Amy: Welcome to Amy and Jenny Sitting in Chairs! Today we are talking about the creative process and the Other 23. We are both currently teaching music classes, and neither of us are music teachers.
Jenny: So how do we as artists and teachers of other mediums teach a medium that we're not necessarily experienced in?
Amy: I think it proves the point that we have discussed in the past that the Arts are accessible to teach at a really elemental level, at a principle level the so that anybody can teach the elementary principles of the Arts while still connecting it to a larger focus, a larger goal. Really, I think it's that we're coming at you today with the idea that if we can do it, you can do it, and we are so far from being music teachers. Visual Arts and dance are in our wheelhouse while music feels like a significantly more technical medium.
Jenny: It feels like in order for someone to do creative work in music they have to have a foundation of musical principles, which is my challenge: teaching the creative process in music with students who don't have any previous knowledge of this necessarily.
Amy: I’m working with 4th graders right now who bring into class some little tidbits of what they learned from school. My classes are happening in an after-school setting and so that they can bring to it little ideas from school, and yet it is helpful in this particular situation to be teaching students that don't really know more than I do. We’re also learning together and it's kind of fun when they share with me things like this music note is called a “grape” or this music note is an “orange” because that's how they're learning it in school. It’s a nice way for me to be learning with them by connecting it to other knowledge, which is how the best learning should happen. Because our brain works through associations and learns through associations. So how to work through the creative process in a medium that isn't your forte, Jenny you had some great thoughts on that.
Jenny: Process for teaching the process: Right now I am also teaching kids that don't necessarily know much more than I do. In an academic setting, this is how it works sometimes, and it doesn’t have to be intimidating. That’s what learning is - experimenting and trying things and seeing what works and what doesn’t.
Amy: I also think there's something to be said for every time you approach the same material, it’s being approached from a new direction, through a new lens which helps to create more concrete pathways to that knowledge in your head. There isn’t anything wrong, you aren't hurting anybody by sharing some material that they already know. Instead you're creating a more comfortable pathway to retrieve that information.
Jenny: Right now I’m teaching a creative process class in music and movement. I’m using a lot of movement to teach these basic musical principles. I started with the basic principles of music - tempo, rhythm, beats, dynamics, etc. and using movement to help students process in multiple different ways. I've had them break into groups and create movement that involves each principle, or I’ve had them do a little research on each of these principles on their own and come back and present on one of the principles. So they’re gaining a basic foundation for this information before I have them start creating an actual piece of music and dance. Coinciding with that we also have a poem that we've been looking at as our base of inspiration. The students have been reading this poem and thinking about this poem, and we've been discussing the poem and picking out aspects of it that they found really interesting, to build a bigger project from there. The poem is about New York City, and the students have decided to take a section of NYC or a part of New York’s culture and do research on it. From there I’ll have them think about what’s interesting about their piece of NYC and what’s important about it. I'm using a process to help broaden their knowledge about an important piece of American history, but also of history that's coming from other places because there's so much culture in New York. This is helping to open them up to seeing that there's a world outside of their own little world. They've been finding different styles of music to listen to, they've been looking at different dance styles and music. The next step will be to have them start designing their own music, taking those styles of music and dance to inspire what their final project will look like.
Amy: I think this is a great description of how to infuse a music class with other academic goals. The students are researching, they're talking about poetry and history so that you are able to incorporate those other academic subjects. But then you are also infusing it with movement so you're going back to the place that’s really comfortable for you. This is really important because coming from a place of comfort for you creates an environment of safety and comfort for your students. Even if you are exploring a subject that is unknown to you, by doing it through a known lens is how you're going to build trust with your students. I think that is a really critical element of it. But the other side of that is that by infusing the musical elements and principles with movement, you are putting it into their body which adds factors that are promotive and help the students to learn faster. The movements probably end up being very repetitious, which translates into a really great regulatory function. Your process is not overwhelming to you, and it may seem really big and that there are a lot of moving parts but there are so many great things tied into what you are doing.
Where within that do you find that you, whether unintentionally or intentionally, are able to call on those protective factors of the arts?
Jenny: I think the biggest challenge on day one with my students was that they felt like, “I’m not a musician,” “I don't know how to do this,” or “I’m not good at this.”
First, your students need to know that they can do this. That it's maybe not going to be perfect and that’s okay too. To be able to establish this atmosphere of “just give it a try and see what happens.” Because maybe it'll be really great or maybe you'll discover that you like doing this or something like that. That has really opened them up, I think that kind of help to ease their minds about feeling like about the fear of doing it wrong and feeling like they can't do it. Just automatically dismissing themselves as artists and creators. So that was probably the first thing that I needed to really kind of overcome and help them overcome. We’re just experimenting here, there’s no right or wrong. So that seems to have really started to open them up to just trying. I've seen them really put themselves out there. Some of them have tried singing and done recording. I was really really proud of them for putting themselves out there.
So next I believe that feedback is really, really important. So teaching them how to give feedback to each other and to themselves in a way that is productive and kind is my next big challenge. I want them to feel like they've done something successfully and I also want them to be able to hear, not criticism, but what is the word?
Amy: Well just to be open to the feedback. I don't know if I know what word you’re looking for necessarily, but I think it's a skill in and of itself to be able to separate yourself from what you've done enough to not take criticism personally, but to see it as an opportunity to grow. And also to know that just because somebody thinks one way about your work does not mean that you need to think that way about your work.
