Using Music in the Classroom

In the 1960s, parents and teachers feared the influence of rock music, like Elvis Presley and the Rolling Stones. Today, the music that strikes a similar amount of fear and contempt is rap. It has many alarming qualities; however, my scholars at HOPE: Fortis love it.  It’s what you hear bumping from car stereos all over the neighborhood. If a rap song is played, all my scholars can sing along with every word.

And can you blame them? I love it too. Who doesn’t love a great beat and a catchy hook?

As teachers, we strive to contextualize our lessons in order to energize and excite our students to learn. Even though Milwaukee test scores show otherwise, my students are brilliant! If they can memorize every word to a Drake rap, they should be able to learn anything!

For some reason, a disconnect exists between learning the verses of a song and learning the periodic table of elements. So in my classroom, it’s important to put a rhythm onto our learning objectives. Adding rhythm makes things exciting and easy to memorize, and also adds energy to classroom activities. We rap our multiplication facts and vocabulary words.  We build school culture by rapping about our expectations. HOPE: Fortis is most famous for our “Scholar Ladies” music video, a remake of Beyonce’s “Single Ladies.” We have found that there’s no rap song we can’t change to make it applicable to our classroom.  Take, for instance, “Teach Me How to Dougie”, a popular song in 201: we changed it to “Teach Me How to Study”.

The songs and rhythms we create only aid in the learning that is taking place at HOPE!

 

Megan Heinen is an alumnus of the Center for Urban Teaching and in her 4^th year teaching at HOPE Christian School: Fortis where she specializes in teaching English Language Arts to 5^th and 6^th grade scholars.

Email her at Megan.heinen@hopeschools.org