The Power of Play

As a teacher, I have always loved April. The dark months of January, February, and March (will they ever end?) are behind us and one can sense the promise of Spring (and summer beyond . . .). If you are lucky, April Vacation is shimmering on the horizon, a beautiful mirage of leisure. Or perhaps your school year ends in May and you are just beginning to enter the home stretch before the final push through concert season. Either way, April remains a month of in between-ness; the school year is beginning to wind down but the immediate threat of end-of-the year performances is not quite upon us.

I have always reveled in this time as a season of play and a chance to reconnect with music as an aesthetic experience that brings people together. Although we still cover the curriculum and address the National Standards, for a few weeks in April, I consciously choose to focus on relationships through music in my general music classes, building a community of music makers who enjoy the act of doing music collectively and exploring the relationship between music and dance, history, and culture. Previously, this emphasis aligned with Standards 9 (Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts) and 10 (Understanding music in relation to history and culture). Now that I have adopted the new National Standards in my practice, I have found a different match, selecting the core music standard of Connecting as my April focus (Synthesize and relate knowledge and personal experiences to make music; Relate musical ideas and works with varied context to deepen understanding).

Throughout the month of April, we Connect to some of the traditional uses of music in daily lives (recreation, leisure, and play), we Connect to other musical cultures, and perhaps most important, we Connect to each other through musical play, experiencing the joy of communal music making together. We explore singing games and folk dances from our own and from other cultures. We choreograph our own dances and perform them for each other. Weather permitting, we take our play parties out onto the playground. We Alabama Gal across the blacktop. We Dance Josey under the basketball hoop. We Paw Paw Patch in the field. We sing, we dance, we laugh, and we play. We have fun doing music together and it is glorious.

When April rolls around, I find my playful curricular choices spill over into my personal time as I seek out some of the more playful opportunities that I deny myself during the busier months. I re-Connect with myself as a musician and spend my prep time at the piano, playing for fun. I take my lunch outside to re-Connect with colleagues in the sunshine instead of eating at my desk to finish my grading. I re-Connect with myself as a creative teacher, arriving at my desk early and breaking out the felt and glue gun to make manipulatives for a new first grade unit. I re-Connect with my local community, dancing away a Friday evening at a Cajun dance. Engaging in these playful acts of musical and extramusical Connection refreshes me and reminds me to find joy in music even as I do my best to hit student learning targets and address the many important curricular goals that drive instruction.

As the Spring arrives, heralding rebirth and renewal, I would encourage you to find some time in your own busy day to make meaningful Connections with yourself, your students, and your colleagues. As you encourage your own students to make musical Connections through meaningful and playful participatory experiences, you may rediscover the value of music making as a joyful community activity. And if anyone asks why you are having so much fun in music class, why you are “wasting” your prep time at the piano, or venturing out of your classroom for meaningful lunchtime conversations, you might simply note, “We are Connecting. It’s one of the National Standards for Music Education!”

If you would like to learn more about the New National Standards, visit http://www.nafme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Core-Music-Standards-PreK-81.pdf. And don’t forget to Connect with your general music colleagues across the country through NAfME’s General Music Forum! Log in to ask questions and share your expertise: http://www.nafme.org/forums/forum/general-music-2/

Happy April! Now, go play!