You're listening to that music podcast with Bryson Tarbet, the curriculum designer and educational consultant behind that music teacher at the elementary music summit each week, Bryson and his guests will dive into the reality of being an elementary music teacher, and how music can truly be transformative in the lives of the students you serve. Show Notes and resources mentioned in this episode can be found at that music teacher.com.
Welcome back to that music podcast. I am so excited to have you here. And I'm so excited to be back for season five, it seems absolutely crazy that we are here in the fifth season of this podcast, and episode like 109. I think like, that's crazy. I absolutely love it. I love that we're able to have this conversation every week. And I'm really excited to talk today about something that is really kind of, really, I think it's really important, it's one of the most important things that I think you can do as a music teacher to set yourself up for success. And that is realizing where your class is often going to go off the rails and how to fix it. So today, I'm going to be sharing four reasons that your class is going off the rails and how to fix that. So essentially, I've taken some things that I've heard a lot of people say, and I have come up with solutions that hopefully will at least help you get in the right direction to having your class be a little bit more controlled, a little bit more on track, and a little bit less chaotic. So reason number one your class might be going off the rails is that they are not able to enter the room successfully. If your students are not able to come into the classroom successfully, that is really going to set yourself up for an incredibly shaky ground as the rest of the lesson goes on. So I've heard a lot of students say my students do not do not know how to get into classroom without being absolutely chaotic. Or, you know, my students, they just they walk in or they run in the room and they're jumping over each other and they're zooming around the room. How can I make sure that that entrance into the classroom is successful. And I have a few different ways to do that. First thing I love to do with my little ones is to give them something to do as they enter the classroom. So maybe pre K, kindergarten, maybe in first grade, I might say like, alright, let's walk into the classroom, like flamingos. I don't know if you've ever seen a flamingo walk. But they're like making their legs go like really high. So it's really hard to run like a flamingo, which is probably why you don't see flamingos running too much. But like giving us like that or even some like right, we're gonna tiptoeing quiet as mice, it's giving them something to do specifically rather than Alright, go on in and have a seat on your diet or go on in and make a circle. It's alright, this is how we're going to move into that area. Another thing that I love doing, especially at the beginning of the year to just really set that tone is starting right in with music making in credit, like a follower leader. So for instance, kindergarten, the first day of school, kindergarten, let's be honest, first day school, kindergarten, that's a whole other thing in its own thing. But getting them to walk into the room and make a circle could take the entire class. So what I do is I meet them at the door, I introduce myself, I say Hi, I'm Mr. Tarbet. I'm so excited to make some music, I want you to take your arms. And I want you to see if you can pat your legs on your arms, or your arms or your legs. There we go. And then you're going to walk behind me, and we're going to make a train. Now remember, nobody falls off the train. So we want to make sure you're right in front of the person in front of you. And then we walk in the room. And we start with n gin and gin number nine going down Shay cargo line. If that train should jump back track, do I get my money back? Yes, no, maybe so and we're gonna repeat this. And at this point, they don't know it. They're just listening. And they're keeping what they're keeping the beat either in their feet or on their, their legs, whatever they can do. And they're just following the person in front of them. And eventually we're just going to kind of go through the room and eventually we're going to end up in a circle. I love this. I learned this from my level one instructor Julie swank at Capital University. And it is just such a great way to start the beginning of the year. Start get kindergarteners in the room in the circle and then once you get into that circle, boom, go right into the next game you're already in a circle moving right in. It's giving them something to do given them something super specific leading them through rather than saying aren't kindergarteners go make a circle because let's be honest, even at the end of the year, that's not going to work. Another one I learned from the AOS a video recording library. I can't remember who did this I don't know if it was Matthew Matthew Stroud or Dubrow but it's
follow the lead or wherever they go follow the leader to and fro follow the lead wherever they go. They're gonna make the shape leader here you
go and essentially they're leading the train just like we wouldn't engine engine number nine, but the person at the front is make theatremakers shape leader here you go and the leader is gonna make a shape. They're gonna move their body somehow and everyone Alson that training is going to mimic that non local motor movements. This is great for doing local motor movement versus local motor, especially using the word local motor. With engine engine number nine, it's great to kind of bring that in there. But again, we're giving them someplace something to do as they enter the room. So what might this look for, for a little bit of an older grade, it could be something as simple as Alright, we're going to, when you walk in, I want you to find one person that is wearing the same color as you, or what I want you to find one person that lives on your street or race on your bus or whatever. And you're just giving them something specific to talk about or specific to move around. So that when you say, Aren't you have two minutes? Well, as we're walking in, you have two minutes to ask them