Children’s Songs and Games from Ecuador, Mexico, and Puerto Rico
Here’s a 1970 Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage CD (or download) that collects field recordings of children in Mexico, Puerto Rico and Ecuador playing and singing various games and songs. Some of the material will be familiar.
The music was collected and annotated by the late ethnomusicologist Henrietta Yurchenko, a “song-catcher,” scholar, and author of the biography Woody Guthrie: A Mighty Hard Road.
The Folkways collection costs $17 on CD or cassette but just $9 as a download. Click on the cover art for more information.
A DOE tool for reflecting on your music program
This is a 27-page pdf file of another colorful and beautifully-designed DOE document that teachers and administrators and others can use to reflect on the practice of teaching and learning music in their schools (click the picture to download it). This link is to the Music Reflection Tool for elementary schools, but there are equivalents for upper grades as well.
It’s organized into four areas:
- Organizational Practice: School Environment: including the school’s physical resources/space, staff/instructional time, teacher support, arts data use
- Instructional Practice: curriculum, teaching and learning
- Student Outcomes: student engagement, demonstrated arts skills, knowledge and understanding
- Arts & Cultural Service Providers: school’s use of in-school residencies, exhibitions and performances
The Music Reflection Tool is made available for your download and perusal from the Office of Arts & Special Projects webpages, where you can also download the Blueprint for Teaching & Learning in Music, and learn about upcoming professional development events.
NYC DOE Resources
Teaching of music in NYC schools is supported and directed citywide by the The Office of the Arts and Special Projects, in the Department of Education’s headquarters in Tweed Courthouse on Chambers Street. Dr. Barbara Murray is the Director of Music Education.
The Office of the Arts and Special Projects is set up to support and enhance instructional programs in art, music, dance and theater, in grades preK-12. Each school receives a budget line for arts education based on pupil enrollment. How these funds are spent is determined by the school’s principal, in accordance with established guidelines. During the reorganization of the Department of Education, budgeting is a far more transparent process than it was in the past, and a great deal of information about how schools spend money is available publicly, on-line.
The OASP site is an on-line source for several critically-important documents:
the curriculum guide Blueprint for Teaching and Learning in the Arts (it’s a PDF file, heavy in color and graphics: not practical for downloading and printing). Note: The Blueprint “strands” on Music Education are also available in a more practical poster format (available only by purchase; see below).
Getting the Blueprint:
the school’s principal can order it through FAMIS: E-Catalog:Internal Services. Use the following item numbers:
TLAR10032- Music Blueprint Book- $7
TLAR10033- Music Blueprint Poster- $3
Include specific contact information on the purchase order for the delivery of materials. The necessary funds should be scheduled in Object Code 0998.
The DOE’s brief Benchmarks for Music Learning can be examined online — a series of general statements that summarize expectations for children’s learning and abilities in grades 2, 5, 8 and 12.
In addition, the OASP page offers much valuable information on ArtsCount. This is the Department of Education’s program to ensure that arts education is not overlooked in the drive toward accountability in city schools (see post below). Components of this program include the Annual Arts in Schools Report, the Learning Environment Surveys, and Annual Compliance Review. Some of this information can be accessed on each school’s DOE-hosted website, if you click on the link to “Statistics” on the left column.
The OASP site offers links to many other valuable resources including grant sources and activities for students. The Keys to Achievement Grant offers 85% of the cost of an elaborate keyboard lab for elementary schools (click on the word “grant” to see the guidelines).
Learning Support Organizations
Each school is associated with one of the Learning Support Organizations (LSO). Music teachers should seek to contact the arts coordinator for their school’s LSO, and to be aware of any workshops or other LSO initiatives to promote arts education.
Purchasing for Schools
Public schools and principals have widely-varying budgets and priorities for spending on arts education. Children’s own voices, hands, and feet are the primary materials in early childhood music. If the school has no space devoted to music learning, it may not make sense to purchase a fleet of keyboards or a full collection of Orff instruments.
