Music education for beginer

Resources and Tips for Music Teachers With Special Learners

Music lovers and enthusiasts have all the rights to learn their chosen musical instrument despite of their impairment, as long as such will not completely forbid them to play such. Various tips and instructional guides are available on the internet and some libraries that will give music teachers the resources to be effective in handling special learners.

Let us say in the case of Andrea Boccelli, a great tenor and musician who was diagnosed with glaucoma and lost his sight at an early age of fourteen; if not for his music teacher, we might not hear his tranquil and heart warming voice. More so, he reached success in music because he had such self-motivation and certain love for music. And these had made it all possible.

Generally speaking, special learners are regarded as those students, who either have cognitive, physical, mental or social abilities and disabilities. These groups of special individuals are faced with different learning challenges. However, through the professional assistance of music teachers and enthusiasts as well as effective and efficient music teachers’ resources, they are able to comprehend, adopt and adjust to such learning situations. Also, acquisition of skills and knowledge has been possible through these resources for music teachers.

Great examples of music teachers’ resources are those from the Internet such as tips and inputs from various music teacher sites, personal experiences of the music lovers and experts themselves, other extensive techniques and methods of music teachers, and some findings from different music researches. When music teachers are in need of such reliable and effective resources, they may adopt any of those mentioned sources and make each a part of their music teaching strategies.

Music teachers’ resources truly come in variation. You may actually choose from different available resources nowadays. However, you have to bear in mind that it takes a lot of analysis and discernment to find out which among those resources would be appropriate and effective for each special learner. Remember that as a music teacher, your role does not end in mere teaching music but most of all, in making them discover their talents and feel that they are treated as typical and average students.

Though it may be quite difficult to deal with special learners, music teachers will then feel and realize that teaching them can be very rewarding. Your time, efforts and hard works will soon pay off especially if you have seen your learners succeed and unleash their music talents and inclinations.

Furthermore, when these special learners tend to appreciate their music teachers, have made them their real mentors, and have considered them as their source of motivation and inspiration, these music educators can proudly say that being one has been a blessing, thus gives them such feelings of fulfillment and self-worth.

Creative Music Teachers Resources: Effective Ways to Motivation

Most music teachers consider teaching music to their dear students both their profession and passion. Most of them have the heart for arts and music – making each student love learning music and music as a whole. With this kind of outlook and disposition in teaching music, the inspired and motivated music teacher tends to begin his search for consistent improvement in his teaching strategies as well as his effort for personal and professional growth.

Indeed, there is a wide variety of creative music teachers resources that students can certainly enjoy and get excited working on with. According to studies, the integration of audio and video recording in music education has been an effective technique to catch the attention and grab the interest of the learners. This is believed to be an effective tool in raising the level of interest and motivation among music learners.

Current practice in music teaching favors a practical and a hands-on approach in emphasizing performance and composition. The use of recorded music as a teaching resource has tended to take a back seat. However, recordings are the predominant vehicle of musical experience today. As the students are expert listeners to recorded sound, major developments in the access to and presentation of recorded music are opening up new educational possibilities to most of them.

Targeted to be implemented in most music classrooms, the production and engineering aspects of recorded sound to online music libraries and teachers’ experiences of using recordings in the classroom have been randomly practiced and taken into consideration.

When a classroom setting has a relaxed atmosphere, informal learning may take place yet anxiety, tension and pressure would neither rule the learning situation. Hence, when there is relaxed supervision with no teachers behind the desk, the students would be more eager and interested to learn music. Students may also work in groups – giving them more chances of friendship and peer support. In this case, cooperative learning is found effective. The music teacher may encourage the students choose various musical instruments of their choice and eventually master such.

After they finish recording, they may organize or set-up a short play or a mini-concert to show their rendition of songs and other performances. These activities can heighten the learning process as they get too excited in meeting their objectives and getting high grades. These can also help them boost enough self-confidence and self-esteem. Through these music teachers’ resources, the music teacher tends to meet most of his objectives all at the same time.

