Bang your head
It has been a while since my last post. The educational testing season has begun, and my subject was batting leadoff. I am not sure about other parts of America, but in my corner of the world, the testing of students in public education is a little out of control. Even though the subject of testing is a hot-button topic, I am so tired of testing that I don’t want to discuss or even think about it anymore.
With testing over for me, I can get back to instruction, which was one of the reasons I became a teacher… to actually teach. Our topic today was “Theme.” With seventh graders, tangling with theme can be a tall order. I know a few of you reading this have already tuned out the message because you aren’t sure of theme yourself, and you are getting the shakes because you are wondering if I am going to ask you a question about the theme from some book you read in seventh grade. By the way, I highly recommend The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton.
Actually, I am not going to test you on theme. I am simply going to share what happened in class. I used song lyrics to introduce theme to the students. Yesterday, we did a few songs together in class and discussed what the author of the song was trying to say. Today was pop quiz time. We applied what we learned yesterday, and the students had to fill out a chart on the theme of a great tune called Shooting Star by Owl City. If you haven’t heard it, the message is a positive one.
Each class listened to it twice, once with video and once with just the lyrics in front of them. For the first play through, they had to decide on what the theme, or message, was. In round two, they had to circle phrases that supported the theme they selected. During the second round of the song, one student began singing along. In moments, the entire class was singing the lyrics, and most of them had not heard the song before. It was awesome. My teaching neighbor commented that she could hear the singing in her room.
To most of you, this may seem like an insignificant event. But these are middle school boys and girls belting out a song in front of their peers during a pop quiz in English class. It was fun. It was light-hearted. It was off-key and tinged with the voices of puberty cracking. It was awesome.
Think about music for a second. We all listen for different reasons, and those reasons change hourly. I may crank the volume because I’m angry about something, and I may crank the volume because I am elated. We pick songs for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes we listen to music because we want company in our depression, and sometimes we just want to rock out and bang our heads to be silly with our daughters. I am guilty of both, and I’m proud of that. There are songs about love, songs about life, songs about heartbreak, and songs that just make you smile when you hear them. I like all different kinds of music. I listen to music because it makes me feel better. It picks me up. It keeps me moving. My music is my theme each day. It’s my message to myself.
This post has me thinking about this cute girl I know. I think I’m going to grab my iPod and listen to Cruise by Florida-Georgia Line.
