FINAL Lesson Plan-Integrating Music into Reading-VIDEO

My video can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdYLGp0lE_w
Enjoy!

Final Presentation Proposal

For my final presentation, I am going to do a lesson plan about integrating music into a reading lesson.  This will be done by creating a summary song over a book that was read.

Controversial Issue-Should teachers be paid based on student performance?

I do not think teachers should be paid based on student performance.  This is because you could have the best teacher out there, but there may still be students who don’t care about school and don’t care to work too hard.  The bad grades they receive for not trying should not reflect the teacher’s performance.  A student is going to work however hard he or she wants to work.  An effective teacher does whatever he or she can do to help a student out.  They listen to their students and take the time to help students understand whatever it is that they are working on.  This all leads back to however hard the student is willing to work is what they are going to get out of their education.

Controversial Issue-Teacher Unions & Tenure

Teacher Unions are there to help protect teachers rights and legal protections and all that good stuff.  I think teacher unions are very important, especially in this day of age.  Tenure, on the other hand, is that a teacher can be fired from a job within the first 3 years of teaching, but after that, can only be fired if there is a major issue and a legit reason.  This may be okay, but what happens when there are teachers that may not be doing their jobs too well, but there is not a major reason to fire them?  This could definitely make conflicts arise.  So with tenure, there may need to be some reforms.

Controversial Issue-School & extra-curriculars

Sometimes it seems hard to balance extra-curricular activities and school in a Sports-Driven society.  It is hard when every coach is saying that whatever it is they are doing should come first.  I think that teachers and coaches of extra-curricular activities need to get together more to discuss what should really come first, and that is school.  I do like that at schools, if a student is failing a class, he or she is unable to participate in their extra-curricular activities until they are passing again.  I still do not like that coaches seem to want their activity to be first in a student's life because this just seems to wear students out.  In the elementary classroom, I feel as though it is a little easier to balance these two things because there are not as many extra-curricular activities available to younger students.  If we, as teachers, let our students know at a young age how important work is, it may help them learn to stay on task and get their work done before participating in extra-curricular activities and this could help them in the long run.

Introducing new instruments

Some instruments are easier to learn and play than others.  Some instruments are going to take some time to learn.  It would be developmentally appropriate to introduce the rhythm sticks and the cymbals early on in a child's life.  You could give a child these instruments at a very early age even before they understand what a beat is and how to keep a steady one.  They can just play around with these instruments to get a feel for music although they don't truly understand music.  When they go to school, they would know what a beat is and they could use these instruments to keep beats.  A kazoo is also a simple instrument that could be used early on.  To play a kazoo, one must hum into the instrument rather than just blow to make noise.  This would not be too hard to teach children in the younger grades because they would get the hang of it pretty quickly and could add vibrations to music.  The recorder and the xylophone are two instruments that I would wait to introduce to students until they are in the fourth grade or so.  I think this would be an appropriate age because at this age, children should know more about music and know what the notes are.  They should be able to read music and play songs at this point in time.

Carl Orff

Carl Orff's philosophy is about integrating music into the classroom as much as possible every day.  Many instruments are used and children's natural play is greatly encouraged.  A lot of times in a Carl Orff classroom, children are asked to create their own rhythms, songs, or use instruments to represent different characters from stories.  Children nowadays love to express themselves in their own ways, which is why allowing children to create new and exciting aspects to lessons is a great way to make them excited about school!  Children learn their normal lesson, learn more about music concepts, and have a great time learning when the Carl Orff approach is used.