This past Saturday morning, I was privileged to be able to go and participate in a workshop with Professor Bryan Powell, who is not only a Music Education Professor at Montclair State University, but is also one of the people who helps out with Little Kids Rock.
In this awesome workshop, I was able to learn many things that I will be using in my future career as a music educator.
1. Teach Kids how to play with simple words before getting into the theory of all of it!
When Bryan came in to talk to us about this, he used all of us as guinea pigs in a way. He taught us simple guitar chords with diagrams and talking about the sizes of the guitar strings, rather than the E string or the A string for example.
He taught us those simple chords, and then we played along with some popular music tracks that made all of us entertained. It felt like the time was going so fast. What I did not realize was that I learned four chords and several different songs in just under five minutes.
What did I learn from that? I learned that students are much more engaged when they're able to play the songs they enjoy, and then also not having to sit at a desk and work on theory sheets all day long. No one really wants to learn about the parts of a guitar for several lessons before they could actually play it! Having this way of learning keeps students engaged and also having fun because they're able to play things they enjoy without all of these restrictions holding them back.
As someone who in grade school was stuck learning about the keys on the piano and the materials that go into making one, I was so bored because I really wanted to play the piano without having to know all about the technical side of music.
Many students learn tactically, meaning that they need to be doing something so they can absorb everything properly. Many people (including myself) tend to lose track or not pay attention at all while someone is sitting and talking for hours and hours. I have to play an instrument in order for me to learn. As children have short attention spans anyways, how would they be able to listen to a teacher that just throws handouts at them and then talks about the parts of the saxophone all day? Nothing would be absorbed in their heads because the person is just talking on and on. Children need to learn by doing. They can learn the keys on a piano by playing it, they can learn notes on a trumpet by playing it. They don't need any sheets to help them.
Overall, I really enjoyed this workshop. It was great to be able to learn so much more about music education and the creative sides of it other than the technical, boring ways that many teachers teach now, I've learned so much from Bryan, and I'd love to learn more about this. It's a fantastic program.
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