Sunday, April 30, 2017

4 Good Ways to Recognize Bad Ideas--a Guest Post


I'm pleased to have a guest post today by Bryce, a long-time Primary music observer (and my husband). I love how he shares his perspective. He just says it like it is!   -Michelle



Repeat after me--being on Pinterest does not make it credible.
Bad ideas are everywhere.  They saturate the news, Facebook feeds, your kids’ every action, and even lurk in the dark recesses of your own mind.  Some are easy to spot, like mixing household chemicals into explosives that produce lethal chlorine gas without proper ventilation in the room.  Others are a little subtler, like choosing a primary music activity set that doesn’t teach or engage the kids in your primary.  So how do you spot these bad ideas?  I’m not a professional, but I’ve sat in enough singing times to recognize a few trends:



1.      Does the activity support only one learning style (or none at all)?

Sharla Dance, our go-to expert on all things music teaching, classified childhood learning as fitting into eight basic styles: physical action, words, visuals, nature (whatever that means), spiritual, logic, cooperation & teamwork, and… wait for it… music. Check out her blog here.

Each child in your primary class benefits from one or more of these styles.  Because every star is different and so is every child (I dare you to read that without singing it in your head), you’ll need to include multiple learning styles within each activity.  I recognize that there’s a school of thought that it’s okay to address only one learning style per activity, so long as you have multiple styles in the overall music time. Those people are wrong.  That’s just how it is.

The prime example of a bad idea—one of the worst ideas you could possibly do—is to simply draw names from a hat and make the kids sing it. (This includes derivatives like flipping over pictures on a chalkboard and singing the song underneath.)

The problem here is that this engages none of the learning styles.  For example, there’s either no visual reference or the pictures are too small to be seen from the back of the room. Having one kid from the primary come up to draw a song leaves everyone else sitting still, so there’s no motion element. The word learners aren’t given any associations or interesting connections to make in order to internalize the lyrics. Even worse, blindly flipping cards or drawing songs replaces logical progression with chaos, making the whole experience deeply uncomfortable for logic learners.

Some people learn best through natural processes--like natural selection.
Always focus on teaching kids the way they need to learn—not based on the first Pinterest board you find on Saturday night.  No matter how cute the board or bucket for the activity may be decorated, do not be deceived, those people are trying to lead both you and the kids you teach down to hell.

Let me repeat: If you structure singing time around drawing songs from a hat, you should be darned to heck (because let’s face it, actual hell might be a little extreme).

2.      Does the idea offer variety?

Anyone who’s ever had kids knows they have short attention spans. However, those with older kids or whose children are freakishly patient may have forgotten just how short this attention span really is.  I’ve seen goldfish with longer attention spans than my own children’s.  So unless you’re practicing some sort of witchcraft or hypnosis to keep them riveted, you will need to switch activities several times.

Along those lines, be very sure to mix up which learning styles you’re using each time.  You could involve four learning styles in every activity, but if you never engage the kids who really need to learn through logic, then you’re a horrible person (albeit not as horrible as the ‘hat’ people) and it will be all your fault when the child apostatizes later on.

When switching activities, keep focused on your core learning.  People seem to default to a singing random wiggle song, followed by an unrelated main activity.  Instead, try choosing what you want the kids to learn that week and structure several short activities around the theme to engage them from a variety of learning styles.

Yes, teaching this way takes more effort and planning, but that’s just part of the cost of magnifying your calling.  If you think that load is too heavy, remember that you could have been called as Primary President.

3.      Is the activity exactly the same for both junior and senior primary?

While the trunky 11 year-olds in senior primary may have the same attention span as a new sunbeam, their actual needs couldn’t be more different.  If the activity you come across online is identical for both junior and senior primary, leave a nasty troll-ish comment and move on.

