Rhythm for Reading - sustainable reading intervention for schools

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The Rhythm for Reading blog

Where has all the chanting gone?

2 October 2020

Photo by Izzy Park via Unsplash
Photo by Izzy Park via Unsplash

When I watched the announcements about lockdown on March 23rd 2020 from a hard metal seat in Glasgow International Airport, I’d already made ten trips to Scotland and it felt so frustrating that the project would be interrupted when we were so close to its completion. Throughout the lockdown and the summer months, I hoped very much that we would have a chance to salvage and finish off the work. In the past two weeks it has been an absolute privilege to return to the schools with ‘refresher sessions’ and follow-up testing. So much has changed. The teachers vigorously spray, clean and ventilate the classrooms. Everyone is vigilant and determined to keep their community safe. It is obvious that this goal is shared and held dear by all. Even young children immediately take all their books and pencils with them when they sit on the floor while their tables and chairs are disinfected. Absolutely nobody needs to be reminded to do this.

In one of the schools, particular spaces are filled with food and clothing. The leadership team came into the school every single day of the lockdown, as well as throughout the summer months to keep everyone on track; teachers worked face-to-face with the children throughout this period. Stunning new displays made by the parents now explode out from the staffroom walls and thank you cards are pinned to the noticeboard of a beautiful new community room.

Rhythm for Reading has been modified to keep everyone safe. I visit only one school in a single day and wear a mask. The children remain in their ‘bubbles’ when they take part, and stand at least two metres away from me. In between each session, I ventilate and vigorously disinfect the teaching area. Of course, there is plenty of time for cleaning as each Rhythm for Reading session is, as always, only ten minutes in duration. Actually, this level of flexibility fits in very well with the dynamic teaching that I’m seeing in the schools - and the children are loving that they are being taught in small groups and in an increasingly nuanced way.

Robust, energetic chanting has always been an important part of the Rhythm for Reading programme, but chanting, like singing is strictly prohibited. For quite some time I have been resigned to mothballing the programme for this reason. Eventually however, a neat solution popped into my mind. With a bit of experimentation, I realised that it is possible to vocalise safely and precisely, whilst keeping the volume level below that of normal speaking. All that is required to make this modification fun, is a little imagination. Most children know how to squeak like a mouse - these high pitched sounds are made in the throat and involve minimal breath - far less than speech. So, my solution has now been ‘road-tested’ by the squeaky teams in Scotland and I’m happy to have found a safe and new way to offer the programme without diluting it.

I would like to say a huge thank you to these children, teachers and school leaders for the opportunity to come back and complete the programme. It has been utterly inspiring, humbling and uplifting to visit your schools these past two weeks.

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7 Reasons why goal-setting matters more than you might think

1 September 2020

Photo by Julio Rionaldo via Unsplash
Photo by Julio Rionaldo via Unsplash

Mastering a musical instrument takes years of dedication. A music teacher who has already spent a lifetime on this journey, is the guide along the way and travels the path to mastery with every student. She knows exactly where each student is in terms of making progress and can describe in great detail what is happening in the music lessons.

Given that the music teacher offers a path to mastery and has lived that path every day for decades- why would goal-setting really matter?

Here are seven reasons why:

1. Goal-setting renews the relationship between the teacher and student. This is a life-affirming conversation in which the teacher can welcome each student back after a break and say to them, “I believe in you…I know you can do this”. Goal-setting offers the most uplifting start to the new term and can inspire a fresh new wave of commitment to making music with passion and vitality.

2. Goal-setting can alleviate stress. If I was a teenager right now, I would be feeling very sad without my musical ensembles - I adored being immersed in music with my friends and we had so much fun during the summer. Our students are likely to be suffering the loss of their musical ensembles and missing the buzz of group music-making. Organising remote concerts on a weekly basis as an important part of goal-setting will offset musical isolation.

