Tag Archives: early childhood music

How Music Instruction Reduces Screen Time for Kids

Parents and teachers alike understand the challenges that screen time poses to children as well as adults. Prior to the Covid pandemic, kids ages 8-18 were spending up to 7.5 hours on average in front of a screen for entertainment. More than half of that time was spent watching television. COVID-19 and the lock-down made matters even worse. Despite the need to attend online classes for school, overall digital device usage increased by 5 hours, with adolescents averaging even higher at 8 hours a day.

As our children’s screen time has increased substantially over the past decade, the ill effects of it on the physical and mental well-being is being studied more and more. Pediatric health professionals and children’s educators alike highly recommend other means of entertainment for children to offset this epidemic. Children’s music education is one such means of entertainment that helps reduce screen time.

The Health Effects of Screen Time in Children

Children’s health professionals point to many issues that may arise in children that are exposed to an excessive amount of screen entertainment:

  • Impaired emotional and social intelligence.
  • Sleep deprivation and disturbed sleep cycles.
  • Mood problems such as irritability, depression, anxiety, and ADHD.
  • Poor self-image, weight problems, and body image issues.
  • Vision issues such as eye strain and myopia.
  • Neck pain and carpal tunnel syndrome.
  • Social isolation and fear of missing out (FOMO).
  • Phantom Vibration Syndrome, where a person imagines their phone is ringing or vibrating when it’s actually not.
  • Obsessive, excessive, compulsive, and impulsive use of digital devices.

Children’s Music Education to Reduce Screen Time

Pediatric health care professionals recommend exposing children to other activities to reduce their screen time as well as increase their interests in other entertainment. Teachers of children’s music education have long known the positive impacts that music classes have on a child’s well-being during their developmental years and beyond:

It is clear that as technology increases at a greater and greater rate, it will compete for the attention of humans in developed societies. Children are even more susceptible to the negative impacts of excessive screen time in their developmental years. Supplemental music lessons offer an alternative to screen time while providing all of the benefits that music instruction offers to kids – including self-imposed limitation of screen time; increased problem-solving skills, time management and prioritization; increased self-awareness and social skills, and more.

The Relationship Between Music and Islam

Continuing our exploration of music and its relationship with the major religions of the world, the following is a brief and imperfect discussion of Islamic civilization and musical influence. Our last blog post covered Hindu music and its nearly inseparable relationship to musical worship. One cannot discuss Islam and musical traditions without various conflicting opinions, and even contradictions in terms. Generic terms for ‘music’ or activity recognized as involving ‘music’ have never been applied orthodox practice of Sunni and Shi’a Islam. The view of scholars and theologians vary widely as whether music in Islam is strictly forbidden to generally forbidden but with varying restrictions that do not lead listeners into temptation

Music and the Quran

Part of the source of disagreement in the Muslim world about music and Islamic worship stems from the term ‘music’ and that the Quran does not explicitly refer to music itself. However, scholars on both sides of the argument have interpreted certain passages for and against tolerance. Those who contend that music is strictly forbidden in Islam point to phrases such as “And of mankind is he who purchases idle talks to mislead others from the path of Allah…”, whereas ‘idle talks’ has been translated as the amusement of speech or theatrics.

Others refer to Allah giving the prophet David the ‘gift of the Psalms’, poetic in structure and character, as evidence of allowing music as long as it did not lead to sinful acts. There are some Sunni movements of Islam, including the Salafi and Deobandi who strictly interpret the Quran and hadith (a record the words, actions, and silent approval of the prophet Muhammad as translated through chains of narrators), prohibit music in all forms as haram (forbidden).  

Some Exceptions for Music in Islam?

There is also wide variety of opinions over what expectations can be made to the prohibition of music for Muslims. Examples of what is allowed can range from vocals but not instruments, only certain instruments (such as a one-sided drum and tambourine) or vocals only if the audience is of the same gender. In the opinion of some scholars, including some Muslims, a number of Islamic rituals have at least some musical relevance. The first of these is the call of prayer by the mu’ethín, the caller to prayer, which they believe provides the choice of the right mu’ethín to be based on his musical voice and its emotional impact to worship.

