In this episode of The Happy Music Teacher, Jeanette sits down with the amazing elementary music teacher Erin Elliott to discuss the critical role of creativity and joy in music education. Erin and Jeanette chat about how important it is to lay a solid musical foundation while making the learning process fun and engaging for young students. They share practical strategies on the best way to strike a balance between work and family life, and offer insightful tips to prevent burnout among music teachers. They also shed some light on why it’s necessary to rethink traditional music education methods to prioritize joy and creativity in the classroom.
Erin and Jeanette explore new and creative ways to incorporate improvisation, composition, and storytelling into an innovative music curriculum, aiming to create a joyful learning environment. They highlight the significance of meeting the diverse needs of all students and fostering a love for music that extends beyond the classroom. Tune in to this enlightening episode to discover how you can transform your teaching approach and spark a lifelong passion for music in your students.
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What we talked about:
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Transcript
Ready to transform your music classroom into a place where music is magic? The wait list is open for the free Make Music Magic Summit, where 10 master music teachers unveil their strategies to fuel the excitement of musical exploration in your classroom. With 10 hours of expert training exclusively tailored for elementary music teachers, this summit is your ticket to unlocking the magic of music.
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Now, let's get onto the episode, the Happy Music Teacher.
Erin has been teaching since:She's currently a K 5 elementary music teacher in Northern Indiana, and the teacher author behind From Do Re Mi To You. With over a decade of teaching experience from kindergarten through college, Erin strives to spark creativity and joy all the way through high school. While laying a solid musical foundation in every student, she also mentors college students, both in the classroom and as a college adjunct instructor.
Erin received her BME from the College of Worcester, a music certificate in Oboe from Bowling Green State University, and her MME from University of Louisville. She has also completed all three levels of ORF training through the University of Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. Outside of teaching, Erin is a self proclaimed recorder geek, loves a good chai latte, loves visiting Lake George in the Adirondack Mountains, and aspires to be a good gardener one day.
And we have that in common, Erin, because I am dying to be a good gardener. And I just planted like sunflowers, three different kinds of sunflowers, and then I also planted zinnias and costas, and the zinnias and costas all came up and went boop! Oh no! They're all dead, all my little seedlings, but the sunflowers seem to be working, so.
It's a little too early to start most of our plants yet here, so. Yeah, for sure. Because you guys probably haven't quite had your last frost. No, not until Now that we've totally digressed into gardening, so since we've now digressed into gardening, let's go ahead and actually get to this interview. So why don't you tell my listeners a little bit about you as a teacher, a little bit about your purpose in serving other elementary music teachers because you have A vast wealth of knowledge on your website and it's like so well organized.
. So I've been teaching since:And I never had any fill placements in high school, and that was my first job. And, um, I learned a lot about being a fish out of water. And, uh, even in my first teaching position, there was still a lot of challenges to overcome and a lot of things to learn because I was in three different things in my district teaching music.
And now I'm in two, and I've been in that current position for nine years. And I I am often the only music teacher in the building. I'm really lucky in my second position. And my second school, I should say, there is another full time teacher there and I just go in and teach kindergarten. And what I love about that is the fact that I get to communicate and talk with another music teacher twice a week and get to interact with them because too often.
We are on our own teacher island and no one understands what we do. And I've seen a lot of really good teachers burn out because they lack that community. And I just want to be able to help teachers overcome that burden and find community in some way. And help them get ready for their elementary teaching positions because I think so often our undergrad experience does not prepare us for the elementary music classroom.
Everything is about teaching, you know, band and orchestra instruments and how to conduct. And not about teaching the tiny kids, a very different, very different concept. Yeah. Yeah. Completely different. And, you know, that's one of the reasons that I wanted to have you on is because we do have similar passions.
I'm in the same boat where, you know, it took me literally years to really feel comfortable and confident and to, to really love my job. And I am at a point where I do love my job, but. You know that that's one of the things that's taken me a long time and you're right, we are not prepared in any way to, to, you know, yes, if I wanted to go direct to band, I couldn't but, um, you know, I was more prepared for that than I was for, I had, I think what two elementary methods classes and Oh my God, Wow.
That was it. And you know what? That's what we had an elementary methods and then a second elementary methods, but the second one was taught by this lady who, um, she was just lovely, but she was a middle school choir director and I was teaching already. And she kept looking to me like, what do you think Jeanette?
And I'd be like, you're the teacher. I don't know. So, um, so tell us a little more about your purpose. What, like, what really drove you? Was there one instance that drove you to be a resource for other elementary music teachers? I think it was when I saw one of my colleagues who was a fabulous teacher and I loved working with her but she was so burnt out from her job and I could see it for a couple years and I kept hoping that she would hold on and hold on.
And she stepped out of the classroom. And that's totally fair for her and her time of life. But it was still really sad for me to see that burnout and that slow, that slow progression. And it made me really think about my own teaching and the burdens that I take on as a teacher and wanting to prevent that from happening.
Um, seeing what I can do to help other teachers, because this teacher crisis is not new. Better for sure. And I have seen too many good teachers leave the classroom. Yeah, I agree. And, you know, I do feel like There is a way to teach and still, you know, keep yourself as a person and still, um, I was actually just listening to, uh, Bryson Harbett just did, um, a whole, somebody that he knows did a workshop.
