This episode is going to be a little different. Instead of me necessarily sharing how to do this, how to do that. I'm going to be talking about kind of my own journey of exploring different cultures and honestly, just culture in general through folk dances.
You're listening to that music podcast with Bryson Tarbet, the curriculum designer and educational consultant behind that music teacher at the elementary music summit each week, Bryson and his guests will dive into the reality of being an elementary music teacher, and how music can truly be transformative in the lives of the students you serve. Show Notes and resources mentioned in this episode can be found at that music teacher.com.
Welcome back to that music Podcast. Today, we're going to be talking about movement. I love doing movement in my classes, I think there are so many musical goals and standards and objectives and skills that we can explore through movement. But one thing that I love about it is that it really is such an easy jumping off point to get into a lot of different discussions, we can take it lots of different ways. But one of for me, at least especially, you know, going through my levels, training, Mikoto levels, training and going to conferences, and learning things like that. One of the best ways to kind of dive into something that I've noticed is the power of movement. So folk dances, play parties, and things like that have really allowed me as a person to get a lot of exposure and to just culture in general. Because when we think about it, the reason that especially a lot of these folk dances exist is 100%. Because of culture, dancing is a social thing. And for in a lot of cases, it's you know, at celebrations at parties and think about, you know, we typically dance at weddings, and then they're, you know, different cultures that they have these very specific dance traditions, that I personally think is just so cool. You know, we talk a lot about music tradition as music educators, which I guess makes a lot of sense. But there's this whole other side to it that's so incredibly interconnected, of movement, and dance. And that's what we're gonna be talking a little bit about today. Because me as a person, I've know that I've learned a lot about different cultures, because of the dances that I learned maybe at a conference or three different things. Because I personally am one of those people that really like to like, dive in and learn more about something, or like see the context of things. So it's really cool to be able to see that, or, Hey, this is a song that's traditionally or you know, a dance that's traditionally done at this specific festival or this time of year. And I think that's really cool as a person, but I think when we're able to use that, as teachers, that is where the left the bar is just getting braised completely, especially if we're using it that you know, kind of the homage of, you know, allowing our what happens in our classroom to serve as windows and mirrors, and sliding glass doors in our classroom, I think really, kind of, it's really easy for us to do that I say, easy in a way of, probably, for lack of a better word of saying when we do it correctly, it can be very easy. Now doing it correctly can be a little bit of a, we'll talk about that later. But right now let's talk a little bit about how we can use movement, and you know, folk dances and play parties to open up and start these discussions on just culture. First of all, if we're not having discussions about culture in our classrooms, I think that's a missed opportunity. And I know, you know, I am a white man who is having who's saying this. So I want to first start off by saying that whenever we are able to celebrate other cultures, through authentic ways, that's what we should be doing, especially if we have people that are willing to be culture bearers and share their information. Me personally, that is why I love being able to go to these different conferences where we have people that come from different backgrounds than me that are able to share part of their culture. And then in turn, I'm able to share that back with my students. And I think it's also important that when we do that, we talk about it, we say, Hey, I have learned this, I learned this dance in a conference from so and so she's from this place, you know, she loves to be able to use this. She was talking, she kind of told this story. And I think that's where we're able to one show that we are not the cultural barriers or barriers if we're not, but also kind of just give not necessarily credit but just give homage to the fact that like this was passed down to us, and we're just sharing it because we thought it was so cool. We thought it was important to pass on. Sometimes when we have these discussions, it can be a little bit A little bit nerve wracking, because we don't really know where it's gonna go. And I think that's a good thing. But I also, you know, the reality is in a modern teaching environment, there are sometimes things that happen out of these discussions, for better and sometimes for worse, but I think that they're still important to have. So sometimes it's very, you know, whenever I do a folk dance or something, I always set a very clear expectation that, hey, doesn't matter what we're doing in this classroom, I expect you to be safe, responsible and respectful. And you know, just because something is different from what you're used to, does that make it weird? No, just because something isn't necessarily what you wouldn't you would like to listen to, does that make it bad. And just, again, having these constant discussions, whether it's about different cultures or not, that we're allowed to like different things, we're allowed to be different, we're allowed to have different opinions on things. But what we need to be as respectful of that. So that's always where I start this, especially if there might be a recording involved, that isn't typically what they would be used to hearing. Just kind of because I want my students to be comfortable hearing things that aren't what they expect. And I think that sometimes we overcorrect when we have students that are reacting to something new. And they might be doing it just because they don't really know how to react. Because the not just the act of listening to this or doing this this movement or, or whatever. Not only is that new but the act of hearing things that are different can be new. And we need to model that. So sometimes we overcorrect because we want to like shut down all this stuff. And yes, there are certain things that we should shut down, disrespect, racism, anything like that. But sometimes students are just reacting because hey, this isn't the music that they're used to. They don't know how to process it. So sometimes you can model that yourself like that, you know, hey, you know, when I first heard this, it really it kind of took me a little bit by surprise. But once I listened a little bit more, I was able to hear how they're going about it. And again, model that should keep a respect there, but also model how they can be respectful, not just shutting down when they're not. Because sometimes that's where we can get students that will say, Alright, I'm ready to touch it. Because if I, you know, whenever I try to react to it, somehow, somehow it turns into this big thing. Be aware of where that line is, and