The second cited example of a musical act is in reading the Quran where the musical voice gained popularity, especially with the development of ‘ilm al-qiráa , “science of the recitation”. Indeed some Shia and Sufi orders use instrumental accompaniment to music as part of their worship. Many Muslims believe that it is not music itself that must be forbidden by Islam, but that the subject matter of the music itself does not mention forbidden practices such as alcohol, sexual connotations, or presented in a sexually coercive manner. For many, judgement seems to be the key.

 Music and Islam in Modern Society

Despite the prohibition of music by some Islamic scholars, devotional/religious music as well as secular music is very well developed and popular. Secular and folk musical styles can be found in Arabic, Egyptian, Iranian, Turkish, Algerian, Moroccan, Maldivian, and others. Music is used in many public Islamic religious celebrations today across the globe, including Ta’zieh, Ashurah, Manzuma, and Thikiri. Secular music of all kinds also abounds in the Muslim world, including such familiar genres as rap, rock, jazz, and folk, and pop. In some places where strict Islamic interpretations are enforced, however, this music must be played and enjoyed behind closed doors and in secret.

The subject of music in Islamic civilization continues to be the subject of debate between scholars and theologians. Above all, the debate seems to stem around whether it is music itself that is forbidden through hadith or that it is the subject matter, intent, or delivery of music that deems it sinful and forbidden. We will conclude our series on the relationship between music and the five major religions of the world next with an exploration of Judaism.

The Relationship Between Music and Christianity Part 1

Throughout history, music has been inextricably linked to almost every religion across the globe. While the very definition and origin of music is hard to define, it is clear that music has been a part of the very earliest forms of worship. This is evident in each of the major religions of the world, with each having their own distinctions as well as similarities. Buddhist music has musical roots in both instruments and chanting, through flute-playing Japanese Zen Monks or Tibetan recitations of sacred texts. Although its inception does not date as far back as some of the other religions of the world, Christianity has also had ties to music since its origins. While an exhaustive chronicle of music in Christianity would fill volumes, there are some high points to mention.

Music and the Old Testament

An exploration of the relationship between music and Christianity would not be complete without starting with the Old Testament. The Bible early in the book of Genesis, describes a descendant of Cain, Jubal, as “the first of all who play the harp and flute.” When we reach the story of the Exodus Moses and all the people sing a song, the first written song mentioned in the Bible that mentions the use of tambourines and dancing to celebrate the victory at the Red Sea.

King Saul of Israel hired a young man named David to play music for him in this court. This David eventually became king of Israel, but also continued to express himself through song, writing more than 70 Psalms that are revered worship material in Judaism Throughout the Old Testament, temple worship included the use of choirs, ram horn blowers (often referred to as trumpets in the bible, but are actually the more rudimentary shofars), cymbals, tambourines, drums, and some strings instruments such as the lyre. Singing and musical instruments play an important role in Old Testament music, from Psalm 150 telling worshipers to “Praise Him” with the trumpet, harp, lyre and clashing cymbals to King David putting specific people in charge of worship music.

Music was integral to their worship.

Music and the New Testament

While as a boy, Jesus would have been exposed to the Jewish culture of his day including worship in daily life and at the festivals he attended. We do have a continuation of songs being written for worship and praise, much like the Old Testament, with Mary’s Song in the Gospel of Luke. Yet the only record of communal song in the Gospels is actually the last meeting of the disciples before the Crucifixion. Instruments are specifically mentioned in only a few places in the New Testament, such as flutes being played at Jairus’ daughter’s wake in Matthew, or trumpet that herald some end-time events including the rapture.

As Christians became persecuted after the death of Christ, they had to often worship in private, where loud instruments and praise music were not conducive to secrecy. But, this did not stop them from worshipping using music. In the book of Acts, the apostle Paul is arrested along with Silas, put in prison in Philippi, yet are still heard singing while imprisoned. Even with persecution many of the New Testament songs or hymns, such as the Benedictus, the Gloria, psalmody, and alleluias, endured and are still used in many Christian worship services today.

