Why?!?!?

[>BKA< T Wrecks]

Hmmm, yeah... "We Will Rock You" is really great or football stadiums, but beyond... oh well. Anyway, an ad with this song is still cooler than Britney Spears covering "I love Rock'n'Roll" (as if!!!).
And for school - man, and Matrix and LOTR music! Wow, that's really cool, I wish we had had stuff like that in our music classes...
How about "The Wall"? There's a children's choir in it anyway...

[stefanhendriks]

I used some sort of experience driven , erm, how to call it... well lets say we where going to paint music. So, when you hear music, you have some kind of image with it. I want to talk about this with children, let them experience it.

Its quite cool to hear what kids say about it. Some find it exiting, some find it scary.

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

Matrix songs ?
Rage Against The Machine or Marylin Manson ?
do your kids really scream out: WAAAAAKE UUUUUUP???

[>BKA< T Wrecks]

Originally Posted by stefanhendriks

I used some sort of experience driven , erm, how to call it... well lets say we where going to paint music. So, when you hear music, you have some kind of image with it. I want to talk about this with children, let them experience it.

This sounds really interesting - I think it's a good way to make children experience both the power and the value music can have. Because if you can really experience music (instead of just having it as background filler, like most ppl do) I guess it can be a bit like a good book: You don't just consume something, but you do something with it. Your brain does something with it. The music triggers off your imagination, your feelings, your fears... and you will find parts of yourself being reflected in the music - and what reflects (or if anything reflects at all) depends on each individual person. No bullshit, I think teaching children this experience is so important! Many things are nice to know, but this is really the core, the heart of what music is about. And if you don't stick to any standardized repertoire (which is often there because some so-called experts made a one-sided decision on what's important and what not), you will encourage them to go and look for interesting music...

[stefanhendriks]

yes, it is quite interresting to see what children draw and how they feel about music. I mostly try to have lots of interaction in my lessons. I try to get their 'world' pictured in my mind, so i know what their interests are, and when i know them i will use them to form my lesson. Like, with maths, you can make it plain and boring. But when a lot of kids like to play with flippo's or whatever, you can do that famous 24 game and also start making sums with that...

[>BKA< T Wrecks]

Uhm... tell me, what are flippos? And what's that "famous 24 game"?
Be my teacher...

[@$3.1415rin]

hey stefan, could you maybe extend that methods to some other areas like university ? the math lectures need sometimes something like this I guess

[stefanhendriks]

@ Asp, this is one of the most common known ways. All your teachers should atleast know who Piaget is! And atleast know how to make their lessons interesting... ask some. When they dont know how to tell the pedagogic sides of a lessons and how to get students/kids envolved and actually get them thinking , well, then its a bad case!

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

I agree with Stefan. Unfortunately very few of the teachers I had actually did anything positive regarding my will, as a kid, to learn everything. Most of them were still in the old "pupils MUST make efforts to learn" shape of mind. I think I learned much more by myself by reading books and stuff here and there that I ever learned at school (I was a freaking HORRIBLE pupil, counted more than 300 hours absence during my last year in school the 300 hours milestone was a bet, and I won it )

I hope something good happens to that old education microcosm before society beaks apart 9_9

[stefanhendriks]

I always wondered at school if the teachers where really interested in the lessons they gave. Like, they just grabbed book nr A, lesson B and said thats it. Okay, sometimes they explain it, but then again i think, why do they do it like that? Show me practical stuff, make it FUN for me and interesting.

As for coding, i totally learned it myself, i grabbed a book and with pure interest i learned to code. When i am not interested or not in the mood, i wont do it.

Although 'not in the mood' is not 'doable' at a school (well, there is ONE school who lets kids almost 100% free in what they want to learn) , i do think you have to motivate kids and make your lessons attractive. Even some boring stuff should be made interesting.... although that is NOT easy.