be aware of how we can, when we should be modeling how to do something, and when we need to be shutting down and getting involved. So with that conversation out of the way, I love using folk dances and play parties to talk about life. Because let's be honest, that's the whole that's what culture is culture is the explanation and the celebrations of life within a culture. And I think that that is something that we don't talk about enough, because we're so sometimes we're so focused in like VA now. But you know, when we think about folk dances, or you know, just folk songs for a second, you know, a lot of them are about very similar things, people dying, and people getting married. Because if you are a child, in especially, you know, a couple 100 years ago, that, you know, there's probably going to be a lot of people that are dying, because medicine was different, or you know, there's probably going to be more celebration around marriage, or there's going to be celebration around marriage, just like there is today because that's a good thing. And the same thing with the emphasis of life, you know, you might have dances that are very specific to a certain occasion, you might have dances that are certain to a specific festival, or religious occasion or just, you know, a time of the year. And that's where, when we when we use these correctly, when we use these authentically, we can start these conversations about how music is just woven into the lives of humans, and how music really is a innately human thing. It might be different, it might sound different, we might write it down different, we might not even write it down at all. But music itself isn't innately human thing. And this is ways that we can we can start kind of weaving that into our curriculum very early on, just by showing that there is music out there in the world, that is not the music that you listen to. Now, I've talked a few times about, you know, how do we do it. And again, I'm gonna be the first one to tell you that I'm a white man telling you this. So I'm using I'm kind of taking a lot of the information that I've learned in my own journey of learning how to do this, but also through conferences and trainings by other people who have shared their information and their understanding of it as well. The first thing is, you're gonna have to do your homework. There's nothing more awkward or disappointing than teaching an entire song about folk dance or song of whatever, you know, saying, Oh, this is this is a Mexican folk folk dance. They use it for XYZ. It's from this part of Mexico, yada, yada, yada, and then finding out that none of that is true, or that that is completely contrived. Or, hey, this was a song that somebody wrote for their classroom like four years ago, like this is not a thing. So making sure that you are doing your due diligence on your research. So getting primary sources whenever you can. So again, that's where if you learn it from somebody, that can be a really good thing, as long as they're able to kind of show that they've done their homework as well. Or if you learn it from a book, you know, what, what's the source of that book? Are they able to track it back.
And just being aware that, hey, sometimes we might learn a song, or we might learn something that that's just wrong. We might it might have been passed down forever and ever, and we just thought it was something different. I mean, hey, Cody, people, we're doing a lot of that inner Baroque repertoire lately, haven't we, of just learning new things. Again, it comes back to that the thing of when you know, better do better. But I really think that when we're able to include folk dances, and play parties and movement activities, that are passed down from different cultures, that is such an really cool way to show how everything is connected in the human experience, right? You know, music is connected to dance, which is connected to theatre, which is connected to culture, which is connected to history, everything is interwoven and connected on these all these different branches going on different ways connecting to everything else, especially in our modern school system, where we tend to get very focused on like this, this, this, this, this, this, rather than, hey, this is all the stuff, it's, we get very compartmentalized. And I think that we need to model and show that, you know, the human experience is not that that's kind of a construct that we've we've added, for better or for worse to make schooling, more organizational or more structured. But without getting too far off the tangent. Again, I told you, this episode is gonna be a little bit different, because it's something that I've really seen to be very successful my classroom, especially, you know, I have a large population of Spanish speaking students in my, in my classroom. So whenever I'm able to come back from a conference, and share a new song or dance or activity, especially when it's a dance, they are they love being able to dance that comes from a Spanish speaking country, I see them light up. But my favorite part of that is that all of the students are lighting up, and it's not disengaging to those that don't have that background knowledge or that background information or that or that previous connection. It's just extra engaging, and extra humanizing, and extra, you know, can community building for those students that do have that background, that might not necessarily see that background represented in a lot of the rest of their life? So I guess my challenge for you is this, do some movement, do some folk dances, do some play parties, but when you do, so make sure that it's authentic. Make sure that you're using it in a way that isn't just a time filler, and make sure that you're ready for some conversations, because your students are curious, your students aren't going to want to know what a Popeye is, if you're doing Pop Pop patch, your students are gonna want to know why lost machetes was you know, they would typically use you know, machetes to do it. They, they're gonna want to know these different things. So have some information, have some background on it be ready, or at the very least show that humility when someone asks you a question, do not make up the answer. If you don't know. Please don't go in and say that is a really good question. I would love to figure that out. Let's face it, let's see if we can write it out. Those are the conversations that model lifelong learning that model interconnectedness in humans in humans in general. And that model is that we are part of a bigger system, not just teaching music just because we like music. So if you are not a member of that music teacher community, I highly recommend you join us this month we are going to be having a masterclass with a guest speaker all about doing movement, and folk dances and music classroom and it's not when you're gonna want to miss you can check out the information for that in the description of this episode. If you're listening in the future, Hello, future. All of the all the recordings from our previous master classes are uploaded into our growing curriculum library, our growing professional development library rather, inside that music teacher community. I want to leave it there for today but in case nobody has told you lately, thank you so much for making a difference in the lives of the students that you teach.