From praise music that was highly organized that incorporated singing, specific instrumentation and instructions for a large group to the simple act of two men singing while in prison, it is apparent that music plays an important role for worship throughout the Bible. Examples are too numerous to mention and would be hard to include in this format. In our next post we will explore the different types of worship music that have come about as Christianity spread.

A Short History of Do-Re-Mi

Anyone who has seen Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1965 hit The Sound of Music remembers the catchy song that Baroness Maria uses to teach the Von Trapp children to sing. The lyrics are “Doe, a deer, a female, deer, Ray, a drop of golden sun, Me, a name I call myself..,” and so on. While the syllables of Solfege, a system designed to teach the major musical scale, is assigned to do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti in English speaking countries, the sounding of each is cleverly used in the adored song. But the history of solfege dates way back to the turn of the 11th Century, and has been used by many early childhood music programs to teach the major musical scale.

The Origins of Solfege as a Music Teaching System

The system of solfege was invented nearly a thousand years ago by Italian music theorist and Benedictine monk, Guido de Arezzo, who was also the inventor of our bar note system still used today. A renowned teacher, Arezzo was looking for a simple notational system to teach the pitches of the six notes of the major musical scale to those who had never before had musical training. At the same time, this system teaches music students to site read. To illustrate this system, Arezzo brilliantly represented the hexachord through the Latin hymn Ut queant laxis, or the Hymn to St. John the Baptist.  Each successive line of the hymn used the syllable for each note – ut,re,mi,fa,sol,la, sung in the proper pitch. In the 8th Century, another Benedictine monk, Paulus Diaconus, aka Paul the Deacon, translated the words:

Ut queant laxis in Latin:
Ut queant laxis, resonare fibris
Mira gestorum, famuli tuorum,
Solve pollute, labii reatum,
Sancte lohannes.

Word translation by Paul the Deacon
So that our servants may, with loosened voices
Resound the wonders or your deeds
Clean the guilt from our stained lips
O St. John.

Musikgarten teacher using Solfege to teach tonal patterns.
Musikgarten teacher using Solfege to teach tonal patterns.

The Evolution of Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti

The solfege invented by Guido de Arezzo continued to evolve to even as recently as the 1830s. In the 1600s, Ut was changed to the open syllable Do at the suggestion of the musicologist Giovanni Battista Doni (Based on the first syllable of his surname) in order to complete the diatonic scale. Then in the nineteenth century, English speaking music educator Sarah Glover changed the “si” to “ti,” so that each syllable begins with a different letter. This is the version that was used in the famed song from The Sound of Music.

Two Types of Solfege in Modern Use

Still used for site reading training in many children’s music classrooms today, there are two main types of solfege – Moveable do and Fixed do. Moveable do, also called tonic sol-fa, has each syllable corresponding to a scale degree in the hexachord, and is mostly used in Germanic and Commonwealth countries, as well as the United States. In Fixed do, each syllable of the solfege corresponds to the name of a note, using the original “si” instead of “ti.” It is commonly used in Romantic, Slavic, and Spanish Speaking countries, and is also principally taught at the Julliard School in New York City.

Through an amazing conception and gradual evolution, the solfege system has been teaching music students and singers to learn the major music scale and site reading. While many remember it fondly from The Sound of Music, it endured from hundreds of years before as a tool to help early childhood music educators. Having changed slightly for different languages, solfege transcends them to speak the universal language of music.

Key Issues in Early Childhood Education: Approaches to Children’s Music Curriculum and Lessons

Over the past several weeks, we have been delving into several key discussion topics or issues that early childhood educators face in the classroom. Much of this content is based on the observations and writings of neuroscience educator Dr. Dee Joy Coulter, Ed. D. The last installment explores how children’s music teachers can provide nourishment to children through soul, body, and mind, while feeding their developing and amazing frontal lobes. This next post will address the validity of two discussion issues related to children’s music curriculum and the role of lesson plans and content.

Discussion Topic One: The driving force behind music must be an elaborate curriculum with clear objectives and activities, for which content is the critical element.

