image of girl playing drum edited by Swint
The National Music Standards and Adapting Instruction for the Special Needs Student
Arts Education is Essential for Every Student
Directions: Read the NAfME articles below on the importance of the arts, the National Music Standards, then download and review the Georgia Performance Standards for music education. Explore the information and links from the National Association for Music Education and the American Association for Music Therapy. Complete the self reflection at the end of this section. Move onto the section on Special Needs learners.
Below is the NAfME (National Association for Music Education) article on Arts Education:
What Students Should Know and Be Able to Do in the Arts:
There are many routes to competence in the arts disciplines. Students may work in different arts at different times. Their study may take a variety of approaches. Their abilities may develop at different rates. Competence means the ability to use an array of knowledge and skills. Terms often used to describe these include creation, performance, production, history, culture, perception, analysis, criticism, aesthetics, technology, and appreciation. Competence means capabilities with these elements themselves and an understanding of their interdependence; it also means the ability to combine the content, perspectives, and techniques associated with the various elements to achieve specific artistic and analytical goals. Students work toward comprehensive competence from the very beginning, preparing in the lower grades for deeper and more rigorous work each succeeding year. As a result, the joy of experiencing the arts is enriched and matured by the discipline of learning and the pride of accomplishment. Essentially, the Standards ask that students should know and be able to do the following by the time they have completed secondary school:
The Benefits of Arts Education
Arts education benefits the student because it cultivates the whole child, gradually building many kinds of literacy while developing intuition, reasoning, imagination, and dexterity into unique forms of expression and communication. This process requires not merely an active mind but a trained one. An education in the arts benefits society because students of the arts gain powerful tools for understanding human experiences, both past and present. They learn to respect the often very different ways others have of thinking, working, and expressing themselves. They learn to make decisions in situations where there are no standard answers. By studying the arts, students stimulate their natural creativity and learn to develop it to meet the needs of a complex and competitive society. And, as study and competence in the arts reinforce one other, the joy of learning becomes real, tangible, and powerful. The Arts and Other Core Subjects. The Standards address competence in the arts disciplines first of all. But that competence provides a firm foundation for connecting arts-related concepts and facts across the art forms, and from them to the sciences and humanities. For example, the intellectual methods of the arts are precisely those used to transform scientific disciplines and discoveries into everyday technology.
What Must We Do? The educational success of our children depends on creating a society that is both literate and imaginative, both competent and creative. That goal depends, in turn, on providing children with tools not only for understanding that world but for contributing to it and making their own way. Without the arts to help shape student’s perceptions and imaginations, our children stand every chance of growing into adulthood as culturally disabled. We must not allow that to happen.
NAfME (March 23,2013). Retrieved from: http://musiced.nafme.org
.
Below is the NAfME (National Association for Music Education) article on Arts Education:
What Students Should Know and Be Able to Do in the Arts:
There are many routes to competence in the arts disciplines. Students may work in different arts at different times. Their study may take a variety of approaches. Their abilities may develop at different rates. Competence means the ability to use an array of knowledge and skills. Terms often used to describe these include creation, performance, production, history, culture, perception, analysis, criticism, aesthetics, technology, and appreciation. Competence means capabilities with these elements themselves and an understanding of their interdependence; it also means the ability to combine the content, perspectives, and techniques associated with the various elements to achieve specific artistic and analytical goals. Students work toward comprehensive competence from the very beginning, preparing in the lower grades for deeper and more rigorous work each succeeding year. As a result, the joy of experiencing the arts is enriched and matured by the discipline of learning and the pride of accomplishment. Essentially, the Standards ask that students should know and be able to do the following by the time they have completed secondary school:
- They should be able to communicate at a basic level in the four arts disciplines--dance, music, theatre, and the visual arts. This includes knowledge and skills in the use of the basic vocabularies, materials, tools, techniques, and intellectual methods of each arts discipline.
- They should be able to communicate proficiently in at least one art form, including the ability to define and solve artistic problems with insight, reason, and technical proficiency.
- They should be able to develop and present basic analyses of works of art from structural, historical, and cultural perspectives, and from combinations of those perspectives. This includes the ability to understand and evaluate work in the various arts disciplines.
- They should have an informed acquaintance with exemplary works of art from a variety of cultures and historical periods, and a basic understanding of historical development in the arts disciplines, across the arts as a whole, and within cultures.
