Who Am I?
Movie Clips
In this scene from the movie The Sound of Music, the Von Trapp children’s governess, Maria, has just found out that none of them know how to sing, nor do they know any songs. Deciding that this is unacceptable, she takes on the challenge of teaching them the basics of singing: solfege! After realizing that simply having them attempt to recite the whole scale at once was not a realistic goal, Maria took on a different teaching approach. She created a song that related each solfege syllable to something cute and fun that the kids would be able to easily remember.
I believe this clip offered an example of exceptionally good teaching for a number of reasons. Firstly, as soon as Maria realized that what she was initially doing wasn’t working for the kids, she immediately altered her teaching strategy to something that was more suited to their learning style. Secondly, I thought her step-by-step process to teaching the kids the song was incredibly effective. Maria started by singing the whole thing through to give them a chance to listen and grasp the information, then she prompted them to join in on bits and pieces of the song (ie. just the syllables, or just the cute comparison lines). As soon as the children were confident enough in their knowledge of the song, they sung the whole thing through by themselves. The last reason why I found this to be incredible teaching was that once the kids knew the whole scale, Maria furthered their understanding by arranging the solfege syllables into a melody. They first sung this melody to the syllables, then to actual lyrics. I think this was an incredibly important and effective next step, seeing as though Maria was not only able to teach the children what solfege is, but also how it works in the context of an actual melody. In my opinion, this is the most crucial step to teaching, no matter what the subject matter is.
Although I loved the depiction of exceptional teaching displayed in this clip, the main reason why I chose it was because I think it’s important to show that teaching and learning isn’t solely restricted to taking place in a classroom. Maria wasn’t a teacher; she didn’t have a teaching degree and she wasn’t hired to teach these children how to sing. She did it out of her love for music and kids, and it was probably just as effective, if not more effective, than what they would have learned at school in music class. I also chose this clip because it showed how simple it can be to teach music to non-musical children. In one afternoon, the Von Trapp children went from knowing absolutely nothing about music, to being able to sing a melody to both lyrics and solfege syllables. Now this might be a bit of a glorified example seeing as though it is, of course, from a movie, however the moral of the clip still remains unchanged. It doesn’t take a lot for substantial learning to take place. All you need is to tailor the teaching approach to the needs of the learners, and success will be virtually inevitable.
In this scene from the movie The School of Rock, this fourth-grade class’ substitute teacher, Mr. S, is asking the students about their musical influences. He’s recently formed a band with the kids in the class as a “school project” and is using this opportunity to brainstorm possible sounds for their band. However, he is very quick to shut down and criticize every single one of the students’ answers seeing as though none of them are naming rock artists – his favourite genre of music, as well as the genre he views to be the most significant.
I believe this clip offered an example of quite problematic teaching for two reasons, the most obvious one being the way in which he spoke to the students. Not only was his overall tone aggressive and condescending, but he was also calling them names such as “Blondie” and “Short Stop” rather than their actual names. No one should talk to anyone in this matter, let alone a teacher who is talking to little kids. Not only is it an overall rude thing to do, but it’s completely inappropriate and unprofessional considering his position of authority. However, the main reason why I found Mr. S’ teaching to be problematic, was the fact that he was criticizing the children for their musical interests. In response to the students’ declarations of their favourite artists, Mr. S exclaimed remarks such as, “Who? No. Come on, what?!” or “Wrong.” This not only immediately shut down their ideas, but it also resulted in them feeling as though they were wrong or unmusical for having differing musical interests. I would like to take a second to relate this to a common topic that has come up in several of our past readings: the stigma around non-classical music and how it excludes many students from participating in their schools’ music programs. Since classical, Eurocentric music consumes the majority of most schools’ music curriculums, the students who are interested in other genres resultantly feel less musically talented and/or cultured. This is exactly what’s taking place in this movie clip, except instead of classical music being the dominating genre, it’s rock. Mr. S believes that rock is the best and most important genre of music, so in addition to only teaching them about rock, he’s making them feel bad for having interests in other genres.
I decided to choose this clip because of how closely it related to what we’ve been discussing in class, as well as how passionately I feel about this specific topic. I believe that students should always be put in an environment where they not only feel safe to express their opinions, but are in fact encouraged to do so. The classroom should be a collaborative environment, but not just between the students. I feel as though it’s important for the teacher to pay attention to what interests their students so that they can draw from their ideas and make lessons that are much more relatable to the kids. In terms of the sole focus on classical music in classrooms, I think it’s really important to expose kids to as many different genres of music as possible, as well as music from other cultures. The future generation of musicians should grow up in a learning environment where there’s no one genre and culture of music that’s viewed as being better or more respected than others. Music is supposed to be a universal language, so educators should ensure that it’s being taught in a way that’s as inclusive as possible.