Rudolf Steiner, Austrian scientist, thinker and founder of Waldorf Education, suggested in the early 1920s that parenting was quickly evolving from natural instinct to a more formal and conscious understanding. With all of the subsequent literature and available instruction available to parents today, it is plain to see that this prediction came to pass. This same evolution can be seen in the development of education, where carefully developed curricula with well-planned objectives and timelines of activities offer benefits to music educators and students alike.

However, it is important to understand that children are the critical element in the classroom, not the lesson plan. It is up to teachers to adapt and shift focus as needed based on each moment with students to provide the nourishment of mind, body, and spirit. Content and form represent only ten percent of the learning experience, whereas the “magic of the moment” represents ninety.

Discussion Issue Two: It is important to cover all the lesson plans in a timely manner or children will “fall behind.”

This is a longstanding conflict in the field of education – Do teachers educate or instruct? Do children unfold, or do they acquire knowledge? The root for the word educate is educare, and mean “to draw forth,” whereas the root word for instruct is instruere, meaning “to pile upon. While educating children, especially in music, there is a building process where we are adding knowledge and skills on top of one another. So, within reason we do tend to “pile upon them” rules and ways as they enculturate and prepare themselves to be new members of our culture.

However, if we are focused too completely on the time lines of learning particular content, children can quickly be overwhelmed. Staying attuned with what students are hungry for and offering them nutritionally sound material helps music teachers understand the next developmentally appropriate steps in the learning process. As early childhood music teachers, we want to leave children more inspired than exhausted.

As educators, we are often asked to place and emphasis on organization and metrics in the classroom. This is often done not for the purpose of the students or for education itself, but for outside stakeholders to have something to measure. We will tackle that discussion issue in our next and final installment. Many children’s music teachers already understand the lessons learned from the two issues discussed above. While well-designed curriculum and lesson plans have their benefits in children’s music education, teachers should stay attuned to the natural progression of each student and inspire them with nutritional offerings that feed mind, body, and spirit.

This series of articles are based on the article DEFENDING the MAGIC: CURRENT ISSUES in EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION, which appeared in Early Childhood Connections and written by Dee Joy Coulter, Ed. D. For more information on Dr. Coulter and her insights into early childhood music education, visit https://embraceyourbrain.com/   

Issues in Early Childhood Education:

Understanding Music Nourishment in Children

In our recent blog, we began a series to explore some key issues facing teachers of childhood music education. This installment will continue the series by first shining light on some false assumptions often made about how children’s music teachers can measure whether their students are getting musical nourishment from their class. These falsehoods include statements such as Music is about performing, and You can’t tell what a child is taking in, or You can only measure what the child produces or puts out. The observations and conclusions concerning these assumptions are based on an article by renowned neuroscience educator Dee Joy Coulter, Ed. D.

When considering nourishment for the human body, we do not need to measure food as it comes out to understand what went in. It seems silly then, that a child’s music nourishment can only be measured through performance. Dr. Coulter suggests that teaching music nourishes children in three ways: Their souls are nourished by the music itself, their bodies are nourished by the graceful movement, and their minds are nourished by the rhythm.

  1. Music feeds the soul of Children – It is important to choose the right kind of music to feed children’s souls. Music that lives in a culture has been loved for generations and makes one want to sing it over and over. Such music provides an opportunity to invite the soul to rise up and lift hearts, and music educators should embody those feelings when offering them to their students.
  • Music nourishes children’s bodies – Inviting children to move, but not just any movement, is important to nourishing their bodies. It is well known that rhythmic movement through music can help with anxiety and learning in children. When showing movement to children, music teachers should resist the urge to divide it into a series of frozen poses, which kills the graceful flow of the movement and creates a self-consciousness that may cause the child to lose their innocent wholeness.
  • Music feeds the minds of children – To nourish the minds of children, music educators need to offer rhythm, whether it’s through the steady beat of movement or syncopated beat of words. This pulse that gives life to the music is vital nourishment for a child’s brain, inspiring their hearts while stimulating growth of the frontal lobes.

