Patterned movement

Patterned movement

My first year teaching elementary school was spent in a fog of ignorance and various states of cluelessness.  One of my colleagues suggested a dvd by John Feierabend called Move It.  I dutifully bought it and took it home to watch.  My husband, a college professor, happened by as I was watching it and thoughtfully said, "That looks stupid.  Who would want to do that?"  I had to admit, it did look a bit silly, but I thought I would try it out with my kindergartners.  I did the Satie Gynopaedia No. 1 and at the end of the piece, 20 pairs of hands clapped enthusiastically.  They had been so caught up in the music that I knew this was a fantastic way to experience music, especially "serious" music.

I went home and said to my husband, "Ha ha smarty pants, (well, those weren't my exact words, but that sums up my how I felt) the kids LOVED that stuff you said looked silly." He shrugged and left the room.  I sat down and poured through the other selections, but I was puzzled at some of them.  Sometimes the movements suggested a storyline or non-musical idea, but that didn't make as much sense to me.  I decided to do my own version and used the expressive and formal structures to guide the movement.  I will post some videos in the next few months.  I use them with grades k-5 with variations for the older students that incorporates more body percussion. and sometimes a higher dose of silliness.

Parenthetically I did some research comparing first time listening experiences to serious music using listening maps vs movement.  Hands down, the students understood the expressive and formal structures of the piece when I used movement activities and I have the research that backs it up, despite the fact that the dimwit from my fly-by-night-dipoma mill school (what did you expect? my husband said after they made us read The Education of Little Tree as if it were a realistic  memoir about growing up as a native American and not a MADE UP story by Asa Earl Carter, written under the cleverly disguised pen name Forest Carter, a Klu Klux clan member and pro-segregationist George Wallace speechwriter.). Anyway,the "professor"--a former Tennesse high school principal with an advanced degree from Purina Dog Chow College of Arts and Seances--said he thought it was a great paper even though he couldn't understand any of it, and gave me an A, just because it looked impressive. 

I used my third grade classes--five of them from the three schools I was teaching at--as guinea pigs. Two classes would experience music using listening maps; two would use my patterned movement; one class would close their eyes and let the music envelop them.

Guess which class disengaged the fastest?  After 20 seconds,  I realized that 25 third graders would not experience music just aurally.  I should've filed that away under my WTF were you thinking lesson plans.  Anyway, I did pre and post assessments in each class and the class that had done the movement activities clearly demonstrated more understanding of the formal and expressionistic qualities of the music, as well as being able to aurally recall the pieces.  If I played the same piece the following year, those students could not only remember the music, but the movement activity as well.   I threw out the listening maps.  I never liked them anyway.