Hello Elementary Literacy Conference Attendees! Here is a copy of the notes for today's session. Thank you for attending!

Tim

Cedar River Music - new venture

I'm launching a new business venture, Cedar River Music. CRM will offer two unique offerings, one local and one worldwide: 1. Creative Music Offerings for the Cedar Valley (Orff Schulwerk-inspired activities) - Summer camps for children - Evening creative music classes for children during the school year - Adult and Community-oriented creative music sessions 2. Online Resources for Music Educators - Downloadable Content - lesson plans, videos, scores, etc. - Online Courses for Professional Development We are starting off with a summer camp right away this year! June 4-8, Cedar River Music's Camp Creativity. For more information, go to the Camp Creativity webpage. Stay tuned for more info!

Hello PAOSA friends! If you came to the workshop with me today (March 17), please click here to access notes and other materials.

Is It Elemental?

This winter, I was fortunate to have an article published in the Orff Echo, the professional journal of the American Orff Schulwerk Association. I was also given permission to share the article on this website, so here it is!

Iowa Core K-8 Music Guidelines

The Iowa Department of Education has posted guidelines for K-8 Music Education aligned to the Iowa Core Curriculum!

Arts and the Iowa Core

Notice that K-8 music was the first fine arts area to complete their work and have it approved by the DOE! A direct link to the document is here.

I'm very excited to have been a part of this writing process. It was an excellent chance to work with some fabulous minds, including Esther D'Agrosa and Linda Murphy, who spearheaded the process, Tom Sletto from Drake who brought in lots of Kodaly experience, and of course my good local colleague Aaron Hansen, who is an amazing Orff Schulwerk teacher. There were many others on our committee as well (listed at the top of the document), and we represented a diverse set of teachers from around the state.

This past week was the Iowa Music Educators' Association annual conference. The conference takes place at Iowa State University in conjunction with the OPUS Honor Choirs (5-9 grade) and All-State festival for choir, band, and orchestra. I had two students participating: one in the 5-6 Elementary OPUS Choir, and one in the high school All-State Choir. Both students really enjoyed the experience, and represented our school well!

During the conference, while not shepherding students around, I was able to attend several sessions on general music and choral topics. One was a choral reading session based on multicultural music from around the world. I really enjoy reading sessions where you get to keep copies of all of the music, because then you can really take it home and look through it at your own pace.

I also spent time in three different sessions by Kodaly-trained teachers. I really appreciate their organization and focus on sequential instruction. Tom Mahalek, one of the presenters, made a great comment about Orff and Kodaly teachers. He said (paraphrase):

Come January 15, if it suddenly starts snowing outside, the Orff teacher throws open the curtains, maybe throws on the coats, dances in the snow, writes a poem about snow, and creates a snow-themed performance. The Kodaly teacher closes the curtains and continues with the planned lesson, which happens to be about rain.

I love this story. Of course, I have never had any official Kodaly training, but my natural tendency is to be more like the Kodaly teacher in this story than the Orff teacher. I think that's why Orff Schulwerk has spoken so much to me over the years. When I see teachers and students who can create a meaningful, aesthetic, learning experience out of practically anything, I am in awe. And I know, for me at least, this will always be a bigger and more important challenge than making sure that my fourth graders can read every combination of sixteenth and eighth notes perfectly.

That being said, in the past few years, I have definitely strayed (probably too far) away from a clear, sequential curriculum. Partly this has been due to circumstance: I began my current position at Malcolm Price Laboratory School only one year ago, and it includes two multi-level groups of classes (PreK-K and 1St/2nd). Anytime you start a new position, it's starting over from square zero, spending a lot of time finding out what the students already know/don't know. The multi-age classes have the added effect of making a single-year, repertoire-based curriculum obsolete after one year. Sure, a bit of review in repertoire is expected and enjoyed. But the kids would get pretty bored if I taught everything the same way for the second year in a row.

Besides, is a standardized repertoire really what I want for my students, or for myself? There will always be more cultures, styles, and individual pieces of music (and dances) than I can ever hope to teach to all of my children. Likewise, each curricular goal in melody, rhythm, form, etc., can be achieved with a wide variety of pieces and activities. Sure, I might have some favorites that I believe all of my students should learn. But most importantly, I want them to value music so much that they continue to make it and learn about it for the rest of their lives.

I think where I'm heading (and where I was at my last job)
is a sequential curriculum based on grade level expectations of skills, and experiences, combined with a large database of songs and activities, catalogued by all their possible curricular uses. Of course, I have this started in about twelve different formats. I want something that's digital, easily accessible, easily editable, and thorough in its content.

What do you think? Should I start an online database of songs, dances, and activities, open to the public online for viewing and adding? There are very few such repositories in existence. I really think, if our goal is improving education for children, then we need to share our resources.

AOSA Conference Wrap-Up

The American Orff Schulwerk Association national conference has come to a close. It was an amazing conference, with quality sessions on pedagogy, process, multiculturalism, the history of Orff Schulwerk, and the future!

What really struck me this year was not the teaching sessions and process, although both were excellent (Sofia Lopez-Ibor, Nick Wild, Stephen Neely), but the conversations. Several conversations were begun or made public at this session that will have an impact on the future of music education.

• The Name of the Game: At the President's Panel discussion, after an excellent insight into questions such as "How do outsiders perceive AOSA and Orff Schulwerk?" and "Where do you want to see us in ten years?" the audience brought up the idea of moving away from the name American Orff Schulwerk Association towards something that would be more easily understood by a layman, and more in line with our future dreams of touching the lives of as many children and adults as possible. No concrete answer was proposed, but something along the lines of "American Elemental Music and Movement Association" would be the direction I am personally seeing, if this is pursued. Interestingly, in that particular meeting, I heard no objections raised to this concept, yet in following discussions with my colleagues and mentors, many were concerned about this as a "cutting-off" from the roots of Orff Schulwerk. Many people who have studied OS in Europe already feel that this is happening, that AOSA is splintering off in its own direction. The challenge is to allow AOSA to continue to serve the American music education needs of our children, while maintaining collegial dialogue with the Orff Institute in Salzburg, the Orff Forum, and the international Orff Schulwerk community. While I can see both sides of the issue, I certainly hope this becomes an association-wide conversation over the next few years.
  
• Building New Institutions: Along the same radical lines, there was un-sponsored, private discussion concerning the building of a new American Institute for Elemental Music and Movement. The title, location, funding, and mission are all still being determined, but this discussion has also begun.

After all of these great conversations, I finished my trip with a seat on a plane next to Barbara Haselbach, head of the Orff Schulwerk Forum in Salzburg, and professor at the Orff Institute! It was an exciting conversation! Barbara shared with me how thrilled she was by the energy and enthusiasm of American Orff Schulwerk teachers, and the strengths that she saw in our association. She then encouraged me to come visit the Orff Institute in Salzburg. We discussed many differences between European and American systems, private and public schools, and of course, our favorite parts of the conference. I told her my favorite was Sofia Lopez-Ibor, one of my mentors during my AOSA apprenticeship, and a student of Barbara's.

Today it was back to reality, but with a renewed sense of purpose. I started the day by guiding my middle school choir to add creative body percussion to the simple Christmas tune we were working on, and it was fun!