A Classical Subject

Music might cause you all sorts of jitters when you think about unleashing it in your classroom. We get emotional about it because it is an art form. You may have students who don’t get emotional about it. They save their emotions for the math lesson. Or the writing task.

Wherever those emotions are present, they can either block or enhance learning. A student anxious about math is almost guaranteed to perform below a student who isn’t. Similarly, a teacher worried about presenting music in the classroom will find ways to avoid it, mainly when a syllabus uses terms like rhythm, pitch, dynamics and expression, form and structure, timbre, and texture.

The first two? Got it. But the others? We don’t know what we don’t know, right? Sure, the internet is full of explainers. But how do you present them meaningfully to a group of students?

The answer lies in engagement with classical music. Listen to Canon in D by Pachelbel. You’ll find each of the above concepts in that one piece of music. Let it play underneath your next math lesson. Let classical music play in the background while your students undertake their next writing task.