3. Goal-setting clarifies the context. September is always a month of change. Perhaps your student has a new school, new travel arrangements, new responsibilities, or new musical or sports opportunities. With the excitement of a fresh new start, there will also be a demanding process of transition to consider. Settling into a new school takes at least six months - relationships with teachers and friends need to be built gradually over time. Being aware of your student’s challenges and opportunities this September clarifies what’s possible. This matters because it’s essential that goals are realistic and can be reached.

4. Goal-setting sets the tone for the term. Aspirational students like to set up a new routine at the begin of the school year. When and where have they scheduled their music practice? Whether your students are aspirational or not, a goal-setting conversation is the perfect way to guide them in choosing the best possible time for music practice. Take care to cultivate their ownership of this process, but also to protect them from feeling overwhelmed or sliding towards perfectionism.

5. Goal-setting warmly embraces parental expectations. This conversation allows the teacher to share with the parent a timely segment of their over-arching vision for the student. Each goal is anchored to the teacher’s expertise - and here’s a gentle reminder that this expertise often has a lineage reaching back through generations of dedicated teachers. Parents want to be informed and guided by an expert teacher; confidence in goal-setting allows a music teacher to demonstrate that their expertise is grounded within an organised and methodical system.

6. Goal-setting helps to align our teaching practice with our musical purpose. Stephen Covey is know for recommending that we ‘Begin with the end in mind’ - this is the second habit from his book, ‘The 7 habits of highly effective people’. This phrase applies to goal-setting. All the goals we set for music-making lead us to the very centre of our musical aims - our ‘why’ - our inspiration. It might be the memory of attending a special performance, a vision for playing with ultimate freedom of expression, or simply to feel the sublime expansion of pure creativity. The ‘why’ is our purpose. It inspires our musical values. These influence the way that we teach by guiding our decisions, our priorities and our aspirations for all our students.

7. Goal-setting strengthens the musical landscape at grassroots level. Since our musical world contracted in 2020, with socially-distanced concerts at the tip of a rapidly melting iceberg, the role that music teachers now play in cultivating the next generation of performers and audiences is of huge importance. We are responsible for ‘holding space’ for music and musicians. We are helping to sustain vibrant music making in our students’ homes, as well as lighting up musical horizons in every community through the transformational power of our teaching. We are not on our own. Music examination boards such as ABRSM are still supporting music teachers by offering practical and theory exams during the pandemic.

I hope these ideas about goal-setting offer some encouragement as we continue remote and socially-distanced teaching. If this post has resonated and you would like to explore these ideas a little further, I’ve created a three short videos about setting-goals. Click here for the videos and to leave a comment or ask a question click here .

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A New Wave for Music Education?

2 August 2020

Image by Paige Cody via Unsplash
Image by Paige Cody via Unsplash

Yes, I’m probably wearing rose-tinted glasses… but as old ways recede, something new always appears.

New creative potential is springing up out of the constraints of COVID because life does that. I am not suggesting that every family is looking for a music teacher right now, but given that we may face a second wave of the virus in the autumn, many parents will be giving thought to how they might structure their child’s home life. This is an opportunity to strengthen musical engagement from the roots up.

Here are ten reasons why a new wave for music education and a new concert-going audience is likely to appear.

1. Children and young people have not taken part in their usual clubs and activities for a long while and need a challenge this autumn.

2. Parents have not spent money on the usual wide range of activities for their children and some are looking for life-affirming, structured activities that can enrich their children’s lives.

3. Parents and children have spent more time together, staving off boredom and frustration. In September, it will be time to start something new.

4. Instrumental music lessons establish weekly goals, a step-by-step approach and a learning gradient that is tailored to each individual child.

5. Instrumental music teachers guide parents by explaining how best to support their child’s daily music practice.

6. There’s more time to practise musical instruments and many music teachers have seen accelerated progress in recent months.

7. Remote teaching can be a little challenging, but it does work well and it’s more convenient in many ways as parents save time and money in terms of travel; remote teaching also helps to keep the air cleaner for this reason.

8. There are exciting, new opportunities to take up a musical instrument, as many brilliant professional performing musicians are now beginning to teach online.

9. We don’t know what will happen to the world of live music in the next few months, so a real shift towards teaching rather than performing is currently taking place.