In one ward, I saw a very well-intentioned music teacher try to engage the junior primary by sitting them in a circle and having them do a complex wood-block clicking pattern, complete with passing the blocks left and right as part of the pattern.  Half the kids didn’t want to share their blocks (surprise there), and the other half couldn’t figure out which way was left.  In this music leader’s defense, she really is fantastic but was just having an off day.

4.      Does the idea support on-the-fly adaptation?

There’s an old saying from some philosopher guy with a Latin-sounding name that goes “It is a bad plan that admits no modification”. If this ‘fantastic’ idea you found on the internet doesn’t allow you to adapt on-the-fly, then it’s probably a bad idea.  If the kids aren’t responding well to the activity, then adapt your lesson immediately.

The hapless music leader in the previous example responded quickly to the kids and adapted her wood-block patterns to their skill level, shortened the activity, and then moved on to the next one that engaged a different learning style.  Nice recovery!


Here’s what a good example looks like:


Let’s say that I need to help junior primary children learn the lyrics to Book of Mormon Stories.  Most of them can’t read, sit still, or focus on anything for more than a minute at a time. Challenge accepted.

My first thought is to use Pinterest.  Then I think better of it.  I hate Pinterest. A lot.  Instead, by expending a little mental effort, I come up with a plan that involves…

1.       Multiple learning styles: I decide to use a visual to help create a memory trigger for the lyrics and engage visual learners.  However, just slapping some laminated pictures on the board only engages the visual learners (assuming they can even see it from the sides or back of the room). I need to get the visuals to the kids. So I prepare bookmarks with a picture of the story on one side and a key phrase from the verse on the other.  One learning style, though, isn’t enough, so I add elements:

If you don't learn to recognize bad ideas, you
may not be able to recognize good ones either.

I engage the motion learners by getting them out of their chairs for the whole singing time.  As I sing the verse a capella to the kids, each class sits cross-legged in a small circle.  Their teacher will have a Book of Mormon with a picture bookmark inside for each child.  The kids take turns leafing through the Book of Mormon to the page with the pictures inserted.  When they find it, they can take one to keep in their own scriptures.

The collaborative learners can be engaged by helping their classmates recognize the words printed on the back of the bookmark—a key phrase for the verse.  If we’re working on the Alma verse, my key phrase would be “Alma was rebellious, and he fought against the light”. As they learn from their peers and teacher, they can join in singing that phrase with me each time I repeat the song.  The word learners are also engaged by having a specific phrase that connects their scriptures, bookmarks, and the verse of the song.

While all this is going on, I continue singing the verse on ‘loop track’.  To keep the interest of the music learners, I can alternate between singing the full verse, whistling softly, and omitting words to keep things changing enough that it doesn’t fade to the background.


2.       Variety: As kids get their bookmarks, I keep them engaged by giving them new directions.  If we’re doing the Alma verse, I use it like a wiggle song.  When I sing “fought against the right”, I have the kids stand up and throw a couple punches into the air—specifically where another child is NOT standing.  When I sing “an angel came”, they stand imperiously, and stretch out their hand as though speaking emphatically.  When I sing “struck before his brethren”, I instruct the kids to collapse to the ground, as though unconscious.  This will get a bit loud as they moan and wail dramatically.  Remember: the noise is part of the kids getting invested in the activity; it’s okay.

Notice that I just transitioned activities here but never had to announce it.  They blended together and kept the kids focused on the song they need to learn.

3.    Different for junior and senior primary: I’ve focused my plan here on junior primary, but were I to adapt this for senior primary, I would get them out of their chairs to come and get the bookmarks first.  Their next task would be to find the place in their scriptures where the bookmark should be placed. (With some guidance, of course.)

As they looked up the scriptures, I would also get the kids to alternate whistling along when I sing and then sing words as I either leave blanks or start whistling.

And yes—they still get the death scenes.  I’m pretty sure the eleven year-olds will even pantomime burning one of their own at the stake.

