Part+4+Taking+the+Next+Step

=TAKING THE NEXT STEP  = The students are sitting at their desks. Their eyes are closed; they are totally absorbed in the music coming from the radio. As Ms. Thomas explained to them, they are listening to the music played performed by jazz trumpeter Terrence Blanchard. The music seems to fill the room and as I can tell by the looks on the faces of students, it fills their minds as well. I can't say with certainty what they are thinking about, but I can infer what they are not thinking about. They are not thinking about the toys with which they are going to play during recess, they are not thinking of what they going to have for lunch. The noise coming from the street doesn't attract their attention and even if they wanted to strike up a conversation with one of their classmates, there isn't anyone willing to break the silence. They do have an assignment though. Surprisingly, they are not analyzing musical forms or types of instrumentation. They are not looking for dynamics or tempo variations, even though they are in the process of experiencing them. Their teacher is she doesn't teach music even though she most certainly could. When I finally glance at the board, I see:


 * Aim:** Message in the Music
 * Introduction:** Listening to music performed by jazz artist Terrance Blanchard, we focus on fractional numbers.
 * Task:** Write about and illustrate the types of fractions that come to your mind

Yes indeed, I am watching a math lesson. I began to think of how many of my colleagues, who consider themselves to be progressive educators would shy away from this kind of activity thinking it was just a frivolous exercise or even a waste of time. Most researchers, as it was mentioned before, agree that music belongs in the classroom not just because we are biologically conditioned to process and appreciate this form of art. According to Kelstrom (1998) "Studying music has been known to help students learn math formulas and multiplication tables" (p.3). For the skeptics - who might say that using music to teach math is just a new fad, I would like to quote Olhaver (1998) who points out that, "As far back as Plato, music was said to be a more potent instrument than any other for education”. As I sifted through the students' work I encountered some concrete examples of learning that took place during "Message in the Music." As one girl wrote: The kind of fractions that come to my mind is 1/3 or 2/3 because I am counting the instruments in my head and I'm writing them as fractions. So that's the kind of fractions that came to my mind. Other students were more specific. One wrote, “[my] the numerator is the times the trumpet music was high [in pitch]" another was more speculative: "I picked these numbers because I think that this is how many players are helping Terrence Blanchard". Another student build his "lucky" as he called fractions from numbers 1,2,3,4,5 and 6 with a bit less logical explanation "because I dream about it all the time ". Yet another boy arrived at 1/13 because he envisioned "12 saxophones and one guitar”. I was interested to know to what degree "Message in the Music" represents a typical math instruction in room 303 so I looked around for other evidence of that type of activity. I came across this page which was proudly displayed on the wall outside of the classroom:

//The Message in Music Today’s composer is Johann Sebastian Bach The numbers that come to my mind are 9 and 10. I can do magic squares.//

//0 4 4 = 8.....0 5 4 = 9 5 2 1 = 8 .....0 6 3 = 9 3 4 1 = 8.....9 0 0 = 9//

//This is what I can do with those numbers.//