- They should be able to relate various types of arts knowledge and skills within and across the arts disciplines. This includes mixing and matching competencies and understandings in art-making, history and culture, and analysis in any arts-related project.
The Benefits of Arts Education
Arts education benefits the student because it cultivates the whole child, gradually building many kinds of literacy while developing intuition, reasoning, imagination, and dexterity into unique forms of expression and communication. This process requires not merely an active mind but a trained one. An education in the arts benefits society because students of the arts gain powerful tools for understanding human experiences, both past and present. They learn to respect the often very different ways others have of thinking, working, and expressing themselves. They learn to make decisions in situations where there are no standard answers. By studying the arts, students stimulate their natural creativity and learn to develop it to meet the needs of a complex and competitive society. And, as study and competence in the arts reinforce one other, the joy of learning becomes real, tangible, and powerful. The Arts and Other Core Subjects. The Standards address competence in the arts disciplines first of all. But that competence provides a firm foundation for connecting arts-related concepts and facts across the art forms, and from them to the sciences and humanities. For example, the intellectual methods of the arts are precisely those used to transform scientific disciplines and discoveries into everyday technology.
What Must We Do? The educational success of our children depends on creating a society that is both literate and imaginative, both competent and creative. That goal depends, in turn, on providing children with tools not only for understanding that world but for contributing to it and making their own way. Without the arts to help shape student’s perceptions and imaginations, our children stand every chance of growing into adulthood as culturally disabled. We must not allow that to happen.
NAfME (March 23,2013). Retrieved from: http://musiced.nafme.org
.
image of music notes edited by Swint
National Standards for Music Education
1. Singing, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
2. Performing on instruments, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
3. Improvising melodies, variations, and accompaniments.
4. Composing and arranging music within specified guidelines.
5. Reading and notating music.
6. Listening to, analyzing, and describing music.
7. Evaluating music and music performances.
8. Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts.
9. Understanding music in relation to history and culture.
2. Performing on instruments, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
3. Improvising melodies, variations, and accompaniments.
4. Composing and arranging music within specified guidelines.
5. Reading and notating music.
6. Listening to, analyzing, and describing music.
7. Evaluating music and music performances.
8. Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts.
9. Understanding music in relation to history and culture.
NAfME
For more information about the arts and education,
as well as articles regarding implementing standards,
click on the link below.
as well as articles regarding implementing standards,
click on the link below.
image of logo for the National Association for Music Education
Georgia Performance Standards
For more information about specific
k-5 music standards to be addressed
in instruction, click on the link below.
k-5 music standards to be addressed
in instruction, click on the link below.
image logo for the department of education for the state of Georgia
image of students playing Orff instruments in an ensemble edited by Swint
Basic Strategies for Students with Special Needs
Debrot, R. (September, 2012). Retrieved from http://musiced.nafme.org.
All those kids, all those different learning styles, all those special needs—how do you reach and teach them all? NAfME member Ruth Ann Debrot points out that many strategies that work for one student may be applied to other students. Here are her recommendations:
Get information about each student.
Strategies for students with learning-disabilities
Students who have difficulty reading may struggle with written musical concepts.
Students with visual impairments
Students with behavior problems
Students with physical disabilities (e.g., cystic fibrosis, heart trouble, asthma, diabetes, epilepsy)
“Every student has a learning style that is unique,” says Debrot. “Presenting material aurally, visually, orally and through tactile sensation will insure that you connect with the varied learning styles for all students. The use of speech, movement, instruments, and singing in each lesson will insure that each child feels some degree of success.”
All those kids, all those different learning styles, all those special needs—how do you reach and teach them all? NAfME member Ruth Ann Debrot points out that many strategies that work for one student may be applied to other students. Here are her recommendations:
Get information about each student.
- Talk to teachers, parents, counselors, and students themselves.
- Become familiar with particular disabilities and avoid preconceptions about student abilities.
- Keep your classroom organized and free from distractions.
- Keep directions simple and direct.
- Establish lesson routines (e.g., beginning and ending songs)
- Present materials in as many modes as possible to address different learning styles.
- Develop a hands-on, participatory program that emphasizes varied activities like movement, instruments, rhythm, speech, sound exploration, melody, and dance for best effect.
Strategies for students with learning-disabilities
Students who have difficulty reading may struggle with written musical concepts.
- Prepare simple visual charts.
- Use color to highlight key concepts (e.g., do=blue, re=red, mi=green).
