The Extraordinary Educators Podcast
Best practices, tips, and stories to help you be extraordinary in your classroom and beyond, featuring Curriculum Associates' Director of the Educator Community Sari Laberis.
The Extraordinary Educators Podcast
Harmonizing the Classroom: The Power of Music in Education with Julene Jessel
What if you could transform your classroom into a harmonious sanctuary with just the power of music? Join us on this episode of the Extraordinary Educators podcast as we welcome the inspiring Julene Jessel, an Education Technology Fellow and former educator, who passionately shares her insights on weaving music into the fabric of daily classroom routines. Julene reveals how music not only helps students manage their emotions but also fosters a sense of community, ensuring they leave school with a smile. From calming tunes to energizing morning affirmations with Snoop Dogg's children's music, Julene offers practical strategies to craft a positive and tranquil learning environment. She enriches our discussion with valuable tips on how music can inspire innovative educational practices. This conversation serves as a guide for educators eager to integrate music into their teaching methods.
Read Julene's blog: CurriculumAssociates.com/blog/music-in-the-classroom
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Have feedback, questions, or want to be a guest? Email ExtraordinaryEducators@cainc.com to connect with us!
Hey everyone, Welcome back to the Extraordinary Educators podcast. I'm Sari, and this week I am joined by my amazing colleague, Jolene Jessel, who is an Education Technology Fellow at Curriculum Associates and a former educator, and she is very passionate about bringing music to your classroom, no matter what age students you teach. Figuring out ways to incorporate this is really fascinating to think about in terms of how it can shift the mood in your classroom, how it can establish your classroom culture and some other best practices that Jolene learned along the way. So I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did. Here is my conversation with Jolene. Welcome, Jolene. Thank you so much for being on the podcast today.
Speaker 2:We are pumped to talk to you. Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here so for our listeners.
Speaker 1:Julene recently wrote a blog about incorporating music into the classroom, which we will link in the show notes, but just wanted to ask you, kind of, as we think about heading into winter and then the start of the new year, what's on your mind in terms of educators incorporating music into the classroom.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2:So I feel like as somebody that's taught, especially taught the lower grades I taught kindergarten and first grade Music is such an important part of not only academic learning in the classroom, but something that has really been on my mind is kind of the overall classroom culture.
Speaker 2:As humans, when we're having kind of a stressful day or feeling a little bit overwhelmed, something that we might do is put on some kind of like calming music or a relaxing playlist or something like that. So that's exactly what they need too. So something that you'll kind of see in the classroom right now is students that really need a little bit of help regulating their emotions. So something that I really brought in with my love and my passion for music is bringing calming music into the classroom to kind of regulate students' emotions. And then what that did was, overall, the classroom culture and the classroom community was very calm and at ease and it was very positive. So that's something that I not only is on my mind now. Being outside of the classroom, but being in the classroom too was such an important part of our day to day routine.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for sharing that. I think it's it could be overwhelming to think about. Where do I begin with this? But just just breaking it down in that sense. So can you talk about a little bit? What do you mean by incorporating it into, like the day-to-day routine? Like, at what points in the day were you playing music? How did you pick the music logistically? Did you have a speaker? Like how did this all actually come to fruition?
Speaker 2:That's a great question. I feel like that's good to kind of think about, like the time of day and then the different types of music per time of day that we had in the classroom, so something that my students really, really loved when I was teaching kindergarten actually first grade and kindergarten we had a different morning song. So we had in kindergarten I don't know if you've heard, but Snoop Dogg actually has his own line of children's music and so one of the songs that he has is morning affirmations and the song itself. It's not too busy or too crazy, but it has a good energy, a good beat to it. It's a good way to kind of start the morning and it goes through all these different affirmations for kids to say like um, you know, I'm amazing, my family loves me, my teacher loves me, we're gonna have the best day ever, all of those little things, um, and so he kind of says it and then the students all repeat it back, starting that. You know, when I first started teaching, I was like am I gonna do this every morning? Is that gonna be something we do every single morning? Are they gonna get tired of it? No, they didn't. They loved it. So every morning we started with kind of a good energy and upbeat song, but also, you know, you never want to start with something too busy and exciting because then that kind of gets all their emotions up and everything. So that was a really good start to our morning. Every morning we did that Then in terms of kind of calming down music whenever we transition between things.
