Week#1

Hey, hey, who's in town, everybody stop and look around...
I always love using this rhyme to being a new semester. It's not a surprise already to see all the shocking expression from the students about having to remove their shoes.
"Are you kidding me?" "No, I am not..."
"Do I really have to take my shoes off?" "Yes, you have to."
"I am just so glad that there are not holes in my socks..." "It's OK, if there really are holes in your socks...just take them off as well!"
These are always the first couple of conversations I have with the students coming all the way from College of Education to this chair/desk-free carpet floored classroom in a very weird maze-like music building.
So, what exactly are we doing in this seemingly "free" and "cozy" classroom?
It's MUSC373, the course with an extremely long offical title from the school that even the instructor (me) can't remember it all correclty. Basically, it is a music class for non-music majors. To be more specific, it is a class that talks about the non-musical functions music plays in a school/classroom setting. My audience should be the ones that are going to be teachers in the future... primarily at elementary level.
In this course, what they are taught and what they are asked to do is about how they can integrate music into their classroom teaching. So, in a way, it is not a 100% "music" class, where everything you learn has to do with the "content" of music. So, in addition to the music fundamentals (things you need to know to be able to "use" music efficiently, from reading notes to playing simple instruments or singing), my students will have to know how they can teach other subjects/disciplines (non-musical concepts) through singing, playing, and dancing. Take alphabet song for example, who hasn't sung this little A, B, C song when he/she was young? How many of us actually learned multiple table through singing that multiple table song? These are just some examples out of many. So, seriously, the purpose of this course is to help the students to be able to "connect" music to what they have to teach... In this process, however, being creative is something that is higly valued. What else can we do to make children's learning (of other subjects) more interesting and motivating through musical activities?
For example, on the first day of your kindergarten class where you would have half of the class that might never have chances to interact with adults other than their parents. How do you as a classroom teacher build up a friendly relationship with these kids? First day of the class usually is the most freaking moment for these little children. How can you make the learning environment one of warm and easy? A simple rhyme like "Hey Hey Who's in Town" might be great of help. From playing a name game, you would go through everybody's name and you would hear everyone telling one another in the cirlce their name one after the other. By the time you're done with that, the children would feel much comfortable... and that way, the rest of the day would just go much easier for the teacher.