10. This period of uncertainty might be exactly what is needed to spark an enormous new wave for music education.

If you are a music teacher and this resonates with you, let me support you further. Click here to sign up for my free video series on improving students’ focus in under five minutes, or here to leave a message.

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Temenos and Safety in School

1 July 2020

Photo by Kuanish Reymbaev via Unsplash
Photo by Kuanish Reymbaev via Unsplash

We often hear about the dangers of cyberspace, where cyber-bullying is rife and children are vulnerable. Now imagine for a moment the relief of reaching the ultimate refuge. Temenos is a Greek concept that describes a sanctuary, a space of absolute safety and harmonious balance, where individuals uphold an immutable self-respect and where criticism and judgment are suspended.

Enshrined in the liberal arts, the principle of temenos allows an idea to be fully explored, expressed and scrutinised. Commitment to freedom of expression is important because the nuances and finer points of an idea are likely to subtly unfold towards the end of the process. The idea can then be better appreciated and understood.

An embryonic form of these creative principles can be found in classrooms: children are encouraged to share and express their experiences, but subconsciously they are also developing an awareness of how others are learning, building friendships and regulating impulses. Teachers patiently foster an atmosphere that enshrines socially desirable values.

This matters very much because school and home environments often offer children a jarring misalignment of values, ways of being and expectations of behaviour. For example, there is parity between academic expectations of girls and boys at school and equality of opportunity for children with disabilities, whereas the home environment is not necessarily attuned to these principles. English is the language spoken at school and it is there that children learn that they must listen when others speak to them and to respect others, even if they disagree with them.

Many urban schools celebrate incredible diversity. With more than 30 languages spoken in some schools, it is essential that children interact with their friends, their teachers and grow to know themselves as an important part of their school community. The school powerfully and sensitively shapes the child’s social development beyond the curriculum in fundamental ways, from teaching children to speak English, providing a hot meal in the middle of the day, accessing basic needs, ensuring a safe place to play, to run, to sing, to dance, to write poetry, as well as to let off steam. Schools can have a profoundly positive influence on children’s well-being and emotional security every single day.

The child’s desk in the classroom is an important vantage point from which they experience a multimodal, dynamic environment that is responsive to their social and emotional needs. If they are uncertain about something, help is at hand. There are flows of information, laughter, ideas and inspiration as well as discipline and firm boundaries that provide the necessary respect for all of this to work so beautifully. It is within this consistent structure that children learn to discover who they are and who they might become, particularly when they eventually leave their home environment.

School is a safe and potentially sacred space where children discover who they are within the school community, and more broadly within society.

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A New Normal

1 June 2020

Thanks to Jerry Wang via Unsplash
Thanks to Jerry Wang via Unsplash

In London the coronavirus lockdown has been relaxed and some schools have opened to reception, year one and year six. I understand the reasoning, but err on the side of caution. Life is so fragile and my heart is with you if you’ve recently lost someone precious.

In these strange times, we have no live arts. Our social gatherings take place without hugs and we crave connection. Apparently, this virus cannot survive in sunshine, though it has barely blinked during the sunniest month ever recorded.

With the beginning of the new normal emerging gradually, Rhythm for Reading is strikingly perfect for the smaller class sizes that are being introduced for social distancing. Offering a holistic boost to reading skills and spontaneous waves of happiness, it seems particularly appropriate for these times. However, along with enthusiastic group singing, Rhythm for Reading is one of those delicious things that we must wait for.

A new online Rhythm for Reading teacher training programme is coming out in July. If you’d like access to three free introductory training videos, please let me know via the contact page.

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Rhythm at home 2

2 May 2020

Inspire your children to read.
Inspire your children to read.

Still in COVID lockdown, today is my younger daughter’s 28th birthday and I’m particularly missing those wonderful years when I had my girls at home with me. Back then, when they were at primary school, I became a part-time student and juggled the necessary hours of study with family life and career for a good ten years. The sheer pressure of getting so much done while at home was tremendous and it often meant prioritising work and study over spending time with my children. This went against all of my nurturing instincts. I’d thank my girls every day for being so considerate, but there were times when my heart felt red raw with guilt. Surprising things happened from time to time and I thought I’d share some of these with you.

