Question 1: During the first face to face we used the language of Urgent vs Important to help frame our thinking around our use of TIME. Reflect on why you joined Cohort 21 and your professional goals for this year. Now that the year has begun and you have met your students, what IMPORTANT goal might you like to address and leverage this community to get support with.
For me – thinking of “Urgent vs. Important” is quite difficult as a music teacher teaching multiple grades…almost everything is urgent due to time constraints, or important or else I’ll just forget to do it…anyone else feel this way? It might just be my neuro-spicy brain needing the sense of urgency to have the motivation to complete tasks throughout the day but I’m not sure…
After thinking about what I wanted to work on this year I kept thinking of my ongoing goal of getting to know my students as much as I can and finding material that my students can relate to see that I’ve taken the time to get to know them; either songs they enjoy, or hobbies they are pursuing on their own time. This year, through a back-to-school activity on the first day where they created a summer playlist of songs they listened to over the summer, I found that one of the grades I teach is really passionate about Hip Hop music – making me think of how I can better incorporate this genre of music within the current music curriculum – even though I’m not well informed or educated in that style myself. I’ve had the idea of collaborating with one of the English teachers to work towards an interdisciplinary project between their poetry unit and music technology unit. I think I’ll be focusing a lot of my planning time with this idea not only on resource collection but also learning and reflecting on what it’ll be like to work closely with an educator outside of my specialisation. I’m hoping this collaboration will help the students also see how different subject areas can be connected in different ways.
The idea also has me really focusing on developing materials with a colleague – I haven’t had the opportunity so far in my career to work on a unit and assessment tools with a teacher from a different subject area (I’m used to running the show solo…). I’m hoping this will inspire other ideas to work with different subject areas like Math or PhysEd in the future.
Question 2: Which of the Season 11 Strands resonates with you and why? Share what you feel is both urgent and important about it for you and your school at the moment and some of the questions you have around moving forward.
I feel like this project will fall under two different strands – Pedagogy, Belonging and Wellbeing (G7-12) and Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. One of my goals for this project is not only for students to learn how to compose an original rap song but also spend time learning the history of Hip Hop culture – having discussions about the politics, arts, and the evolution of the culture over time. Decolonization in music education is always at the back of my mind since there is such a Western influence in the music curriculum and learning the background and making sure teaching the creation of the style of music is respectful and appropriate is also a concern I carry with me throughout all of my teaching – especially when I am only trained in a very specific Western style of music. It’ll be interesting to document my journey through this (if I settle on this for my Cohort 21 plan) as it’ll provide me with a lot of reflection that I’ll be able to use in future projects bringing in styles of music from different cultures and traditions in the classroom.
So glad you joined Cohort 21! Looking forward to your posts.
@dsimpson Thanks for sharing. I think an action plan centred around a interdisciplinary unit (music/english/culture) is a great place to focus your energy.
I found this resource which might be helpful – https://transformancemusic.org/product/hip-hop-production/
Thank you so much for this resource! I’ll definitely check it out!
In the context of returning to school, it’s crucial to distinguish between urgent and important matters. Urgent tasks might demand immediate attention, like completing assignments or attending a class on time, while important aspects may involve long-term goals, such as building strong study habits or nurturing personal growth. Balancing both is key for a successful academic journey.
@dsimpson Your interdisciplinary idea sounds awesome! I think the students would absolutely love it, and as an English teacher, I think it would be such an exciting opportunity to bring a whole new dimension to the work they produce. In our Gr 10 English course, we do a Spoken Word unit, and I think it would be so cool to get them to set their words to music. Now you’ve gotten my wheels turning… I look forward to seeing how your ideas develop over the course of Season 11!
@dsimpson Great post, Denise! I love your idea about the interdisciplinary project, mixing the students’ Hip Hop enthusiasm with an opportunity to craft lyrics in English. We do a spoken word unit in Gr 10 English, and now you’ve gotten my wheels turning about ways we could build on this unit to set the words to music. Hmm… I look forward to following along on your journey over the course of this year!