the question of the day. So maybe the question of the day is, you know, what is your favorite type of music and why? And you give them two minutes at the end of this two minutes, boom, we're moving right in. So again, you're giving them a task so that they don't get off task, if that makes sense. Because we can't expect them necessarily to stay on task if we haven't really given them a task other than just walking through the door. So another little reason your class might be going off the rails is that your students aren't able to sit still, I hear this a lot. How do you get your students to sit still. And the first thing I want to talk about changing different zones. So making sure that you're not staying in the same area of your classroom for more than I usually say, like seven minutes. So in Episode 104, we talk a little bit about how I set up my classroom in different different zones. So even if we're doing one specific concept in this zone, we might move it to the next zone and use it a different way. But getting them to physically move from one place in the classroom to the next is a great way to get some more longevity out of an activity or out of a concept or out of a piece of repertoire. Depending on how you're using it. I want you to think about their arousal rate. When was the last time your students were moving are your students engaged are your students getting to that point where they need to start hyping themselves up or they're going to fall asleep? Right, depending on how long they've been sitting, that is going to be a huge thing, when was the last time they were moving. And I don't care if this is kindergarten, I don't care care if this is sixth grade, your students need to move. So another thing you could do if you have students that are getting a little bit wiggly, or they can't sit still give them a confined space, that is their space to move in. I'll be honest, if you look at me, in my classroom, when I'm reading a book of kindergarten, they're moving, but they're moving in their space. And that's fine. So you could do things like sit spots, those little Velcro dots that sit on the carpet floor, if you have carpet, you could have if you have a carpet that has like, I don't know, like little letters or whatever that can be their own boxes, that can be great carpet squares. Hula Hoops can be great having them have their own space, a word of warning about hula hoops you probably already expected it is they tend to like pick them up and move them, which can be fine, just make sure you get the ones that don't have the little beads in it. Otherwise, it's incredibly distracting. But I think that giving them a confined space is really good way of allowing them to move, allowing them to move in a way that's acceptable in a way that's not distracting themselves or others. But still getting that movement in. And another thing is do they have to be sitting, I have a lot of my students that don't like to sit down. And that's fine as like a lot of my students, if they are able to stand at the back, like if we're working on the board, if they want to stand at the back, that's fine. As long as they're standing, not jumping, or twirling and they're at the backs of it, they're no one's behind them. That's totally fine. I always tell my kids, if as long as you're paying attention, and you're in the same area as we are, and you're not getting in the way of your learning or anyone else's learning, I don't care if you're sitting down or standing up, you might have to give them some confined spaces for this. So again, I always say you need to be with us. You can't be all the way over by the board standing up, oh, I can see no, you need to come and join us you need to be actively engaged in lesson or I'm going to make that decision for you and have you sit down with us. So that's another thing that we hear a lot about is like how do I get my students to sit? And I guess the overall arching question I want you to ask yourself is why are you sitting and how long are you having your students sit down? Another reason your class might be going off the rails is because your students won't listen, your students are just talking and they're not listening to your instructions, and they're just not paying attention. So my first question is actually going to be about you the teacher, which is are you talking too much? Because sometimes as teachers we feel like we have to be the sage on the stage for be you know, for lack of better words are like we have to be the one with the answer is the one that's leading the lessons. And the reality is, our students can do a lot of that for us. For instance, can you have your students ask guiding questions rather than us guiding questions? Or what are some things you notice? What did you hear here? Rather than saying, all right, raise your hand if you heard the violin or raise your hand if you heard the trumpet? No, like, what are we here? What are some things you noticed? Another thing that can be really great is having student models. I love singing. I think I'm a pretty good singer, but my students probably get tired of hearing me sing all day. So when appropriate, can we have a student model? Or can we have a video model or can we have someone other than just me? That's doing the the act of instruction of that class? Um, can we have some student leaders that are going up and pointing at the rhythm syllables rather than me? What are some other ways that we can give them some engagement so that they're listening. On the flip side of that, how can we give them the opportunity to talk, because the reality is students are at school a lot, and hopefully the rest school with a lot of their friends. So if we don't give them things to talk about, they're going to talk anyway. So for instance, if we're listening to a piece of music, instead of me having a big group discussion, have them turn to people around them, have them, you know, share one thing to three people, or have them share three things that they noticed to the person next to them, or some way to get them to talk, just like I talked earlier about when they're walking into the classroom, giving them a question to ask for this otter Creek, you know, into the question of the day to the someone next