Reflections on My Kindermusik Year

Just like many of you, I am now beginning to reflect on this year in Kindermusik. I am reflecting on what kind of person and teacher I was before the year started, and I am reflecting on what kind of person and teacher I am now. A Chinese proverb comes to mind: “Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand.”

What I have come to love about Kindermusik is that now, at the end of the year, as I look into your faces and I look into the faces of your children, I know deep down that what you all take with you as you continue on is something that you’ll never forget. It comes from the foundation of how we teach: through play. Every day we get to play with our children, and in the classroom, I know that as a teacher, it is my goal to help you as caregivers and teachers of your children, to show you what you already do so well, and build on it even more. Take for example:

-          A richer vocabulary
-          Better verbalization
-          Higher language level
-          Better problem-solving strategies
-          More curiosity
-          Better peer cooperation
-          Higher mathematics skills
-          Empathy
-          Prediction of other’s preferences and desires
-          Control of impulsive actions
-          Increased motor control

These are all examples of skills we want our children to learn so they can have everything they need to be happy and healthy. Now pick two or three of these things. Think of an example from this past year in Kindermusik where you saw these skills emerge while you were playing and singing and dancing with the children. Reflect on what happened, what you were doing, what kind of play it was, what the children said, what you said, where you were, etc. What did you notice? What do you notice now that you didn’t notice then? Sometimes when we play with children or see children playing together, we don’t always make the connection that their play is helping them learn important skills, but it happens every day.

Learning happens in many different forms. When we get older, there is more time spent on formal and structured learning. We sit down in a desk, we learn from books, and lectures, and so on. However, to truly learn and absorb a concept, there must be structure and chaos. Everything that we learn during structured parts of our day is processed and absorbed into our long-term memory during the unstructured and more chaotic times. We see this every day. A dance with specific steps to follow on the beat is an example of structured learning. Open music play during a steady beat is an example of a more free and open learning. Both are equally essential for learning experiences to happen.

This is why play is so essential to learning and is the foundation of everything we teach. But I am hardly the first to think so. In the 1970s, Israeli psychologist Sara Smilansky conducted research on the role of dramatic and sociodramatic play (dramatic play with others) in cognitive and socio-emotional development. These long-term studies were among the first of many that link children’s ability to engage in dramatic and sociodramatic play to their later academic success.

For example, I was not alive during the Civil War. I know, big surprise. But I am a huge history buff. I can vividly recall most everything I learned in a history or literature class. Problem solving in schools requires a great deal of make-believe. We have to imagine conceptual constructs all the time. Imagining a story and writing it down, solving arithmetic problems, finding a variable in calculus, determining what will come next are all things that require an imagination and a sense of make-believe.

There are many things in education we learn about that we never directly experience, like my anecdote about the Civil War.  Having this ability to make these constructs and imagine these concepts is a learned skill. It emerges in play. That is why children with a strong foundation in play so very clearly have the skills they need to be successful in their education, and can confidently make their own choices.

As I look back over the year, I think about everything we have learned. Each concept in we address in class, all the songs we’ve learned and skills we’ve seen our children develop, and I see that at the heart of all of it, is play. Education should always be this fun I think. In my book, school should never be boring, and play should always be at the heart of everything we do with our children.

-posted by Teacher Aaron, who leaves you with a quote from Ignacio Estrada: “If a child cannot learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn.”