3.       Adaptability: This can easily be rearranged and tweaked to fit the kids’ needs.  For instance, we can start with the pantomiming activity and then migrate down to sit in circles.  We could even skip finding the bookmark in the scriptures portion and hand them out, asking the kids to tell their class something they know about Abinadi as I hum or sing in the background.  As they get their bookmarks, I could even have the pianist play the verse in the background while I dramatically summarize the story of Abinadi for them.  The possibilities are nearly endless.


And I didn’t draw a song name from a hat.  Not even once!

-Bryce



Looking for more?          
Check out a description of each of the 8 learning styles mentioned above.

6 comments:

  1. I did like some of what you posted in here... can't say I agree with all of it. My question is how would you engage a combined primary? As in the junior and senior primary are NOT separated, so catering to ages 4-11 in one room at the same time.

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    1. That's a great question! While I don't know your specific group, here are my initial thoughts on a combined primary:

      1. Have the older kids help/teach the younger ones. This way you can provide a different experience for senior and junior primary with the same activity (and engage collaboration learners).

      2. Set up degrees of difficulty that can be done simultaneously. Here's an example: If you're doing a wood block tapping pattern, you can have the junior kids do level 1 and the senior kids do level 2. This would also allow the junior kids who are more musically gifted to 'level up' once they've mastered the easier pattern. (Or for a struggling senior primary kid to drop back to the easier pattern.)

      3. Involve the primary teachers for small group learning. With help from the primary teachers, you may be able to get the kids involved with highly-personalized learning otherwise unavailable to a larger primary.

      Because you have the opportunity to focus more on individual needs, it might even be worth asking the teachers how their classes learn best and then reflecting elements of that style wherever possible.

      Anyway, you know your primary's capabilities best and it's clear that you really care about reaching each of the children--that's what it's all about, after all. :)

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  2. I'm hoping several portions of this were written tongue-in-cheek. Because otherwise, maybe you shouldn't be giving advice to such a large group of people with such strong opinions on what MUST work. I mean, it is *your* blog so you can share what you want. Just a little overly confident.

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  3. I'll start by pointing out that I'm a guest poster on this blog and that the actual blog owner is a much nicer person than am I. I'd encourage you to compare this with some (or all) of the other posts on here to see the difference.

    In regards to the article itself: it is very tongue-in-cheek. My intent was to use hyperbole and over-the-top melodrama to elucidate key and valid points. I had hoped my sarcastic comments were so exaggerated that readers would have little doubt that I was being facetious. (For example: "...if you never engage the [logic learners], then you’re a horrible person...". That's an extremely absurd statement. I had hoped it was ridiculous enough to clue readers into what I was doing.)

    I do stand by the principles elucidated in my article, though. In my 14 years of teaching in various youth programs, I have seen a LOT of bad ideas perpetuate because teachers don't know how to recognize and avoid them. It's painful to see my children and many others attempting to sit patiently while remaining disengaged and under-served by teachers more interested in their own activity than in the kids' actual engagement and learning.

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  4. I love this blog because it has had some good jumping off points. I was happy to come back and see that you have posted some new ideas even though it isn't your calling anymore. Thank you!

    However, I was really disappointed in the tone of this particular piece. I know it isn't written by the blog owner, but I don't feel like it is in keeping with the spirit of this blog or primary music.

    Although I typically adhere to the "rules" suggested here and I try to plan activities that are more meaningful than just picking songs randomly, I left feeling like maybe I wasn't doing enough or somehow if I have a bad day, or an idea flops, then I am not magnifying my calling. Each of us is learning, some of us don't have the skill set that your wife, or Sharla Dance, or any other blogger or other music leader may have. Someone who gives their all to this calling, but plays games that pick songs "out of a hat" may be doing their very best and may be pleasing our Heavenly Father. Though your points are perhaps based in sound pedagogy, the manner in which you said them is, in my opinion, counterproductive.

    Again, thanks for some great ideas over the past years.

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