to you, that's a way that is engaging that communication, it's building those social skills, but it's also letting them get the output of talking to other people, without us having to say, come back over here, you know, we're doing this right now, because we're giving them the opportunity to do it, rather than them having to kind of sneak it in. And this is the one that I probably hear the most, well, how do I give out instruments without my students just playing whenever they want to, because that is an easy way to let your class your lesson go completely off the rails is when you have 30. Kids with glockenspiels, just kind of doing whatever they want. And the reality is, is this is something that I learned very quickly, we're working with pre K kids, you need to give them time to just shake it to play it. If you give 20 Pre K kids, a an egg shaker and you want them to just wait, they're not going to it's going to be incredibly unsuccessful, because they're just gonna shake it because that natural curiosity is like, I want to see what this does. So give them some time. So if it is an egg shaker, I might say, Alright, I'm gonna give you 10 seconds Shaco. And I just start counting down. And then when we practice stopping, if it's something like a glockenspiel, I don't want them to just give, I don't want them to just pound on it. So it's alright, I want you to play five notes, ready 12345, boom. And we're done. Giving them some opportunity to explore to play, what they want to play, before we get into what I want them to play, can be really, really helpful. Going on to like rest positions and ready positions, I think is a great way. So here in my wonderful studio, I have two pencils, I'm going to use them as my mallets. So in my classroom, I have rest position, which can look to to a couple different ways. First, I can have them with their basically kind of with their their mouse on their shoulders, kind of like they're holding on to their backpack, or they can do something a little bit more silly and make themselves little alien antennas on their heads. The what I say I don't care which one but if you notice, neither one is making sound. Oh, I think that might be important. So that's my rest position. And then we also practice ready position, which is still not making any sound, but you're ready to play. So I literally just play game of ready, rest. Ready, rest ready. And I'm like just kind of check them and they find it really funny. But having them practice and holding them accountable to those positions can be helpful. And you can use those for anything. If you have egg shakers, maybe you're at rest position is it's on the floor and not moving. If you have rhythm sticks, maybe you're doing the same thing as mallets. Whatever instruments you have, I recommend giving them a rest and a ready position and practicing that before you move any farther. Speaking of moving further, the worst thing that you can do when giving instruments is to pass out instruments and then explain what you're going to do today, you want to kind of dangle that carrot a little bit and say, Alright, we're going to be using Boomwhackers. So let me show you on this video when you when when it plays your color, you're going to hit it one time, let me show you how that works. If you try to do this instruction, while they have an instrument in their hand, one of they're not going to be paying attention to they're just going to be playing a bunch of stuff. And three, everyone's going to get frustrated. So making sure that you are doing that prior to them getting the instruments and then once they get the instruments before you even pass anything out. say alright, we talked about how we're going to get the instruments that carefully, we're going to talk about how we're going to show me your rest position. Let's see who can show me what, who can show us what those expectations are. Oh, Susie, okay, Susie is gonna go over and get a blue marker. And she's going to bring it back to her spot and show us that she's in her ready position. And then Susie will go over, grab her instrument and show us our ready position. And that will that will be of one person, she has shown us what this what the expectations are. So we've talked about the expectations, they've seen the expectations, and then now they're going to try it and show us the same thing. So that is a wonderful way to kind of move that on a little hill, I'm willing to die on. I hate the phrase, if you play before I say I will take your instrument away. I'm not a huge fan of that phrase. Because there are so many students that have impulse control, and that if they're set up successfully, they'll be totally fine. But if you say Alright, go get a glockenspiel and sit down and then we're going to give you your instructions and now is 10 minutes later, and they still haven't played a note. Yeah, they're probably going to play. So what can we do to kind of find that middle ground? I'm not saying to let them play whatever they want, whenever they want. But what can we do to make them make sure they're set up for success? And then we can move on. So these are four possible reasons that your class is going off the rail. I hope that I've given you enough to think on to help fix these situations. And I could talk about reasons your class could go off the rails forever, because there are just so many different things that happen. It could be oh, we have a fire drill, no one told me about, or Hey there, it's snowing for the first time and you have kindergarteners, you're going to have things that are going to let your classroom go off the rails. The the kind of thing that we need to do as teachers is one accept that fact. But also do what we can to set ourselves and our students up for success for when that happens. Nobody's caught off guard. Thank you so much for listening for this episode of that music podcast. I hope that you will leave a review wherever you're listening. If you're on iTunes or Spotify if you should be able to scroll all the way to the bottom. We would love those five star reviews but even if it's below five, we'd love for you to leave a comment in your review letting us know what we can do better. And we will see you next week on that music podcast.