Speaker 2:So I think a lot of teachers use transitions like maybe a little chance, like one, two, three, all eyes on me, one, two, eyes on you, that kind of stuff. What I did is I just tried to throw a little music into that and I found that it worked even better. So instead of like yelling out one, two, three, all eyes on me, and getting the whole class like yelling and kind of amped up, if I would just kind of at a really low volume, sing something, even singing one, two, three, all eyes on me, or just singing like I see so and so looking at me, or something like that, I see so and so listening to me, but quietly, because then everyone's like wait, what is she? What is she doing? Is she singing? And then the whole classroom kind of quiets down, the whole tone and just the energy of the classroom is a lot calmer.
Speaker 2:So I feel like transitions are a really great spot for that kind of like calm down music and then also at the end of the day which I guess this is kind of okay for them to be a little bit more excited. But we would always do some kind of really fun goodbye song. Pretty much the same goodbye song every afternoon, but that was also. It ended the day on a really good note because, you know, so many things happen throughout the day, there's so many inner dynamics with students and all of that. But when they all sing the same thing and with a smile on their face at the end of the day, right before they walk outside and they go to their parents, something about that, they just all are in a good mood. Whatever happened, they're like oh, it's OK, we all had a good song at the end of the day because you want them to leave school, like wanting to come back, and so I feel like that's what music did for sure.
Speaker 1:That is so helpful. Thank you for providing all of that. I I also liked to use music or songs during transitions, because those parts of the day can be so chaotic and get. I feel like I could get overstimulated with, like, yeah, the chairs the script, so, just like, skip counting singing. I love how you talked about the volume of your voice, like just because you're singing doesn't need to be super loud, or or yeah, you can, you can kind of experiment with that as well. So really appreciate you sharing all those strategies. I guess, if someone feels and I think I know what you're going to say here, but just to name it if someone feels like they're not musically inclined, like myself, what would you say? If someone's hesitating kind of doing this with their students, if they feel like they don't have the best voice or they might not be able to keep a tune or they don't know what songs to sing, Like how do you kind of give them a little nudge forward?
Speaker 2:You know it's all about how you sell it.
Speaker 2:So if it's talk singing or you know, instead of maybe we're not all operatic, beautiful vibrato, all of that, but just fun, like like little talk singing, like if you have a little baby and you you want to play peekaboo, you're not gonna be like peekaboo. You know you're not gonna have like a robotic voice, you're gonna have some, um, you know some ups and downs and variety and like even just how you speak. So I would say, starting there, um, and just even little things like everybody can clap, like everybody you know can do little rhythmic games, or you know, know, maybe not snapping but clapping or things like that, those can even be little attention grabbers for transitions and that kind of stuff. So I would say, yeah, like start small for sure and start with things that are comfortable and just fun.
Speaker 2:But it's all about how you sell it. Like I've heard students, you know, be like oh my gosh, miss so-and-so is the best singer ever. And that teacher is like oh my goodness, ms So-and-so is the best singer ever. And that teacher's like, oh my goodness, I don't think I'm that great of a singer, but it's just how they sold it and how the kids felt when the teacher was singing. So I would say that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I could not agree more. And I think too, like not all your students are gonna have pop star level voices. Vulnerability, go for it. And how excited and enthusiastic the educator is in that place in time, the students right If they're like exactly. I like the example of the baby. Yeah, just that sing songy way. Like everyone can talk that way. Yeah even if you feel awkward about it at first, so right, exactly, it's all about the sing songy.
Speaker 2:Exactly so, before we, close out.
Speaker 1:Do you have any other tips or anything you wanted to share for teachers thinking about implementing or incorporating music in their classroom?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean kind of just final, you know, call to action. As somebody that was, as a student, involved heavily in the arts, I think it's a great confidence booster. It's only great for students. So not only incorporating it into the classroom but, you know, even encouraging little ones that might need a little boost of confidence to maybe join a choir or something like that. I've seen students come so far just implementing the arts more into their life. So so yeah, all about the music.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing your experience with this, Julian, and then also some other best practices and tips for our listeners. We really appreciate you being here, awesome.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, sari, it was a pleasure.
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