Classical Music

There were days in my classrooms when learning wasn’t happening. I knew it wasn’t. More importantly, so did my students. I felt I was doing them a disservice. They arrived at school ready for a day of engagement, and things weren’t going well.

Identifying those instances became, after a time, second nature.

Nailing a particular instance where it went wrong wasn’t hard. Most often, it was a difficult math concept. If anything is designed to dull the learning sensation, it is math. It is such a concrete area in its early stages. Once it reaches abstract levels, math becomes a bewildering array of symbols, signs and shapes.

Students who missed a crucial concept earlier in the math journey faced problems later. That concept could be something we adults take for granted. The idea of odd and even numbers is one.

Without that little nugget, a raft of further concepts remains out of reach. Things like skip counting by twos, divisibility rules, prime numbers, doubling and halving grow from odd/even understanding.

Music became an integral part of relieving math anxiety. Quiet background music played while I taught the complex concepts. The music had the effect of calming the anxious brains. It levelled the range of abilities in the room.

That’s another cause for anxiety among learners. There will always be a range of learning abilities in any classroom. Some students get it the first time, and some struggle each time the concept is re-visited.

If you’d like a music playlist for home use, message me in the comments box. Spoiler alert: it’s classical music. That’s important.