relevant to their lives — and while a unit on “El Día de los Muertos” is great, sometimes a unit on Pokemon or Dragonball-Z is more relevant. They need that often-dismissed but essential relationship with a caring adult, who will respect them and listen to them. And they need richness — immersion in all the color and passion of literary and artistic works, some that reflect their culture and some that are as foreign to me as to them.

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I don’t know about you, but after watching this video a few times, I could almost agree with Ma and Pa’s conclusions. Where the Kettles and so many others falter in math is in viewing math as a set of facts, instead of as a way to make meaning of the world around them. Yes, there are certain mathematical facts that must be memorized, but if the facts have not been built on a foundation of trial, inquiry, and discovery, then math becomes no more than a routine set of calculations, where errors may go unrecognized. Rote memory cannot be transferred as a way of thinking that leads to active, purposeful problem solving.

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There were times when I was teaching first, second, and third grade reading that it felt as though I were teaching in a PreK-12 one-room schoolhouse. Some students were just beginning to sound out consonant - vowel - consonant words while others were halfway through their second Harry Potter book…and they all needed individual attention to assess and push their learning. There were times when I looked up at all of those raised hands and thought, “There has got to be a better way.”

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