March 13-17
With Lucy Dalton
This week I’ve been at Fred Longworth High School which is about a 20-minute train right outside of Manchester. I have been staying in Manchester, and will be for the next two weeks, even when I’m at my next school, which is also a short train ride outside of Manchester. There have been a lot of complications to this week unfortunately, and the unfortunate planning on my part is that I only planned for one week here. Ugh! I was only able to go to Freddie (which is what people call it here - or is it Freddy's? I'm not fully sure) on Monday and Friday of this week. I was super sick on Tuesday and just could not leave the house with a pretty bad cold. I was so mad that that happened but what are you going to do? And then Wednesday and Thursday there were teacher strikes (third since I’ve been here) so I did not go in to school. Also, this week was a bit unique because they were putting on their musical (Grease) and opening night was Monday night! Lucy, the teacher I’m shadowing, is in charge of all of the music stuff, including the band, and everything for the musical. So she had a lot going on while I was there.
Lucy Dalton is the Musical Futures Champion Teacher I’m working with this week. She’s fantastic! Just like all the other teachers I have worked with! Such a wonderful, warm, passionate person who cares deeply about the students she works with. She volunteered to pick me up from the train station on Monday morning and drive me into school since it’s a bit difficult to get to the school. That was super nice of her. And I was grateful. And as soon as I met her, she gave me a hug, and was just very welcoming.
On Monday, she taught one class in the morning which was year eight. They were working on writing their own songs in small groups. They were using musical instruments, mostly keyboards, guitars, and drum sets, though one group of three boys, who was working on a digital audio workstation and a midi keyboard pad. I walked around to each group to hear what they were doing. They were struggling with things like playing together and playing musically. But they were working on figuring out chord progressions and stuff like that. Lucy showed me a sheet of paper she gave them with some typical chord progressions they could possibly use and they were able to choose from those what they liked on their instruments.
They were also supposed to be writing lyrics as well. And all the groups were in different places, as you would imagine. So I walked around and listened to what they had, and had them tell me what they were doing. I asked them questions and gave a few suggestions to each group and encouraged them, because I was really impressed by what most of them were doing! And again, this is my jam. I love that they have lots of autonomy and ability to work on their own to figure things out and create their own music.
The next two periods, Lucy had free, which is a crazy coincidence, since she does not typically get lots of plan periods (no teachers do, it’s part of the striking). But she and I got to talk a little bit about philosophical music education things. She also had to do some things related to the musical. They were having a full run through starting at one until the end of school. So during period 5, I got to sit and watch it, which was super cool. The students are great! Some of them are really solid actors and singers.
After musical rehearsal, school was done, and Lucy drove me back to the train station. I was planning to stay for the opening night of the musical, but I started feeling pretty terrible throughout the day, so I decided to go home. I was excited to go see it on Tuesday but again, Tuesday I was not able to leave the room.
Wednesday I was feeling a bit better and met Lucy in Manchester at a super cool coffee shop called Takk for lunch. We had the best conversation! We talked a lot about her philosophy of music education, as well as just got to know each other better. Then we actually went walking over to the mall because we both had to do a bit of shopping. It was fun to spend a bit of time outside of school with her.
Wednesday and Thursday we didn’t go to school because there were teacher strikes and Lucy participated in those. So Thursday I was off as well.
Friday there were rail strikes and so I had to take a different route in via bus because the train that I needed was not going at the time I needed. It’s really terrible what’s happening in this country. Normal people cannot get either a decent pay or a sustainable workload. These are the two main things I think that people are striking over. Groups striking while I’m here include teachers, rail workers, nurses, and doctors, based on what I have seen. There may be other groups, but I mean, really! I can’t believe this many groups of workers paid by the government are having to strike. Hmm, you don’t suppose Brexit has caused things to be really bad for people, do you?
