Last night I started thinking about an idea my old sixth grade music teacher had (for non Americans, sixth graders are eleven and twelve). She had an unusual idea for taking attendance, which was that she’d call out a name, then sing “good morning, good morning, good morning to you”, then the kid that was called on was to sing “good morning Miss Lastname* hello how are you.” The process would repeat untill she’d sang to each kid, and they’d sang back to her.
Of course, none of us wanted to sing in front of the whole class, so we all thought this was a terrible idea. We talked to our classroom teachers about it, and they, along with some parents got the administration to talk to the teacher. In the end, we all got to sing the greeting as a group instead of individually.
On one hand, I wonder why she would have wanted to waste teaching time going through that greeting 25+ times. She also had to know it was going to be a struggle to get a bunch of eleven year olds to open themselves up for teasing like that. This was a required class for the whole grade, so it’s also not like she was dealing with a group of vocally talented kids.
On the other hand, everyone had to participate in gym, do problems at the board and read out loud on occasion whether we were good at it or not. It could have been a useful exercise, and at this point, I’m leaning toward thinking that they shouldn’t have bailed us out, although I was really glad at the time. Of course it doesn’t matter now, and I’d forgotten about it for years, but I’m wondering what other people think.
It sounds like a waste of time to me. She should use that time to do something a little more useful, like teaching how to read music. Practicing a sport or a math problem can make you better at those things, but if you have a tin ear, nothing’s going to help you sing better.
Good lord, I got an anxiety attack just reading about this. I can’t sing at all. Having to sing in front of class would have put me in an early grave.
My own anxiety aside, I see your point about how students have to do all sorts of things in front of the class, like reading aloud or doing math problems at the chalkboard. In theory, singing is not any different, but it seems like an incredible waste of time to sing that greeting to every student and then have them sing back. So I guess my answer is okay in terms of philosophy, pretty dumb in terms of methodology.
My 6th grade music teacher NEVER had us sing in front of the entire class.
Apparently in his day, he was made to sing in front of everyone… right around the time his voice had started to change. Must have scarred him as this was his reasoning for not making us get up there in front of our peers; besides that, it would be embarrassing!
I tried to kill my music teacher in fifth grade, so making me sing, or having to listen to lil’ bastards sing over and over, would probably make me all the more malicious.
Was in this in the 50s? 60s? 70s? It just sounds so…old fashioned. I’m glad I never had a teacher do that.
I teach sixth grade and I used to check roll by using the seating chart. It was quick and efficient.
Now, I have to take roll on the computer, over the internet. (Teaching nowadays has some pretty funny, albeit amazing, ways of doing old tricks.) I call the kids’ names out one at a time. They are to answer “here” loud enough for me to hear. No joking around is allowed (if a kid is kidnapped on the way to school and I don’t report the absence, my ass is grass).
Brief related hijack: I’m amazed at how my kids will sing in front of the class. I play guitar and sing goofy songs with them. I understand that they’ll sing in the group. But many of them will sing popular songs, alone or in small groups. We do little plays that we perform for the parents, and I never have problems getting a kid to sing for that.
I’d also like to add that I would refuse on the grounds that for me to sing outloud (instead of just along with the radio or whatever) would violate the Geneva Convention.
How about one year in elementary school whenever we were being too loud, our teacher had us stand on our desks with our hands on our heads?? No work got done, we just stood there until she let individual rows, and eventually the whole class, retake their seats. :rolleyes: What’s messed up is I trusted her authority enough that I assumed this was acceptable and never real said much about it to my parents.
It was in the mid 90s, but she was an older woman, so maybe she did it as a kid or something. The teacher only stayed at the school for a year, so I’m not sure if she ever tried it again or not. I think it could have worked if she’d let one or two people sing per day in private or something. I do wonder what reason she had for wanting doing it though. We might have improved our singing with voice lessons, but planning to waste half of the class time making everyone sing a greeting just for the heck of it was over the top.
gigi, some teachers had everyone put their heads down on the desk, but making people stand on top of them? Strange. I think most people end up looking back on some things in their past and wondering what on earth the people in charge were thinking.
I’d say there’s a reasonable rationale in warming up the voice before singing. This is one, clearly not the only, way to do it. It would also give her a chance to associate a voice, not just a face, with a name. If she were dealing with students who were there voluntarily, I’m guessing it would not have been an issue.
Was she European, by any chance? When I attended school in Spain, they had no compunctions about making people get up in front of the class and do stuff, even if they weren’t good at it. It was just accepted. There was none of this concern about poor little Johnnie’s self esteem.
I would be in the “get over yourselves” camp on this one. On the other hand, I would also be pretty zero tolerance about kids who made fun of their classmates’ singing.
I’m in the waste-of-time category. Although, my first thought was did she teach the kids to sing?. To make kids sing without actually teaching them to sing is an even greater offense, IMO.
Kids have enough to be embarrassed about, why add a new element for exploitation or abuse. Besides, I really don’t see how making kids do stuff in front of the class is accomplishing anything, unless it is specifically a performance art being learned. I never learned a think from watching classmates write answers on the board; time would have been better spent with real teaching.
I don’t really see the point either. But I do have to ask, did anyone come back with the Beatles instead of her name? Because that’s the kind of thing I would’ve done if I knew enough of the Beatles at that age.
