Hollie to Hannah and shook his head while laughing when we walked in the band room for a parent/teacher conference. Hollie quit the flute soon after this. She also stopped taking piano lessons because reading music using a grand staff was still so difficult for her. Lastly, she stopped ballet classes and cited “too many rules” as her rationale
Teachers have such power to foster or hinder musical interest- we must facilitate the love of music!
The middle-school-girl carousel of emotions was heightened for Hollie. Her social and emotional development was also uneven, as the “sorting hat” of cliques was confusing and frustrating for her. We had less control over her peer group because middle school is, well, middle school. We continued to support Hollie as much as possible as parents and consoled her when the social sorting made her feel inferior.
This is such a hard time for teens. I never thought about how a learning disability could affect social life in middle school.
The music classroom can provide students with many opportunities to create music that demonstrates their level of creativity and their ability to present divergent thought within a musical context.
I love this! This is why I love inclusive learning, allowing children to explore and be themselves!
They may be able to expertly travel city streets at an early age, know the exact change necessary to complete almost any transaction, and be able to talk their way out of any number of possibly difficult situations, yet these same students struggle with academic tasks that include memorization, organization of materials, study habits, and use of executive function skills to titrate long-term assignments.
I wonder what causes this and how it is correlated
I will never forget the day I first heard Hollie babble. She had struggled to say “mama” and “dada” and was working very hard in speech therapy to learn to talk. While teaching a flute lesson,
we learned about this in methods, how babbling is how kids explore their voice!
We began reading the books again with new eyes and took note of each small achievement made, almost always after great energy and practice had enervated her in the process. It was at Hollie’s 8-month well-baby appointment that I first voiced our concerns and requested a referral to a developmental pediatrician.
This is so important! Knowledgeable and attentive parents. YAY for early intervention.
Students who are designated as “twice exceptional” are intellectually gifted and also possess a special need that requires an Individualized Education Program (IEP) or 504 Plan for appropriate inclusion in public school classrooms. These “unevenly gifted” (Winner, 1996) students are sometimes misdiagnosed or undiagnosed as their strengths and areas of challenge sometimes mask each other.
There is often the assumption that someone with a learning disability cannot be in an advanced class; this happened to me in school. Just because students learn differently doesn't change how smart they are.
Testing (academic), teacher nominations, and parent nominations (VanTassel-Baska, 1998)
This is where bias comes in, a teacher's opinion of you and a parent's involvement can get the students into higher-level classes. This is biased and is not a good way to go about it, it should be based on the numbers of exam or test scores.
Many students in elementary schools are given group IQ tests to identify those students who may be eligible for gifted education services. These tests are not as accurate as small group or private testing, particularly when identifying younger-age elementary students (Walker, 1991).
While early intervention and identification are good, students and children all grow at very different rates, and generalizing each child's intelligence with a test at that age feels wrong to me.
He was the first person to use the term gifted (Terman & Oden, 1959; Walker, 1991). Terman defined giftedness as the top 1% level in general intelligence ability, as measured by the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale or a comparable instrument (Terman & Oden, 1947).
I always wondered about this as a child and seeing students being called into the gifted class. I wonder if the separation is more harmful than helpful to these students?
Planning for appropriate seating may include proximity to a paraprofessional or student helper, as well as any instruments and music used during class. In elementary general music settings, place students near the teacher and also near any instruments or materials that may be used during class to lessen the number of transitions required.
This is a good way to prevent issues with transitions, however a student being near an instrument during music class while not playing may be distracting for them. If there is a paraprofessional present though, this may help them stay focused.
llow opportunities to respond during instruction that include time allotted for visual, kinesthetic, and oral responses
Giving students the opportunity to respond to questions in multiple ways is a good way to ensure students are accommodated for their learning styles and allows them to participate with their peers.
Class and ensemble rules can be developed with students each year. This provides a sense of ownership in the classroom, and students are often more willing to comply with a system they created
I do this in my classes or when Im teaching at camp. Having set rules that students have created and keeping the students accountable for following the rules is a great way to manage behavior.
a) student proximity to the teacher, (b) a music teacher’s ability to visually monitor all students, (c) active engagement with students, (d) student access to the teacher, and (e) ratio of adults to students that is conducive to close supervision.
Music class moves so fast, and there are so many students in each class. It is hard to be able to pay attention to every student at all times so knowing each child’s struggles and need ahead of time is important.
Carson first joined my class, he would plug his ears while in line to self-soothe when the other students were talking. He has become more acclimated to the noise of lining up and no longer plugs his ears as often.
I wonder why this student wasn’t offered headphones to accommodate his sensitivity to sounds and to self soothe.
Many music education, music performance, theater education, and theater performance majors have had little or no experience in teaching students with differences and disabilities. Increased curricular and licensure requirements have left little time for training arts educators to teach students with differences and disabilities. This lack of experience may deter them from including students with disabilities in their own future programs.
As I mentioned before, it is really important to learn about inclusive music and music for special education and we do not learn enough about it in our program, this leads to a fundamental issue and a disservice to students who may have a learning disability.
The American Music Therapy Association defines music therapy as an established healthcare profession that uses music to address the individual needs (nonmusical) of its clientele. In this context, think of the clientele as music students in your classroom. The needs of the students in the music education classroom are the following: cognitive, communication, behavioral, emotional, physical, and sensory.
I would like to eventually be a music therapist, the study of music therapy I dont think is talked enough about even though it is essential for inclusive music as well as music in general.
Self-contained classrooms exist in public schools for a variety of educational reasons. The most common use of the self-contained setting is for students who would not be successful in an inclusive or integrated classroom. However, many self-contained classrooms are used to group students together who have similar needs (i.e., students who are intellectually gifted). More often, a self-contained classroom contains students who have a variety of learning needs. Typically, a self-contained classroom has one lead teacher who is a certified special educator and multiple paraprofessionals to assist that lead teacher. Within these classes it is important to observe the variety of instruction taking place. There are often several different methods of instruction occurring together or in tandem (Box 3.1).
This is interesting, because in the schools I’ve observed, the special education classes are usually grouped with the typical classes for music, and in my opinion this made it impossible to accommodate these students.
After reading the Individualized Education Program (IEP) or 504 Plan, attending an IEP or 504 Plan meeting, observing, and assisting students in their primary classroom setting, and reflecting on these experiences, music educators will be able to provide the foundation for planning future lessons with students with differences and disabilities
I agree with this, as accommodations needed in more academic class may inform the music teacher on how to best accommodate this student in the music classroom.
There are nuances that music educators may not be accustomed to including as part of a typical music lesson (e.g., self-care, hand-over-hand assistance), and music educators will need strategies regarding how to include these adaptations appropriately. In addition, an experienced special educator may not know music content; however, they do know the challenges that students face in the areas of language (e.g., speaking too fast or using too many words), physical needs, and cognitive and sensory limitations. It is important to implement these ideas and to encourage a dialogue among all members of the team.
This is correct, in my opinion music educators do not nearly complete enough special education training so its important to work with special educators to give the students in our class the best experience possible.