But if space and funds are available from year to year, each teacher needs to make choices between spending on a permanent collection of band or percussion instruments, or on concert tickets or visiting artists, or on instruments that the children can take home to learn on, such as soprano recorders.
FAMIS
FAMIS is the online purchasing system used by NYC Department of Education staff to purchase goods and services for their schools. It replaces an older, more awkward system called Fastrack and like Fastrack, it was designed mainly to provide streamlining and greater accountability. Choices are somewhat limited, and sometimes the
prices are actually higher than what you would pay for the same product from a mail-order supply catalog, or on a web-site.
The FAMIS system is not for teachers’ out-of-pocket spending, or for using Teachers Choice funds. However, FAMIS is useful when the school is the purchaser: a teacher can shop in the “E-Catalog” and then provide his or her supervisor with a list of FAMIS item numbers and quantities. The ordering is then done electronically.
Since FAMIS is designed for on-line purchasing, the web-site or “portal” is accessed by a user-ID and a password. Teachers (who will not be approving purchases or actually placing orders) can request access for Inquiry Only, which lets you research items and prices without actually completing a purchase order. To do so, fill out and submit a request for a FAMIS User-ID, signed by your supervisor.
You can also do limited searches in the FAMIS E-Catalog by clicking the icon on the left and then simply entering your Board of Education e-mail address (no User-ID or password).
Using FAMIS
At first, the E-Catalog is a little tricky to navigate. The best way to use it is if you already know what you need. Armed with a product description or brand name, a user can search among the several commodity categories: Textbooks, Computer Software, AudioVisual Media, or General Supplies.
Users can search through the items in the commodity by selecting among the options in a “dropdown” list that includes:
- Item number
- Description
- Vendor number
- Vendor name
- ISBN number (for books)
- Vendor Catalog number
- Manufacturer Name
- Manufacturer’s item number
- Brand / Model,
- Contract number.
After choosing one these descriptors, you type in the specification, and click on the Search button. For some examples see the post about “Finding Things on FAMIS.”
The DOE Office of Purchasing webpage hosts a well-made training module for first time FAMIS users.
Instruments
Please note: This section will be expanded to include elementary band instruments, guitars and other instruments. At the moment, it includes soprano recorders and keyboards.
Soprano recorders and keyboard labs are often the instrument of choice for teaching music literacy and performance in schools that do not provide a regular strings, band, or orchestra program. Below are some links to on-line resources for these instruments.
Keyboards:
Soundtree is a division of the Korg keyboard manufacturer that designs and supports keyboard labs for purchase by schools. The Soundtree website includes a collection of lesson plans which can be downloaded and used even if your school doesn’t purchase a lab.
Suzuki offers inexpensive keyboard labs. Their whole catalog is available online.
Soprano Recorder:
- Recorder Karate from MusicK8 is a popular teaching program, but most people rely on a mix of resources and materials.
- Do It! Play Recorder is a well-produced student book, with CD available (and extensive teachers’ edition) from GIA Publications.
- Various fingering charts are available: one British site has an interactive diagram some 3rd to 5th graders would find fun.
- Rockin’ Recorders, by teacher Kay Greenhaw, has transparencies you can print out and use in class.
- Recorder Homepage, by Nicholas Lander, is an enormous collection of resources.
- Dolmetsch Recorder pages are also enormous.
- Carnegie Hall offers two outreach programs, Music Explorers and LinkUp!, both of which involve whole class instruction in soprano recorder, and include a valuable prepared curriculum, and a culminating visit to Carnegie Hall.
Music Teachers Professional Development series
Collaborative Inquiry for Effective Music Teaching: Asking Questions and Finding Answers to Improve Student Achievement in Music
The 2009-10 school year once again offers a series of three professional development events for music teachers in New York City public schools. As with last year’s series, this must be paid for by the school at the pleasure of the principal, and participants must register on-line using the Pro-Traxx website, for which you’ll need to register, and then log in.
