Dr J's Emporium of Musical Education

Don't blame it on the sunlight, Don't blame it on the moonlight, Don't blame it on the good times Blame it on the boogie... Dance, expressive movement, moving to music .  Call it what you will, we all do it in our own way, but it seems to me that we rarely use it effectively in our classrooms... As part of my ongoing interest in Orff Schulwerk in the Music Classroom I am reading Doug Goodkin's Play, Sing & Dance (Schott 2002) , which I would throughly recommend for all Music Teachers, even those who, like me, have two left feet!  This said, I have just been reading Chapter's 6-7 and I am now feeling like I am a bad music teacher... These chapters focus on dance and movement in the music classroom and laments how, as a educational tradition, we are very good at stamping out movement as part of the learning experience.  Unless of course it has been put into the lesson plan as a focussed activity, or is part of PE, in which case it is divorced fro

STEM.  STEAM.  STREAM.  C21st Competencies.  Whole School Curriculum Focus.  EAL Focused Learning.  Assessment is for Learning. STEM.  STEAM. STREAM.... (and repeat ad infinitum)..... Our school is presently on a drive to change it's focus from a perceived position of content driven learning to the all singing and dancing process focused C21st Learning.  This new drive is obviously an absolute pain as it means changing everything, redesigning the wheel and ultimately becoming the teacher that we never wanted to be.  Or does it? I have always been aware that as a teacher I tend to be fairly set in my ways and have been influenced by: How I was taught at school and university; How I personally learn (I come from a family of very competitive Trivial Pursuits players mean I am good at picking up factoids), and; How I was initially shown during teacher training. I am sure other teachers also view change with suspicion, but having started to look at the C21st Learning a litt