The amazing gifts music offers children’s frontal lobes

We know that the frontal lobe in children’s brains is undergoing its main growth spurt between the ages of two and six, and does not surge again until almost 20 years of age. The frontal lobe thrives on rhythm and establishes a kind of “executive headquarters” for children who have been given a measure of rhythmicity, grace, and motor flow during that important growth period. The importance of this stage of nourishment is highlighted by just a few of the other amazing things the frontal lobe allows children to do:

  • Work with patterns and designs
  • Handle complexity and tap into higher order thinking skills
  • Plan ahead
  • Think about the consequences of actions before doing them
  • Developing “inner speech”
  • Develop impulse control
  • Have empathy for others
  • Maintain alertness
  • Sustain concentration
  • Develop a sense of initiative
  • Handle confusion and chaos without panicking
  • Work cooperatively in groups.

It’s easy to see how important development of the frontal cortex is during early childhood, and children’s music teachers can provide important nourishment to soul, body, and mind by lifting the hearts of children though modeling the love of music themselves.  

This series of articles are based on the article DEFENDING the MAGIC: CURRENT ISSUES in EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION, which appeared in Early Childhood Connections and written by Dee Joy Coulter, Ed. D. For more information on Dr. Coulter and her insights into early childhood music education, visit https://embraceyourbrain.com/    

Issues in Early Childhood Education

Most teachers, especially teachers of children, will attest that they did not get into education for the money. In an Association of Teachers and Lecturers survey, 80 percent of educators said that they teach because they enjoy working with children, while 75 percent said they were motivated by a desire to make a difference for children. The combination of these two factors can be credibly linked to the amount of passion a teacher has for their job. Nationally recognized neuroscience educator Dee Joy Coulter, Ed. D., notes that this passion is amazingly frequent among children’s music teachers. Teachers with passion inspire students to seek and experience new ideas. Therefore, it’s a motivating factor that is necessary for high quality learning and teaching. Over the next several weeks, Dr. Coulter’s writings will guide us through some key issues these early childhood music teachers face, while exploring ways to meet these concerns.

Whatever Children Can Learn, They Should Learn – and the Earlier the Better

A young child’s way of learning is one of absorbing what is around them in an unpretentious and almost unconscious way. As such, they are so busy observing the world around them that they do not yet notice caregivers and teachers observing them. As this point, it does not occur to their wonderful beginner’s mind to begin observing themselves. It’s important for children’s music teachers to keep things this way for as long as possible, for as they become self-conscious, children’s minds give way to reasoning and shift to a more impressionable approach to learning

The earlier stage of innocence is where passion for teaching music to children plays a most important role. At this point, they are still deeply impressionable, absorbing the educator themselves as much as what is being offered. Therefore, strive to offer children only the most inspired musical experiences that you really love, so that their early learning minds sense that joy and enthusiasm. Watch what they are inspired by, paying close attention to their responses. If there are things that do not inspire them, trust their taste. Young children are instinctively drawn to what they need next in development. This will give the observant music teacher clues as what to teach next and what to postpone. At this point, your passion is what you want to inspire in children, because it will expose their minds to that same excitement and a long-term love for music. 

Children in a Musikgarten Toddler Class
Children in a Musikgarten Toddler Class.

Most Children do not have to be Taught How to Pay Attention

It’s a fallacy that most children have short attention spans and therefore need to be taught to learn from a music lesson. If provided fundamentally nourishing information in a passionate way, there is an amazing quality and duration of attention children can give in early childhood music classes. Rather than trying to teach children to listen, music teachers should offer something welcoming and playful that engages their interest and sustains their attention. If offered activities and objects in a nourishing environment, children exhibit surprisingly long attentions spans. In fact, music therapy is often used with children that exhibit developmental disabilities such as ADHD or Autism to grasp and hold their attention. Passion again has a key role to play in teaching at this point.

Over the next several weeks, we will continue to explore several other key issues that early childhood music educators and studio owners face when instructing children. To effectively address all of these issues, passion is perhaps the most important tool a teacher can have to inspire young minds to also love music. A young child’s mind is constantly open to new and exciting concepts without bias, instinctively picking up on a music teacher’s enthusiasm and excitement. When music is provided in a fundamentally inspiring and nourishing way, children have a great capacity to pay attention for long periods of time and absorb information.