The cost of the series is $300 per participant for the full workshop series (3 days) to be paid by the school.
The workshops will take place at Long Island City High School in Queens on November 3, 2009, and Monday, February 1 and Thursday, June 10, 2010, from 8:30 AM — 3:00 PM.
This series of workshops proposes to “examine our strategies for teaching music and the results we subsequently get. Working in small collaborative groups based on level, specialty area, and experience, we will draw upon our own experiences and talents to determine lines of inquiry for teaching music and improving student mastery. Building on the assessment work we did last year, small cohorts will establish areas of inquiry or need, share what works, provide evidence of how they know it works, exchange strategies, and support each other to improve outcomes for all our students.”
Early Childhood Songs and Rhymes
Following are lyrics for many of the traditional standards for teaching music in early childhood:
Many thanks to the compiler, Walter Paul, who teaches music at P.S. 42 in Manhattan. He has provided brief a cappella MP3 files for melodies of any unfamiliar pieces, at http://drop.io/songsandrhymeslevel1
P-Credit course on Effective Teaching Strategies for New Teachers
Music teachers with less than three years of experience can register now for the P-Credit course Effective Teaching Strategies for the Beginning Core/Instrumental Music Specialist. This course will focus upon effective methods for maximizing teacher-student communication, classroom management, unit/lesson planning, selecting appropriate repertoire, creating adaptive musical arrangements, acquiring instructional resources, and developing supports for one’s program.
Course Name: Effective Teaching Strategies for the Beginning Core/Instrumental Music Specialist
Instructor: Barry Stern
Eligibility: This course is open to assigned teachers of core and/or instrumental music for grades 3 through 12 with less than three years of experience teaching music in the DOE.
Dates:
Week I: Monday, Tuesday & Thursday, October 5, 6, & 8,
Week II: Tuesday & Thursday, October 13 & 15,
Week III: Monday, Tuesday & Thursday, October 19, 20, & 22,
Week IV: Monday & Tuesday, October 26-27,
Time: All sessions will meet from 4:00-7:00 pm
Location: All sessions will take place at Louis D. Brandeis High School (145 West 84th Street, Manhattan)
Course Fee: $100 due at time of enrollment (This is a reduced fee due to a generous grant from the Shubert Foundation.)
To Register: Participants must register online at http://schools.nyc.gov/teachers/aspdp/ by Tuesday, September 29. The ASPDP course code is P1-261F09.
“P” In-Service courses for Music Teachers
The New York City After School Professional Development Program offers a selection of “P” In-Service courses that are designed to equip educators (teachers, secretaries, and other school-based personnel) with the skills and abilities to increase student achievement. Course offerings are high quality, low-cost alternatives to traditionally offered college courses. Available across all content areas, courses may be applied toward salary differential requirements and meet the New York State 175-hour Professional Development requirement. (ASPDP classes do not offer academic credits toward fulfillment of licensing requirements.)
Summer “P” course registration will begin on June 2nd after 4 PM. Mark your calendar for the Fall 2009 registration which begins on August 4th after 4 PM. Fall courses begin meeting on Sept 21st. Visit the ASPDP website to view the catalog of courses. For additional information contact Helaine Schwartz, Director at 718-935-5753 or via e-mail at aspdp@schools.nyc.gov
Past offerings that may be of interest to music teachers included Using the Recorder in the Classroom, Composing with Garage Band, Technology Through Music and Other Arts, and The American Musicals Project – History, & Literature through the Arts.
(Click on the last title to see a description of the course.)
Rhymes, Chants, & Folk Songs from Mexico
El Patio de Mi Casa: 41 Rhymes, Chants & Folk Songs from Mexico is a new collection published by GIA Publications. Gabriela Montoya-Stier has collected, translated, analyzed each piece with game directions, teaching suggestions and cultural background information. An accompanying CD is available for an additional $15.
