The Teach Out Proposal

 Text Selection

The texts that have stayed with me the most have been Lisa Delpit's "Cultural Conflict in the Classroom" and Richard Rodriquez's "Aria". I appreciated the acknowledgement of real world realities instead of  being hyper focused on a fictional world view that doesn't exist. Yes, it would be great if every student's culture and language was of equal value in the world we live and work in, but the reality is that every country has it's dominant culture, standards and codes. As Rodriquez learned, his success was dependent on his ability to assimilate into that dominant culture.

Sharing

I teach at a charter school that pulls people from all over Rhode Island. We have students from Providence, South and North Kingstown, Coventry and others. A big focus of mine, as a music teacher, is to create a community feeling for all students, regardless of how far away they have come from. Some students are with us from Kindergarten, others transfer at higher grade levels, but I always want students to feel welcomed and valued in our community. I was the 4th music teacher here in 4 years, and I realized that I needed to establish MY dominant culture and expectations when I started. The students and I had very different ideas about what was appropriate in the classroom. With these ideas in mind, I would like to create a Teach Out proposal for elementary students to learn about classroom expectations and codes, specifically music class codes. 

Format

I would like this activity to be a small group discussion/art project/roleplay scenario. I have an idea in mind that I would create some fictional pirates that are used to different behaviors and language. Those behaviors are fine when they are on their pirate ship, but we have to teach them the rules for music class so they can learn, so they don't disrupt other students learning and so we can have an enjoyable learning community. I'd like to have these pirates also teach us a pirate song so we can learn about their culture, even as we teach the pirates about our music class culture. The Wellerman is a popular sea shanty, and this video shows the singer using his guitar as a drum (which is NOT allowed in class, and a great way to talk about different behaviors in different spaces.)