During my time with UHCM, I encountered a number of classroom teachers who attended music classes ostensibly to help with classroom management. Two in particular provided for interesting experiences, the most notable difference between the two being enthusiasm. One teacher had both experience as a musician and enthusiasm for the subject, while the other vocally resented the need to take time out of maths and english to take her  students to music. One of the most useful things I gained from my time with Nicky was the techniques she used to get the best from each teacher and provide the students with a positive environment with a teacher they’re familiar with. Music teachers going into schools fresh from uni are going to encounter lots of different attitudes and navigating them is a difficult and vital aspect of being a music teacher in a school.

These are some of my notes and ideas for how to get the most from any teacher I might find myself working with.

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• Outside scheduled music classes

  • Share resources with teachers they might not otherwise have access to.

  • Encourage teachers to add practice time on the ukeleles to options for a reward for completing work. This gives students more consistency and opportunities to engage in music outside scheduled music classes.

  • If there’s an event coming up like the eisteddfod, they can take a few minutes out of their class time to practice songs for that performance.

  • If the teacher isn’t confident in running rehearsals and is willing, the music teacher can send them an outline of things to go through. Make sure this is easy to understand and doesn’t rely on them being able to read a score. Often students know the songs well enough they can self-correct if they need to, or wait for the music teacher. The main purpose of these rehearsals is to make sure the students remember content from week to week. Any general teacher can at least check lyrics, which can save the music teacher time later.

 

• Unenthusiastic teachers unwilling to allocate class time to music

  • It’s unrealistic to expect these teachers to allocate additional class time to music at first. The music teacher must attempt to engage them during specialist lessons if they are present.

  • In one case, Nikki asked her to help kids who were struggling to remember the chords. Protests of, "but I don’t know anything about music" were met with reassurance that they were written on the board and she need only read them out as reminders.

  • This teacher once attempted to use Maths as a punishment for not being engaged in music- some children immediately chose to do Maths instead because it was less challenging for those students. This was solved by a word in private after the lesson.  

  • Make sure these teachers are aware of your own desires for your classroom, but don’t feel hostility from you. Make them feel valuable and included by getting them to help with behaviour management. Make sure you communicate how music classes might be different from general classes. How much noise are they allowed to be making? Talking? Movement?

  • Ask them about their disciplinary practices so you can be consistent with the students. This also helps the general teacher feel they are being included and have something to offer.

  • They can help students or groups who are struggling or need extra attention with simple things. Especially in early primary, most non-musical teachers should be able to keep up and may even enjoy the opportunity to learn about music.

 

• Collaboration in content

  • During my preparation for the PERF2622 presentation, I thought a lot about relationships between general teachers and music teachers. An area of potential in this regard is that of inter-disciplinary projects. While general teachers often combine things like art and science, and creative writing and history, music can often be left out because teachers feel they need to be proficient in music and be able to play an instrument well to incorporate music into class activities and assessments. There is also a tendency to overestimate the amount of skill required to do such things. For example, general teachers needn't be able to play a bach sonata in order to ask students to write a short melody to represent a character from a story they've written in English class. A simple activity like this can use knowledge students have gained in music class and draw on the expertise of the music teacher.

  • I don’t have enough experience as a teacher yet, but I’d be really interested in developing this further and seeing if there’s potential for growth in the way music teachers and general teachers collaborate on student learning experiences, which to me seems like the next step in building those relationships.

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