This isnt about me, this is about education--having drumming/arts in schools (and wherever else people are) and about emergent vs rigid approaches to planning a class. Today I had a lesson plan ready for my second class with a group of soon to be 9th graders (all of Dominican Rep. background). The first class was a little rough and I was hoping to establish a connection with them today but not super optimistic. They came in and before I could create order in the class one of them started playing a beat that soon everyone was responding to, and they had so much groove, energy, focus, and musical intelligence that we jammed for 45 straight minutes--adding some drum calls, a couple pre-composed sections, etc. It was powerful and they were glowing with pride by the end. These students are in summer school to work on their English, they have ADD, and who knows whatever other issues... Do ya think they want to be there? (I biked away from the school at the end of the day past summer camps and kids in sprinklers in the park, running races, etc. and could have cried for my students). It was high level musical experience--an example of them enjoying school. And one of those times (that often occur with drumming) of students getting in a deep flow, and basically partying. It more than successfully accomplished what I wanted to accomplish in my lesson plan and carried over so when I had them change gears to write down and talk about vocabulary words in English--improvisation, composition, score, conductor, pattern, etc.-- they were 100% with me, trusting, and open. No way that would have happened without the good music. The way I see it one has to be prepared for the orisha to come down...or put in football terms to run to daylight. The teacher today saw the daylight (kids arriving with raucous energy but also serious musical intelligence) and allowed the class to run to it, and we scored a touchdown. Kudos to the NYC Department of Education for allowing and valuing the arts enough to make it a part of their summer English Language Learners program.
Posted on: Fri, 11 Jul 2014 01:14:14 +0000
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