The Child Inside

Objectives

Reflection is critical for development as an educator. It helps us determine what is most important in serving our students. Another crucial element of teaching is authenticity; knowing oneself and connecting with students on a "human level." This activity is designed to help music educators reconnect with an element of how or why they became musicians and/or teachers. The self-connection, integration, and inspiration that is possible through this activity can reinvigorate praxis and empower creative development in curricula and instruction. It is designed to help teachers start a new year or another long-term academic period.

Materials

• Paper

• Writing utensils

• Drawing utensils

• Instruments

Facilitation Outline/Notes/Script

You may read parts of this verbatim or use this as a guide for personalizing the experience for the educators you are working with.

1. Start by sitting in a circle and taking three breaths to arrive.

2. Provide a brief introduction to the activity, stating the goal of reconnecting with a meaningful moment from K–12 music education (school, home, lessons, other musicking).

3. Breathing and body scan for comfort, awakening the senses, and settling into the activity.

4. Remember a moment from your childhood or adolescence when you were making music. Remember a moment that you think was essential to you becoming a musician, or even a music teacher. Or just a favorite musical moment. This could be a music class, a private lesson, making music at home, with friends, singing at church, or somewhere else out in the community. The "teacher” doesn’t necessarily have to be a teacher, nor do other people have to be involved in this memory. (Pause). What is the setting, what do you see? Are you in a classroom? Are you on a rug, in a corner, in an ensemble, or elsewhere? Look around the space. What is on the walls, on the floor, or what is around you outside? (Pause). Now, what are you doing here? Are you playing an instrument? Singing? How does it feel to hold or touch the object? Feel around the room or notice the details of the object. (Pause). Now start to notice the smells, what does it smell like? (Pause). What do you hear? (Pause). Take a moment to notice the sound or silence of the environment. Are the sounds quiet or loud? Do they stay the same or change over time? Notice all the details of what you hear for a moment. (Pause). How does it feel physically to be there? (Pause). How are you feeling there? (Pause).

5. As you return to the present moment, keep listening to the memory.

6. In your own working area around the space, take a moment to use any of the instruments laid out, or other objects around the room, to sonically represent what you heard. You can make the sounds as exactly or abstractly as you would like. You can embellish, change, or just express the feelings you had.

7. After starting with the sound/music, begin to physically recreate the memory in our space. You can walk around, dance, stand, or otherwise move how you were in the memory. Keep playing/making your sounds.

8. Now return to your working area, and using the paper and coloring supplies, begin to represent your memory visually. This can either be a picture of the environment, of an object, or something abstract to show the feelings you had. This can also be a free draw in response to what you have been remembering and doing so far in the activity.

9. Think for a moment about what you “learned” or took away with you in this memory and begin to title your drawing with that in mind. Again, this can be exact, or more abstract.

10. Take a moment to journal about this experience; how it felt to be in the memory, to recall the memory, and to playfully enact this quintessential moment in your musical development. What did that moment mean to you then? What does this mean to you now? What does this mean for your teaching style, lessons, curricula, broader philosophy of education, or philosophy of music?

11. Sharing with a partner about the experience: responding to the guiding questions above and/or sharing “gems of discovery.”

12. Returning to the circle for voluntary sharing and conversation.

13. Wrap-up: thanking our past selves, friends, teachers, or others involved in the memories; showing gratitude for where we are now, our present colleagues, friends, and teachers; our capacity to grow.

14. Closing musicking: brief ensemble performance of the musical memories.