These creative techniques in music education intend to motivate the learners from different ages and with different lifestyles. So start your quest to amazingly creative music teachers resources now. Be inspired to share your knowledge as well as the joys of music to your students. Make them realize that learning music is fun so they have to do it all by heart. Happy teaching!

How teachers can use art and music education to help children heal from trauma and crisis

Music and arts education are valuable components of academic instruction. And they become even more valuable when they are used towards the resolution of crisis situations that affect and traumatized children around the globe. Creative expression has both educational and psychological significance for children that have suffered natural disasters, wars, and violent acts, serving as a way through which people of diverse cultures can interact and unite in their shared humanity.

Teachers use art and music to cultivate communication, social abilities and cognitive emotions to increase cooperation, self-confidence and self-esteem. Through the creation of singing, moving, and listening stimulus to music, a broad range of emotional, cognitive and physical abilities of children are brought out and help them to learn new skills.

Creative therapy can be expressed in a variety of forms including music and movement therapy, writing techniques and play therapies. Aiming to provide children with a means of expression that can help them express their emotions about their individual experiences while using their imagination and the creativity of the therapist, creative therapy offers a sense of accomplishment.

Music and movement therapies have a therapeutic effect on children. By addressing physical, psychological, cognitive and/or social functioning, music and movement act as a powerful medium that provides support and encouragement to each traumatized child in the effort to acquire new skills and abilities. Movement therapies transform feelings into movement that helps children release their stress and express their emotions. On the other hand, music, because of its ability to touch each person in a different way and often in many different ways, creates the grounds for new learning opportunities and most importantly, for leading a normal life.

Writing techniques have been researched widely regarding their physical and emotional benefits. They can be used as a means for stress relief because children can write down anything they think about or focus on unresolved feelings that have been created as a result of a traumatic experience.

Play therapies use the imagination of children as a means to communicate with them.

Psychologists suggest that children who experience a major traumatic event before the age of 11 are three times more likely to develop psychological symptoms that those children who experience their first traumatic event as teenagers or even at a later age. However, children’s ability to deal with their trauma is highly subject to the reaction of their parents or their care-takers, but also to the method used to overcome the trauma.

Unfortunately, there are numerous examples of children that have suffered traumatic events around the world over the past five years. A typical example of how arts are implemented to help them overcome their feelings of distress and anxiety is a study on the young victims of Hurricane Katrina. Children were gathered under large white tents to feel protected and taken care of and were asked by art therapists to draw their houses. What art therapists saw in almost all their drawings was that the place of safety in the drawing was not the house, but the roof. Besides, the children’s drawings included dead birds, snakes, alligators, helicopters and rescue boats, depicting quite accurate the magnitude of the disaster and their feelings of despair.

Focusing on the long-lasting effects of Hurricane Katrina on those children that included anxiety, learning difficulties or even suicidal impulses, psychologists concluded that only art could improve the children’s psychological and mental condition. Several months later, the art therapists returned to New Orleans to check on the children and their families. Children were asked to draw and express their feelings again. This time, most children drew scary water lines, which made the art therapists conclude that the trauma had not end with the Hurricane Katrina. Children were still afraid of water.

Similar examples are derived from the children of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Iran, and many other areas on the planet. The children’s participation in arts and music strengthens their identity and creates strong bonds within their communities. Using music and performing arts helps refugee children to integrate with the local community, while teachers address the need for social connection. In doing so, children are effectively assimilated into the education system, building relationships and gaining trust, while enhancing their self-esteem, confidence, and language skills.

The use of music and arts to the healing of traumatized children is not an easy task. It requires high competence in the knowledge and skills of teachers who need to be prepared to meet the diverse needs of each child. Besides, to educate children with arts and music and help them overcome their traumas, teachers need to have professional responsibilities and the ability to communicate knowledge and skills.

After having suffered extreme situations of crisis and having experienced severe traumas, children need a positive impact on their life. This motivation can only be driven through teamwork, appreciation for other cultures and community awareness. Interactive performance programs as well as strategic partnerships with arts-based and community-based organizations can offer those children education, personal development and community involvement. And all these attributes can be found in the creativity and self-expression provided in arts and music education.