I had found a quiet cosy corner to do an immense amount of reading. Armed with few cushions and a cup of tea, the hours passed quickly. I was thrilled that I’d had so much peace and quiet. The next day, a competition erupted. My children, who had never been inclined to read a huge amount suddenly wanted to spend hours reading in ‘my’ reading corner. Intrigued by this, I agreed to share ‘my corner’ fairly between the three of us - incredibly I never had to remind them to read a book again.

As a professional musician, I’d prioritised their music lessons. Practising as part of our early morning routine had worked very well when they were young, but not so much as they grew older. One day, I made a few adjustments to make my own practice more efficient - using a timer and a notebook. It was fascinating to see that the mirroring began again - my elder daughter copied me and started to practise the same pieces of music, writing down comments and timing her practice.

My younger daughter meanwhile, had discovered a love of cooking and as a teenager had become a very confident little chef, able to make beautiful lunches and cakes. While writing my PhD thesis, she’d regularly bake cakes and bring me one with a cup of tea. (Cleaning the kitchen was all I had to do!)

Having ‘together time’ on a daily basis was also very important and sometimes urgent - whether for listening, solving problems or having fun. Looking back, I think that my studying helped them to value what I valued: persistence and passion. Today they have their own careers. I see in them a steely resilience and desire to keep going no matter what. For everyone juggling roles at home right now - your children are learning an enormous amount as you show them how to stay focused no matter what.

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Rhythm at Home

2 April 2020

Image by Judi Neumeyer via Unsplash
Image by Judi Neumeyer via Unsplash

‘We’re all in this together’ - To some extent this is true, but I think we’re all having very different experiences of the lockdown. Many people are suffering the agony of losing loved ones to the disease. Many are facing hunger and hardship in the days and weeks ahead. Many feel the anxiety which hangs in the air.

How can rhythm help us? Here are a few suggestions and I’m sending you love and light as you read this.

For frustration and anger: Play music with strong rhythmic patterns and invite some movement from any part of the body willing to respond - perhaps start with a small nod of the head or tap a single finger. A critical voice may speak up. The music is simply our gift to ourselves - no inner commentary is necessary. Stay with the music and allow the patterns to weave their way through the body and mind. When it feels possible, allow the body move a little more until all the physical tension has melted into the music.

For anxiety, panic and grief: Play soothing, gentle, slow music to help ease the breath and the heart rate. Breathe deeply into the stomach to a count of at least six, several times a day is very soothing. Eat small amounts of food, chewing very slowly. Allow the sighs to move through the body like a balm. Comforting hugs from others may not be possible at this time, but I am sending you a hug right now as you read this. Our dreams are always available to us and sometimes we need to create new ones to move forwards again. When the right moment arrives, try drawing or writing about a new life in the future. By sharing our dreams with the page, we allow our hope and faith to grow stronger.

For procrastination: The rhythm of the body in a visualisation can help to overcome procrastination. Visualise doing the task that needs to be done, from getting started to bringing in the physical details of the place in your home where this is happening. Consider the time of day, the feelings of satisfaction and self-worth during the stages of this task. Focus on the joy of finishing; then create the scene for real. Are there any cushions? Is there a cup of tea? Bring everything that is necessary to complete the task. Make a start - simply get started by doing something small. Keep going and focus intently on the joy of finishing. Background music or background voices (perhaps in another language) are helpful for some people. Experiment with the volume to find the level that best supports focus and concentration.

For routines: Setting up a family routine is admirable and will be most successful if everyone is on board. Remember to build breaks into the day and to keep the goals small enough to be achievable. At weekends make sure that the days feel less structured and be sure to celebrate the wins week by week. A star chart is invaluable for creating a growing sense of accomplishment (adults need them too) and will help to pump-up the momentum of each day.

Language: Rhythm in language tells us what people really mean. We are all dealing with different levels of stress at the moment and it can be helpful to be prepared for tricky conversations.