Jenny: Exactly, exactly. And then also be able to give critiques as well and in a way that doesn't personally attack somebody but is kind. And so that takes alot of trust. So building trust through that process is what I'm working on right now. And then also working together in groups; having them work with people that they don't necessarily, who aren't their best friends. This is a bunch of 6th graders and so they have their friends and they don't want to be friends with anybody else. So kind of breaking them up and getting them out of their comfort zones. I assigned them their different groups because I find that if you just say, “okay, pick your groups,” that’s not going to work, that’s not going to be productive.
Amy: Exactly and someone’s always going to be left out.
Jenny: And that's not safe. I've been that person and it doesn't feel safe and it makes me feel very uncomfortable. I hope to establish a feeling of safety while also challenging them to get out of their safety zone and figure out how to problem solve and work with people who they don't know as well. Generally I found that those groups come up with a more interesting product and have more fun. I don't know, it's really fun. And now, I’m reinspired because I know what I’m doing!
Amy: Right, and I think it’s so great what you’re doing. When you're in the thick of it is really about managing the classroom and managing expectation. When you can step back and reflect on it, which we don’t always have time to do, it can be like, “oh yeah! I can do that!”
So the class that I’m doing right now, is when we're using the arts as a vehicle to build our social and emotional skills. So with our fourth graders right now, this session is all about elements of personal agency. So there's something really wonderful that happens in the creative process that helps you develop that personal agency. So right now our focus is really on choice making because choice making can be such a paralyzing thing. So its been really neat to couple something even as simple as learning note values and understanding in 4/4 time that there's four beats in a measure. And there are the end of various notes and how do you put them together? It's been a challenging activity to work with fractions; so there’s this crazy academic piece to it of how do you, how many eighth notes notes can you put together with a half note?
But then talking about choices and a project that we worked on this week was sort of a twist on - you know in school where you got your sheet of paper and the top half was blank and the bottom half had lines for writing your story? So we did something very similar where the top half was room for them to draw a picture of something that had happened in that day and the bottom half was lined music staff. So it was creating a rhythmic story of the other day and then having choice of just rhythm, not different notes or different tones just focusing on something as simple as rhythm.
But they were so excited. And we worked really closely with, “does this really equal four beats, can I put these together, where does this stop?” But taking ownership of making those choices. And it helps to have them very concrete, “these are the four different note values to choose from but then you can use those in any combination that you want to create your four beats.” But so nobody’s song were the same. There were unlimited choices and nobody’s song came out the same. And I think that they were so much more excited to play them. We took some time at the end of class to invite anybody who wanted to perform to go and perform.
And they were also given the choice between three instruments. They could use a bookwhacker, a frame drum, or they could use a keyboard. But on on the keyboard,they were only allowed to play one note. They picked on note and tapped the rhythm out on that one note.
I think it made a really big difference if I had gone up and said, “here’s a sheet of music, do your best to figure out the rhythm and play it,” I don't know how many students I would have actually had feel confident and excited to share what they had done. But every single one of my students, even my shyest students that never volunteer, were like, “I’m gonna go, I gonna go on the stage,” and they didn’t think twice about it. And they all did fantastically. And because they all wrote their own song, I don’t think anyone messed up, but I don’t think they did. They all just went up there and played with confidence.
But we followed it up with this really great conversation about which, you know, where did they have choice. Really recognizing and being able to articulate choices because I think that's a skill. When you come up to a challenge in life sometimes we forget that we do have a choice. So we made sure to take time to identify what were our choices? Our choices here were which music notes to put together and in what combination and on what musical instrument to play it on. What choices were more challenging and which were easy choices. And what happens when our preferred choice wasn't available to us? There are only 3 keyboards and 10 students. So what happens when you don't get to play the keyboard? Do you choose to not participate in class or do you choose to say okay well I'm going to ahead and do this anyway?
Jenny: So can I ask you a question? So I encounter a lot of students who, if I allow them to make choices - which is what the creative process is all about - they really struggle because they are just used to people telling them what to do. So like, how do you set them up for success or to feel comfortable with taking charge of their own agency?
Amy: So like everything, I think it has to be a scaffolded effect. So to go from everybody telling you what to do to “here are unlimited possibilities,” that's where it becomes paralyzing. So I always start anytime I give my students choice, recognizing what are the choices I want them to choose from, right, and so I limit, I provide very clear choice...I should say we start by, because by the end of whatever working towards, then the choices are less spelled out for them.
Jenny: Because they have the tools.
Amy: Because they have the tools, but if you give them but it's something so small to choose from then you are setting them up to successfully make a choice. And that was what we did in this instance: they had a whole note, they have a half note, quarter note and an eighth note and the goal was to put that in a combination to come up with 4 beats for 12 different measures. But I think in that you’re setting a very clear boundary and setting boundaries is also such an important part of the work that we do, right? But then again, coming back and making sure the students recognize the choices that are available to them. I think that's just as important. You give them those choices and do they see clearly what their choices are. And the more that you practice that skill of being able to recognize the choices that are available to you. Because if you don't know what is available, how do you make a choice?
Amy: So I don't know how much do we really talked or we really helps to prove a point that with limited experience teaching, you still can come up with a creative way. But we can revisit that in another conversation. But I also think what we're sharing is, “look at what we were able to accomplish!” I’m teaching about choice, you’re teaching this amazing lesson where they are learning history, they’re learning movement, there’s so much embedded in that. Wow! We don't know what we're doing and yet we're really facilitating our students’ creation of some really great things.
Jenny: And they are learning some things along the way.
Amy: And we are learning some things along the way. In bite-size pieces that are easy for us to do.
Jenny: Ahh! I feel like there is so much and we could talk about this for days!