Why?
I really liked the way how the lessons of Music with Mortenwere built up. He begins lessons with warm-up activities - I found it very useful. It is not only fun for the pupils, it helps them to get into the music, to concentrate, to move body in the rhythm...to co-operate, to feel the "common spirit". And to warm-up :) Lots of the things were really funny too. I think this idea of warm-up activities at the beginning of Music lesson is really good, I had never thought about that before. I know it from English lessons - but why not to use warm-ups in Music too? :)
...Two examples: ;)
...Even ordering of a sausage can be fun :D
I also liked the way how the activities were built up in Mortens lessons. He was searching for quality all the time - his lessons were not only about spending time on Music - it was about developing pupils skills. He started the activity in its simple form and gradually bringing more and more slightly difficult steps. In Czech we call it a "spiral teaching". And it worked well, eventhough it needs a lot of patience, enthusiasm, motivating support and effort from the teacher.
He also connected singing with movements and rthytms a lot, in this process of "spiral teaching", pupils were doing more musical activities at the same time, which I found very good. In Czech Music lessons this activities are often separated - e.g. only singing. But Morten was the example that it is not so difficult to make singing more varied, to connect it with more activities gradually, just add a simple rhythm or movement for the refrain for instance...
And I have to say that Morten has really original activating methods. :) Are the pupils too tired ? - let them stand up. Are there not concentrated enough? Send them to stand up on the desks! :D ...And that really worked - they found out - something is happening, something new. OK, we should concentrate more...And then the quality was found, finally ;-)
...But I am not sure if this could a Czech teacher dare... However, if it works, why couldn´t we do that?
As you can see in the videos, Morten is a very positive person, enthusiastic, dedicated for his job, enjoying the job + moreover, pretty good in playing the piano.
And one more thing at the end - to me very important. I really like is that
I should also write a bit about MY TEACHING of Music. I have to say that I really liked this "job", it was pleasure for me to work with the pupils, eventhough you need a lot of energy and enthusiasm for that. The pupils bring me more energy then and that is what I really like about teaching. And communication throught music, rhythms, body-language, self-expressions via tones and co-operation in music is something special for me. And something in what you have a lot of space as a person, as a teacher. It is a valuable world. First week I tought the pupils a Czech traditional dance called Mazurka (the origin is from Poland , but it is still traditional in Czech;) ) and a mazurka-song "Měla babka".
And second week we worked on listening while body-playing activity according to a grafical part - on Slavonic dance no. 8 by Antonín Dvořák. And later on with simple instrument-playing too. The third week I had also chance to do individual teaching of piano melodies with two single students, while the classes were preparing for a band-plaing for the concert for the end of the school year.
What to say? It was really pleasure for me to teach Music in these classes. I could try some activities with pupils, but also find weak points and what to improve in some activities, just to have a valuable practice oportunity. And teaching is always a process in which you have a lot to learn ;-)
And a special big thank to Morten in the end. TUSIND TAK!
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