Anyway, Friday was a pretty normal day at school. I watched Lucy teach multiple classes which was super fun! She had five classes today so it was a full day. Mostly middle school and one year 10 class where they were working on computers to do some research about some musical genres for their GCSE projects. So that wasn’t the most exciting time but it was good to be able to see that one of the things they do in class is computer research where they have to actually find information and reflect on different aspects of their learning and submit it to the teacher. It’s part of their GCSE assessments as well.
I also watched Lucy teach two year sevens, one year eight, and one year nine class. Year 7 worked on playing Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes in small groups. Year 8 was working on creating their own songs in small groups, like the class I observed Monday. Year 9 started a new unit today, working on re-creating a song in a different genre. First they chose groups and worked on finding a song of their choice. Then some groups began learning the chords or melody or something to the song. Some groups didn’t get to that point today, which was ok. Eventually Lucy will give them a genre that they pick out of an envelope and recreate that song in that style. So even with these three class assignments on this one day, you can see the progression of how she builds on their skills from year to year. I LOVE IT! And by the way, when the middle school students were in small groups, they were in different rooms unsupervised and she walked around to check on them during class. And by and large, they stayed on task. This type of learning is quite normalized here and they understand the behavior expectations and it works.
One thing I really like about what Lucy does in class is this. They listen to a song at the beginning of class and she asks: “What makes this a good song?” And they have to give answers related to musical elements and really think about it. It’s very cool. She focuses on doing a song from a different genre each time. Today she did a song form a musical: The Greatest Showman. This is all preparation for the project they are doing of creating their own songs, so she wants them to think about these elements as they write their own songs. Today she talked about the form: intro, v, c, bridge, and also the question, “What makes lyrics good?” I just love these big picture questions to make them think. I’m stealing this idea.
Again, this is just one specific example of the cool things Lucy does and the ethos of her teaching philosophy. All of this stems directly from the ethos of Musical Futures. We talked a lot more about why and how she uses Musical Futures, and like all teachers, they don’t use the online resources all the time. They use them differently and at different times for different purposes. And they intersperse their own things as well. But one thing I see over and over again is that these teachers’ classrooms are transformed because of the philosophy behind the resources. The philosophy of use of informal music learning and non-formal teaching. It is sometimes quite DIFFICULT to motivate middle-school aged students to do work or to be excited about it, even if it is music they like. But what I know is that these teachers I’ve been working with completely understand that they have the best chance of getting them motivated by giving them as much autonomy to choose their own music and instruments, and to have them engage in creating and working with music that they enjoy listening to, which much of that is made on digital audio workstations. These teachers are so flexible in their approach to the questions, “What music should I teach?” “How should I teach it so that the students are most invested?” and “Why should I teach this or that music?” All with the focus on motivating, engaging, and ultimately educating the students.
After school, I stayed around for the musical, which I really wanted to go to because I haven’t been yet. And this was gonna be my last chance to go. So, even though I still didn’t feel great, I told Lucy I wanted to stay. She is so lovely. She invited me to hang out at her house in between when school was out and when the musical started which was at seven. So we just hung out for a bit at her place. She got ready because they were going out to celebrate the end of the week and one of her colleagues’ birthdays that night. We went in to school around six. I sat in the audience seating and just enjoyed being there and watching all of the preparations. They got me a comp ticket so I didn’t have to pay. But the show was sold out every night. The show was amazing! The students do a really great job and the teachers do an amazing job of putting it on. I mean, it was quite something! I watched them do a run through on Monday and to see it in full costume was just even more incredible. I’m so glad I stayed to watch the full-on performance. After it was done, I went up to give Lucy a big hug and tell her how great it was and a big thank you for hosting me all week.
I can’t believe my time with Lucy here at Freddie’s is over. I wish I would’ve had another week with her but it’s just not able to happen, at least not right now. If I have time later, I would love to come back and spend a few more days because I would like to get to know a bit more about her program since I literally really only saw one full day. Either way, I’m so glad I made this connection and had this time here!
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