1/16/2023
Topic:
Students with Disabilities
Christopher Benoit
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I have had several students with various disabilities, but one in particular has really stuck with me. I got a request from my administrator to talk about a prospective student...I was told that the parents were wondering if it would be ok to have him take a band class, as he had multiple disabilities and had not been allowed to take band at his previous school. I was horrified, and said that of course he could take band! He did have rather severe intellectual delays and learning disabilities - there were some other things, but those were the most impactful. He was a very pleasant young man, and took to instruction well - on the day it was given! The next day would be like starting all over again; he really had great difficulty retaining information from one day's class period to the next. We decided that percussion would be the best fit...he was able to learn the location of the notes on a keyboard and I could teach him to play a scale, and he would do great. Then the next day he remembered none of it, and it was starting all over. Other students in the class were great, and many were willing to pitch in and help him, and we just kept plugging away each day with basic skills on the various percussion instruments. I really did want him to learn something that he could perform with the band on the spring concert, so ultimately we had him do the bass drum "cannon shots" on an arrangement we were performing of the 1812 Overture...he had the physical technique fine, and he could follow the music just well enough that if I cued his notes as I was conducting he was able to perform them in time with a sufficient degree of accuracy to create the needed effect. At the conclusion of the performance, he had the biggest grin on his face, and his parents came up in tears to thank me for allowing him to be a part of it. It was a great experience for all of the other students in the band, who were all incredibly supportive. Some years later, the family came to a football game at the school and found me - the parents told me that concert was the very best thing from his entire high school experiences. The arts are for EVERYONE!! |
1/16/2023
Topic:
Tools and Strategies
Christopher Benoit
|
I had a student in the guitar class who had a learning disability that led to a lot of struggle with correctly identifying the notes on the staff - he could read the rhythms fine, but grasping the idea of the notehead's placement identifying which pitch to play was an exercise in frustration. We tried a variety of different approaches, then lucked in to using the tool at www.musictheory.net as a game...the student used his school-issued laptop and each day we'd set up the note name identification and he had to name 20 notes correctly each day. At first, this was pretty hit and miss, but after a few days he started to get it and after a couple of weeks he was able to complete the task accurately the first time. |
1/16/2023
Topic:
Assessment of Learning
Christopher Benoit
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I had a student in the guitar class who had only the thumb and first two fingers on his left hand - no third or fourth finger. This was never really an issue for melodic playing; he simply shifted more frequently as he only had the two fingers to use. For chords & chord tests, we had to research and develop alternate versions of some chords that would fit harmonically and serve the music purpose, but would be physically playable by him. Although these were not the standard voicings of the chords, they did fulfill the musical function. |