- Isolate rhythm patterns into small pieces on a large visual.
- Indicate phrases with a change in color.
- Introduce concepts in small chunks.
- Use repetition, but present material in different ways.
Students with visual impairments
- Teach songs by rote and echoing patterns.
- Provide rhythm instruments—such students can learn to play them without problems.
- Assign a movement partner for movement activities.
- Read aloud any information you present visually.
- Get large-print scores when available.
- Give a tour of the room so students can become familiar with where things are.
Students with behavior problems
- Use routine and structure—it can be comforting for these students.
- Remain calm and don’t lose your temper.
- Maintain a routine from lesson to lesson (e.g., begin and end with a familiar song).
- Vary the drill by playing or singing with different articulation and dynamics for students who can’t maintain focus for long.
- Use props like puppets to give directions in a nonthreatening way.
- Use songs or games that contain directions to help children who struggle to follow verbal directions or who have authority issues.
- Offer a variety of activities, such as acceleration (design assignments that allow students to go to differing levels), enrichment (extra lessons), technological instruction (computer programs for composition, research, or theory).
- Find a mentor for a student.
- Offer advanced ability ensembles.
Students with physical disabilities (e.g., cystic fibrosis, heart trouble, asthma, diabetes, epilepsy)
- Have students sing to help breathing and lung control.
- Adapt Orff instruments by removing bars so that any note played will be correct. Orff instruments fit nicely onto a wheelchair tray.
- Acquire adaptive instruments—adaptive mallets, Velcro straps for hand drums and other percussion instruments, and one-handed recorders are available. Find other adaptive musical instruments with an Internet search.
- Develop activities for listening and responding to recorded music for children who are physically unable to move and/or play an instrument.
“Every student has a learning style that is unique,” says Debrot. “Presenting material aurally, visually, orally and through tactile sensation will insure that you connect with the varied learning styles for all students. The use of speech, movement, instruments, and singing in each lesson will insure that each child feels some degree of success.”
image of the American Music Therapy Association logo
A word about Music Therapy
Music Educators are not music therapists. The two are profoundly different. Music therapy according to the American Association for Music Therapy is defined as:
"The clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional who has completed an approved music therapy program."
Music Therapy is an established health profession in which music is used within a therapeutic relationship to address physical, emotional, cognitive, and social needs of individuals. After assessing the strengths and needs of each client, the qualified music therapist provides the indicated treatment including creating, singing, moving to, and/or listening to music. Through musical involvement in the therapeutic context, clients' abilities are strengthened and transferred to other areas of their lives. Music therapy also provides avenues for communication that can be helpful to those who find it difficult to express themselves in words. Research in music therapy supports its effectiveness in many areas such as: overall physical rehabilitation and facilitating movement, increasing people's motivation to become engaged in their treatment, providing emotional support for clients and their families, and providing an outlet for expression of feelings.
Music Educators and Music Therapists have a completely different focus although the music task may look exactly the same. A music therapist is concerned about the process first, and the music skill is a byproduct of the process. A music educator is concerned about the child's development of a musical skill; or the product, and the process is important, and should be considered, but it is not the focus. A music therapist should be viewed as a resource for help in dealing with special education students, not a rival for resources and funding. For more information on the practice of music therapy, follow the link below.
"The clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional who has completed an approved music therapy program."
Music Therapy is an established health profession in which music is used within a therapeutic relationship to address physical, emotional, cognitive, and social needs of individuals. After assessing the strengths and needs of each client, the qualified music therapist provides the indicated treatment including creating, singing, moving to, and/or listening to music. Through musical involvement in the therapeutic context, clients' abilities are strengthened and transferred to other areas of their lives. Music therapy also provides avenues for communication that can be helpful to those who find it difficult to express themselves in words. Research in music therapy supports its effectiveness in many areas such as: overall physical rehabilitation and facilitating movement, increasing people's motivation to become engaged in their treatment, providing emotional support for clients and their families, and providing an outlet for expression of feelings.
Music Educators and Music Therapists have a completely different focus although the music task may look exactly the same. A music therapist is concerned about the process first, and the music skill is a byproduct of the process. A music educator is concerned about the child's development of a musical skill; or the product, and the process is important, and should be considered, but it is not the focus. A music therapist should be viewed as a resource for help in dealing with special education students, not a rival for resources and funding. For more information on the practice of music therapy, follow the link below.