This series of articles are based on the article DEFENDING the MAGIC: CURRENT ISSUES in EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION, which appeared in Early Childhood Connections and written by Dee Joy Coulter, Ed. D. For more information on Dr. Coulter and her insights into early childhood music education, visit https://embraceyourbrain.com/    

Music and Fine Arts Education More Important Than Ever

It is no surprise to anyone involved in fine arts education over the last several decades that arts classes have been gutted in public schools all across America. Since the recession of 2008, 80% of the nations schools were faced with budget cuts. That, along with No Child Left Behind and Common Core State Standards, pushed education administrators to prioritize math and science over other subjects such as music, drama, and art. Although the economy eventually recovered, these programs still have not. More recently, a robust economy showed some of the best state tax revenues in decades, administrators were looking at bringing back some support for these programs.

Enter Covid-19. The estimated impact of the pandemic on America’s creative economy is well documented. Quarantined from school, many children had no other access to music instruction or the fine arts. These cuts to the arts in public education has created a greater need for other organizations, such as early childhood music studios, to step up and fill the gap. Owners and educators of fine arts studios understand the many and crucial benefits that the arts provide to people of all ages, especially children.        

The Benefits of Music and Fine Arts Education for Children

Over the years, this blog has served to remind children’s music educators what they already know about the benefits of music instruction at the earliest ages. But in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, fine arts education is more important than ever:

Children in a Musikgarten Music Makers: at Home class.
  • Music Class builds Self-Esteem in Children – Participation in music helps children to feel smart and accomplished. Singing and dancing together aids music students in understanding that an ensemble is more powerful than its parts, with everyone contributing their singular efforts to create something bigger. Helping them to understand that their part is important to the success of the entire sound create a sense of worth and value.
  • Music Exercises the Brain and Improves Learning in Children – Participating in music, as well as learning a new instrument such as piano, changes the brain and improves learning. Like exercise does for the body, music does for the brain – improving understanding of language and written communication. While teachers have been trying their best to keep children engaged over screens during the pandemic, music can serve to help keep their brains tuned up for learning and prepare to return to the classroom.

Including musical training, drama, and art into a school’s curriculum has been recommended by educational researchers again and again, but many school systems show no inclination to reintroduce these classes any time soon. Therefore, it falls upon outside fine arts education organizations to provide these all-important opportunities. For children’s mental health and preparedness in the aftermath of a pandemic, fine arts instruction is more important than ever.

Layers of Experiences Help Children Learn Piano

Over the last several months, we have been exploring the various reasons for how early childhood music education better prepares children to learn any musical instrument, with a focus primarily on piano. Beginning piano teachers understand how early childhood music education and the developmental influences of BODY, MIND, SPIRIT and FAMILY, provide a firm foundation for children to achieve greater success at the keyboard. In this final installment, those influences are blended into a layering of experiences that are taught from a musical point of view. These layers, stemming from children’s developmental stages, spiral and interact with each other to provide the foundation for sustained musical development.

The Developmental Layers of Childhood Music Education

  • Listening Comes Second – Music is an aural art, and we come to it for the sheer enjoyment of listening, singing, and dancing. As early childhood music studios are filled with musical sound, hearing music in various forms and from different sources adds a second layer of musical foundation. As children listen to more music, they are intrigued to continue and explore it further as they learn to discriminate sounds and build a vocabulary of musical patterns and styles that will help in learning piano.
  •  Singing Comes Third – Cultures across the world have communicated through music, which offers a sense of community and identity. We desire to communicate and express the joy of our own voice through a repertoire of common songs, learning melodies and the structure of musical patterns that will translate to understanding musical instruments.
  • Playing Simple Percussion Instruments Helps with Piano – Our hands serve as expressive extensions of who we are, and in turn, musical instruments are an extension of the hands. Playing simple percussion instruments such as drums, rattles, rhythm sticks, or maracas, increase our joy of making music and refining our movements while teaching us about beat, meter, and phrase. As we do this with others, we begin to have musical dialogue with partners or groups.
  • Musical Literacy is Emerging All Along the Way – As we first learn to move and listen, speak our music through song, and extend music making into instruments, we are making sense of the specific rhythm and tonal patterns we hear and practice. At some point we will want to understand how to write and read those patterns, which may come before or after sitting down to learn the piano.