Say this sentence aloud - first very quickly, and then very slowly, ‘Mary cried’.

Vowel sounds (italics) that are uttered quickly, tell us that the person speaking is delivering information, perhaps having already analysed or evaluated a situation. The speaker is coming from a head-centred, judgmental space.

Vowel sounds that are uttered slowly tell us that the person is probably feeling compassion and cares about the situation. This person’s voice signals that they are coming from a heart-centred, loving space.

In tricky conversations, it may be easier to keep the communication flowing if we slow down the vowel sounds. By saying, ‘Oh’ and ‘Ah’ and ‘No,’ very slowly, we can programme ourselves for compassion. This could prove invaluable, should a tricky conversation come along. Take care everyone.

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Knowledge, culture and control Part 2

1 March 2020

Cloisters by Zoltan Tasi, via Unsplash
Cloisters by Zoltan Tasi, via Unsplash

In this post I’ve blended ideas from several inspiring books, listed below. History, in my view is often cyclical, rather than linear. As we move rapidly into climate crisis, artificial intelligence (AI) and a school curriculum dominated by science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM), I wonder how relevant the curriculum of today will be in five years, given the fast-pace of change.

Since the introduction of the English Baccalaureate, (EBacc) the place of creative disciplines in the school curriculum, which provide an arena for critical debate, rebellion and the development of radical ideas has been devalued, and I wonder, to what end?

Transition from a Pagan to a Christian worldview

During the formation of the Holy Roman Empire, huge cultural shifts came into play. The suppression of the arts in society, regarded as pivotal in the enforcement of Christianity stemmed from the perspective of Saint Augustine. He wrote extensively on music, claiming that rhythm could be classified into four levels from the highest which was spiritually-aligned, down to the lowest level level, that stimulated the flesh.

Monks of the order used physical force against ordinary people who celebrated pagan feasts with music and dancing. Music with a strong beat was strictly banned, as was dancing (Blaukopf, 1992). Intellectuals were persecuted. for example, Hypatia - a mathematics scholar in Alexandria had been lynched in 415 CE for her ‘blasphemous’ study of ancient Greek texts (Rovelli, 2007). By the end of the 5th century, the Great Library at Alexandria had disappeared, and in 529 CE the Platonic academy in Athens was closed by decree of Christian emperor Justinian (Pieper, 2020).The significance of the Great Library was that it housed all of the books in existence, as well as being part of a hub for scholarship, achieved through practices of reason, logic, rhetoric and academic freedom. The achievements of the Greek scholars at Alexandria were impressive. For example, Eratosthenes, in 235 BCE calculated that the world was round, giving its circumference and its diameter; Heron of Alexandria created the world’s first steam engine.

Fanatically, the Christian authorities set to rewriting the knowledge and wisdom of the pervious (pagan) era, notably maintaining that the Earth was flat. Within this context we find Boethius (c.470- c.524 CE), a classically-educated statesman and philosopher, keen to find the middle road between reason and faith. He was executed for treason, shortly after having resolved the schism between the early Christian Church in Rome and Constantinople. Boethius wrote Consolation of Philosophy during his imprisonment, and this text became the foundation of medieval scholasticism (Shiel, 2020).

Appropriation of Greek scholarship

After 500 years of teaching and intellectual activity in cathedral schools and monasteries, early medieval universities were chartered by a Papal Bull. Each university was founded under different circumstances:- at Bologna (1088), Paris (1150) and Oxford (1167), and with differing levels of academic freedom. Highly influential across Western Europe, the liberal arts were taught, although the Christian Church had appropriated ancient Greek curricula for its own purposes, retaining only the structure and main elements of the system (Bernstein, 2000).

Medieval scholasticism, light on rigour and politically-inclined, attempted to reconcile classical reason with traditional early Christian dogma, but with limited success. Students taking the first part of the degree, the trivium, were taught word-related principles: grammar, logic and rhetoric, before taking the second part, the quadrivium which explored the physicality of the world through arithmetic, astronomy, geometry and music.

