The theme of this year's International Summer Course is "Music for All". Not only do the course topics reflect the theme, but also the participants taking the class. There are participants that aren't musicians, but teach general ed, there are music teachers that work with babies and toddlers, and there are even high school choir teachers participating. The majority of attenders do teach elementary music, but even in the US each school can be very different. All to say, the backgrounds and experiences of people attending this course is very diverse, which has made for interesting group and partner work. Sometimes it can add to the overall product when diversity is so prevalent, and sometimes it can be a challenge. We've definitely had a little bit of both, if I'm being honest. :)
On Tuesday the morning lecture was on teaching music in inclusive classrooms. The Orff Institute offers classes for people with varying disabilities regardless of age, and staff from the Institute work with these classes. The lecturerer was Shirley Salmon who has spent many years teaching music through the Orff approach to people with disabilities. She included various video clips for us to see how differing classes respond and how she structures her lessons to accomodate. She has written several books for music teachers, and I actually bought one of them called "Hello Everybody," which includes several lessons she teaches to students with disabilities, but also included great ideas for use with primary aged children.
Sonja's class included several movement games through exploration and moving and interalizing 8 count phrases. We used a lot of the same ideas that Andrea Ostertag (another staff member at the Orff institute) presented at the AOSA conference in St. Louis. I have to admit that I was a little disappointed that she was presenting material that I already know, but at the same time it was interesting to watch someone else's process in teaching when you actually know where they are heading at the end of the lesson.
Doris' class began with teaching us a street game with Bamboo sticks to a folk song from Taiwan. There were actually some ladies from Taiwan that knew a similar version of the song that they performed for the class. It was so adorable watching them sing it that I had to ask them to repeat the performance again for me to videotape. If it's possible for me to post video on this blog, I will definitely post this clip!
Ari's class was similar to yesterday's, but we transferred the body percussion to hand drums. This is very "Orff", before playing on an instrument it's first experienced through body percussion (clap, snap, pat, and stomp). Ari improvised the various rhythmic patterns that we performed on hand drum and also he improvised various sound structures that we also repeated. His main teaching model is using call and response. The teacher does something and the student echos, and this idea repeats.
I can't believe I'm admitting this, but I played hookie for the last evening class. The last class includes everyone enrolled in the course and is taught by differing staff members and can be anything the presenter wants to share. I played "hookie" for a good reason though....I really wanted to see the Marionette Theater production of the "Sound of Music", so since Tuesday night at 7:30 p.m. was the only night this week they were offering this musical--it seemed logical to go. So I grabbed a bratworst at a stand in the city center and went to the theater. It was absolutely wonderful! If you ever come to Salzburg you need to see a marrionite play. They had other options too like "A Mid Summer Night's Dream" and "The Magic Flute", as well as some others through the week and weekend. I ended up sitting next to a family from Texas and felt right at home. :)
I guess sometimes being a rebel has its benefits. :)
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