Introducing Piano to Children’s Musical Development

Once these layers of musical foundation have been established, the piano teacher is able to add the next layer of complexity, offering a way for children to express their joy and knowledge of music through an intricate, yet subtle instrument. The most successful Early childhood music programs prepare teachers to think in these developmental terms, carefully considering how to introduce musical concepts. Realizing that they must first work with ear and body before eye and brain, piano teachers are working to establish musical communication that leads to musical thought. Group work helps to ensure that classes remain playful and lively while teaching the “whole” child in ways that are developmentally appropriate.

Early children’s music programs help children to fall in love with music, have a mind full of musical thoughts, and establish body control needed to master an instrument such as keyboard. This firm foundation allows beginning piano teachers to take children to the next exciting level of musical development!

This commentary is based on the article The Well-Prepared Beginner: Prepared in Body, Mind, Spirit, and Family by Lorna Heyge, Ph. D. Dr. Heyge is a pioneer in childhood music instruction, as well as a piano teacher of many years.

Back to the Children Music Classroom Post Pandemic

As with about everything else, we are all very tired of topics being written on the Covid-19 pandemic, and are ready to move forward to normalcy. As we cautiously move back to in-person school settings, there are several things that children’s music teachers and other educators say have changed in their classrooms. The CDC has provided its Operational Strategy for K-12 Schools, but in private educational settings  such as early childhood music education, policy is often left up to the school administrators, music studio owners, or even classroom teachers. With parents’ opinions and levels of anxiety about a return to the classroom differing, most educators cannot control parents’ decisions on whether to send their children back into the classroom. What they can control, however, is their own classroom policy to clearly communicate to parents how they intend to move forward. Here are some helpful tips for putting together your own post pandemic classroom policy:

Teachers Tips for Returning to In-person Music Teaching   

  • Publish and Post a Written Policy – Whether parents prefer to take every precaution, or feel that they are unnecessary, most will certainly want to know how your classroom will be managed. Distributing and posting your policy on the matter will give them the information they need to decide, and they will thank you for it.
  • Clearly Define Your Mask Policy – Parents are making decisions on whether their children will continue to wear masks in public settings, and you don’t want to surprise them one way or the other. If you are not requiring masks outright, consider a mask optional policy. While it may muffle singing a bit, it puts the ultimate decision clearly in the hands of the parents.
  • Social Distancing – Children’s music classrooms are a very communal experience, often with activities such as circle time and close contact such as hand holding. Teachers should consider whether they are going to practice social distancing in their classroom, and clearly communicate the rules to both parents and students alike.
  • Vaccination Policy – In many early children’s music classes, especially with infants, the parents are often attending and personally involved. Therefore, a vaccination policy is important to communicate to parents whether you require adults to be vaccinated in your classroom or not.
  • Classroom Hygiene Procedures – Whether it’s Covid, the flu, or even a cold, it’s safe to assume that most all parents do not wish for their child to get sick. Not only does it mean suffering for their child, but also time that might have to be spent away from work, or potential to infect other family members. Clearly explaining your classroom cleaning process for parents, as well as offering sanitizing products around entrances and bathrooms help to offer greater peace of mind.
  • Sick Policy – We are all accustomed now to the question “have you felt sick or had a fever in the last two weeks?” Teachers understand how quickly a sickness can spread around a classroom of children, whether a simple cold or something worse. Clearly state your policy for participation if a child or parent is currently sick. With all of our newfound experience in remote learning technology, some teachers may even offer remote participation as an alternative for sick parents or children.

Children’s music studio owners and teachers understand that clearly communicating with your parents and students is important for the long-term success of your business. Whether its marketing or curricula, keeping parents in the know serves everyone. Clear communication is no different for returning to in-person learning. While you ultimately get to make your own decisions on the policies of your music studio, parents ultimately decide on what they deem in their children’s best interests. In the end, most all parents will appreciate you providing the information to make their own decisions about returning to the music classroom.