The trivium of the time had strong religious connotations; similarly, the corresponding quadrivium was adapted to suit the dogma of the day (Bernstein, 2000). For example: music was taught only through the disembodied, polyphonic rhythm (rather than the Greek rhythmos) and in astronomy, students were taught that the Earth was flat (Blaukopf. 1992).

Renaissance and reading

The tension between traditional Augustinian dogma and the classical texts of Boethius eventually gave way in the early Renaissance. Music, dancing and decorative arts, along with academic freedom in scientific thinking had been suppressed for at least a millennium across Western Europe and quickly reappeared.

Music regained its metrical ratio-based system; its integrated rhythmic nature was reinstated and dancing immediately became fashionable. The publication of articles promoting the rise of the importance of the vernacular supported the spread of reading, which soon became widespread, further weakening the authority of traditional Christian dogma.

Transition from post-industrial to digital

There is a linear feel from the Renaissance and Enlightenment years, through to the present day. However, in the contemporary devaluing of arts subjects in the school curriculum with the advent of the English Baccalaureate, we seemingly appear to be cycling back the dark ages with the curbing of academic and creative freedom.

Many young people face a bleak future following poverty in childhood and also having been deprived of an opportunity to develop a creative outlet for self-expression. At the same time, many communities have been impoverished by austerity.

Given that global hubs such as London are the economic areas towards which a disproportionate amount of the world’s digital enterprise, wealth and wealthy have been attracted, the transition to digital has created sharp economic inequalities between the digital hubs and post industrial regional centres, which acutely lack investment and have suffered chronic deprivation.

Positivism

Alongside the glitz of digital, there is a mindset that blindly accepts what appears on the screen with too little criticality. At best, the data-driven positivist perspective on knowledge is no more than instrumental, because its influence is dependent on the empirical tools and the technology of the day. At its worst, positivism commits the grave error of confusing the ends with the means, because it is not contextualised and it is not subject to critical debate (Rovelli, 2007).

The ‘knowledge economy’ promised a fiscal flow generated by the unlimited availability of knowledge via the Internet. The quality of such knowledge is often very poor, as has been shown by its influence on voting behaviour in democratic elections. Unscrutinised, low-grade, data-driven knowledge that supports the spread of technology in relation to health, education, trade and food supply puts society at risk of sub-standard ideas and policy.

Disciplined creativity

The true nature of science is critical, exploratory and visionary (Rovelli, 2007). As such, science is grossly limited if it is reframed through positivism as a mere producer of testable predictions. To protect our societies from positivism, disciplined creativity is essential if breakthroughs and radical thinking are to flourish in the ‘knowledge economy’.

Creative thinking is best nurtured in the domain of the arts subjects, an arena where it is essential to take disciplined risks, to implement ideas and to work through creative issues.

Disproportionate emphasis on STEM

The dominance of STEM subjects in the school curriculum will train our young people to think logically, but in order to solve the substantial problems facing us all in the coming decades, they also need the courage to think creatively, to make cognitive leaps rather than continuing to step slowly in a linear fashion, outpaced by AI.

What is taught in schools today will be out of date by the time pupils start their careers, so the disproportionate emphasis on STEM is seemingly short-sighted. It is only with a greater emphasis on disciplined creativity in the curriculum, that pupils will have the confidence to invent, innovate and implement the solutions, breakthroughs and radical new ideas that are needed for the future.

References

Bernstein, B. 2000 Pedagogy, Symbolic control and Identity: Theory, research, critique, Revised edition, Lanham, MA; Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc,

Blaukopf, C (1992) Musical Life in a Changing Society: Aspects of Musical Sociology, Amadeus Press

Pieper J. (2020) ‘Scholasticism’ in Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Scholasticism, accessed 29.2.2020, at 10.37

Rovelli, C. (2007) Anaximander, trans. Marion Lignana Rosenberg, Yardley, PA., WestholmePublishing

Shiel, J. (2020) ‘Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius’ https://www.britannica.com/biography/Anicius-Manlius-Severinus-Boethius accessed 29.2.2020, at 10.57

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