7/18/2021
Topic:
Students with Disabilities
David Levitan
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Throughout my sixteen years of teaching K-5 general music, I’ve had many students with various disabilities. I am no longer surprised, as I was when I first began teaching, to hear exceptional singing and/or playing abilities coming from students with autism that otherwise rarely speak or make eye contact with me or their peers while attending my classes. As a novice teacher, there were times that I thought that these students weren’t paying much attention and were likely not getting much from my classes. Over the years, time and again I’ve witnessed many cases that demonstrate this couldn’t be further from the truth.
Often times I’ve seen kids, with and without autism, that are reluctant to sing, dance or even play instruments in front of their peers. Those that are most reluctant ALWAYS claim that they’re “shy.” For this reason, I require all of my 3rd – 5th graders to participate in “Performance Day” twice per year. I frame it as a fun way to gradually “get over the fear of performing in front of others.” The students are allowed to perform alone or in groups of up to four. Their performance must be something “musical,” meaning they may sing, dance or play instruments. While some students choose to perform alone, most choose to perform as part of a group.
Beginning in my 2nd year of teaching, I had a girl with autism I’ll call, “Megan,” that began attending our school for all six of her elementary years. While she received special services throughout the school day, by the time she began 2nd grade she was fully “included” in a mainstream classroom. During her first three years in my classes, Megan rarely made eye contact with me or with her classmates. She was generally very quiet but was perfectly well-behaved and somewhat participatory in our lessons.
Megan appeared to keep to herself mostly. By the time she was in 3rd grade, she seemed to be generally ostracized by her peers. After I presented the “Performance Day” assignment to her class, I asked her quietly if she would like me to place her in a group. She declined, saying that she would "just do it by myself."
On the day of the performance, when I called on her to come up before the class, many of the boys let out a hushed groan. After I quickly put an end to that, she proceeded to introduce her song and then began to sing, “Colors of the Wind” from the movie, “Pocahontas.”
Until that day, I had never actually seen an audience “drop their jaws.” This little girl stunned all of her classmates and me as well!
At the end of the song as her classmates cheered her with a standing ovation, I approached her and quietly told her that “she was a singer” and that she “had been blessed with a wonderful musical gift." I told her that “she should never stop singing as the world can always use the type of beautiful music she was able to share.”
That night, I received an email from her mom telling me that Megan came home from school today and told her that “today was the best day of my life.”
After that, I was fortunate to have Megan in my chorus throughout her 4th and 5th grade years. As she was not very coordinated and a bit slow to catch on to choreography, with permission from her mom, I worked with her individually with mom present after school to teach her the choreography to a song called “Blitzen’s Boogie” in which she was featured as “Blitzen.” It became clear that although Megan was slow to pick up on the choreography and was a bit uncoordinated, with the extra time and repetition outside of our regular rehearsal time, she was indeed able to learn. Some moves needed to be modified for her but she always worked hard to learn and ended up doing just fine. During those two years, I watched as she began to emerge from her shell. While she still didn't seem to be close to other kids in the chorus, she gradually grew her confidence as a singer.
For years after she left elementary school, her mom continued to email me and kept me updated on Megan’s progress. By the time she was a senior in high school, she had blossomed into a beautiful and talented young lady whose mom posts videos of her singing on Youtube. I am blown away by the confidence and expressiveness she exudes while singing now!
To this day, I keep a photo of her in my office as a reminder that the arts, for some people, may be the ONLY way in which they are able to “connect” with their world.
edited by David Levitan on 7/21/2021 |
7/21/2021
Topic:
Tools and Strategies
David Levitan
|
After doing a lesson introducing the notes of the treble clef staff, I played a few different note-naming games with my students. One of my students with autism quickly became frustrated as he wasn’t as fast at recalling the notes as some of his classmates.
I gave him my laptop and had him play an individualized game that helps one to increase the speed at which they recall the notes on the staff. (http://musicteachersgames.com/trebleClefOne# (Links to an external site.)
In this way, the student played only against himself. I asked him to try to improve his score each time he played. He was proud to show me his high score each time he improved it. |
7/25/2021
Topic:
Assessment of Learning
David Levitan
|
A couple of years ago, I had a 5th grade boy in my elementary class the was Intellectually Disabled. He was about 5' 8" and must've weighed 240 lbs. He loved music (especially singing) but had little self-control and was impulsive. Due to his size and strength, the paraprofessional that was assigned to him was little match for him physically. Upon entering my room each week, he would make a beeline for the piano which he loved to play. Although he had little formal training, someone either taught him or he figured out (I couldn't get him to tell me) how to play a C major scale. He played the notes of the scale up and down and sang fairly well on pitch with them as he did so. However, I only had thirty minutes once per week with each of my classes and I was attempting to teach the class to play the ukulele. He would ignore requests from both myself and the para to take his seat. I quickly found that if I bargained with him by offering to let him play the piano at the end of the class as the kids were exiting the room, I could get him to sit quietly through the class. When I tried to help the young man play the ukulele it was obvious that he lacked the fine motor skills necessary to play chords (other than maybe a C major chord which uses only one finger) but the way he manhandled the fragile instrument and would swing it around or drop it unless the para or I would hold onto it showed that it wasn't a good idea to allow him too much freedom with the instrument and unfortunately, this particular para wasn’t a whole lot of help. I had a classroom with twenty-four other students that needed attention as well. Immediately following this particular class, I had my thirty-minute lunch break which I always took in my room so it was no problem for me to allow him to stay in my room with the para for a few extra minutes.
The class with which he attended specials was being taught to play several beginner songs on the ukulele that required the use of only one, then two and finally three chords. They were going to be tested at the end of the quarter on their ability to "play a simple accompaniment using classroom instruments" (one of the State Standards) to a grade level appropriate song. It occurred to me that this young man might be able to be taught to play the same three chords on the piano as I was teaching the other kids to play on the ukulele. Therefore, for about 10 minutes each week, I worked with him as I both allowed him to explore with the piano but also gradually was able to teach him to play simple triads from the C major scale, namely the three chords used in the song, “You Are My Sunshine,” Cmaj, Fmag and Gmaj (rather than G7). By showing him how to move back and forth between the C and F chords by moving only the upper two fingers and then moving between the C and G chords by moving only the lower two fingers, he was eventually able to play the chords. We practiced playing these chords while singing, "You Are My Sunshine" until he could do it pretty well by himself. By the end of the quarter, he was able to play and sing the song right up until the second to last chord (the Gmaj) which still gave him a bit of trouble. He was able to play along with the class as they practiced as a group and when the kids in the class took their turns playing the song individually, he could hardly wait to show off what he had learned to play all by himself. The cheers and applause from the class had him beaming ear-to-ear. |