I can't remember her name, Gracie. I'm going to reach out to her to have her on this podcast as well because she was talking all about setting boundaries and we as people and and we are very much predominated by women. And, you know, I think teachers in general and women, even more so tend to. We will say yes to everything because we really don't know how to say no.
Nobody trained us how to say no. Nobody trained us. We were, we were trained to be very diplomatic and very, you know, and teachers as a rule are very kind, considerate, helpful people. That's just who we are, you know, man, woman, it doesn't matter. And we have, uh, we have a lot of trouble setting boundaries.
And I also think a lot of us are very type a and we're like, okay, I can take on all of this and you know, you're probably at the same stage that I am where. You, you're going to say no to what you possibly can. And you're going to try to set boundaries because I know you have children at home and, and for babies and a husband and, you know, people to take care of life is full.
And when you, when you don't take care of yourself first, that's a big deal because, you know, just like they say, when, when the oxygen mask come down, put it on you before you put it on anybody else. Yeah, absolutely. So, so tell us a little bit about your resources, how you help music teachers. Um, what, what is your, like.
So I, I've done all three Orff levels and that, that was such a life changing experience for me. Um, I know in undergrad we talked about the Orffshul work. We played a little recorder, we opened the cabinet doors to see the xylophones and then we closed the doors. Um, so it wasn't until grad school that I got to see the Orffshul work in action.
I just fell in love with that process of. Finding joy in every step and the student led, um, experiences and that's where I also got to see recorders in action as well. And that's where I really fell in love with teaching recorders. So my resources, um, many of them have an orf approach to them where, um, I have a lesson, but there's a lot of different ways that you can use it because I acknowledge that every teacher teaches differently, you have different class sizes, different sets of students, different types of students, and you need to do what works for you.
So I try to have a lot of different options available for teachers to find ways to adapt it to their teaching situation, which I think is really important. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that's another reason that you and I connected is because I am extremely Orf based. I, I came into the classroom.
Through the back door, if you will, and knew nothing about anything and went to the principal and was like, uh, what do I do? And she was like, go teach music. And I was like, Oh my gosh, how do I do? So I really was like, and then I took, um, or if level one, That first summer after I started teaching and man, it just rocked my world.
I was like, Oh, this is, these are my people. Okay. I can do this. And, uh, I actually just went to, uh, I just finished my certification this past summer and I went to university of St. Thomas and man, I think it's in, um, Minneapolis. Yes. St. Paul. Oh my gosh, they are doing it right up there. If you, if you have not taken your ORF certification, I had, and I will tell you Atlanta as well, they are also doing it right because I did my level two there.
But the cool thing about University of St. Thomas is they have a, um, their, their graduate program. I think it's their graduate program. I think they do a smattering in undergrad, but then you can go into the graduate program and do ORF. And do Kodai and I think they have like some other stuff. They, they have a new multicultural, multicultural program.
That's the word I'm looking for. So, you know, um, but, but you're right. You go and you're like, okay, what do I do now? So what kinds of, like, I was just looking through all of your lesson plans and you're definitely very recorder focused, which is awesome because people are always looking for. Lesson plans and and tell us a little bit about what do you have in the recorder programs?
Do you have a full program? Do you have done for you lesson plans? Tell us a little more about that Yes, so I I think good teachers always Self reflect and look at what works and what doesn't work And I think Especially if you are a teacher who taught before COVID and after COVID as well. Because schools are different and students are different and life situations are different.
And, um, I wanted to create a recorder curriculum that was very different than what I had done before. I went into elementary teaching doing, um, my own version of recorder karate. And it was modeled off of something that I had seen, um, A mentor teacher of mine do, but I had created this system that worked well for a while, and then I started seeing really big cracks, and it was becoming really stressful and unsustainable for me, and it wasn't serving the needs for all of my students, and I think the kicker was.
We were so focused on testing and learning songs just for the sake of passing it, passing it like a standardized test, that we had forgotten about all the improvisation and composing and children's literature, all the ORF stuff that I did in my levels. So I wanted to create something that really brought the joy back into recording that really met the needs of all of my students.
That wasn't just, let's sit down and learn this song. So my recorded curriculum is called Joyful Noise because it's going to be noisy no matter what. And I want it to be a joyful sound. And, um, it is a curriculum that has 20 songs with a lot of options. So there are teaching slides where I go through the process of teaching the song.
The teacher can go through that process. Um, and then there are accompaniment tracks, so you can have the students play with music and it sounds like a really important song because it is. And then, um, a lot of the songs also have, um, or if accompaniments, one or two parts. accompaniments. So you can say, hey, we're learning this song and let's have the green row go over to the bases and I want you to learn this board game.
There are also, um, lesson extensions. So I did not want to, I didn't want kids to just sit and learn songs. I wanted them to think of what's next. What if, how about we do this? So some of the songs, if they were, um, singing games. So we are dancing in the forest is one of our songs, which I love. And my students love that game.
So when we go to play it, are they going to ask me to play it? Absolutely. And I'm going to, am I going to let them as fourth and fifth graders? Yeah. Um, because there's still kids at heart, um, some of the songs are going to have, um, optional soundscapes lessons. I, one of my observations this year, my unannounced observation happened to be, uh, my students playing, um, Old Miss, yeah, Old Mrs.
Witch. And, um, it's just G and E, two notes. But they had already learned it. So we were able to turn it into a soundscape. The students got to choose the form. They got to choose the instruments for the sounds. They got to, they got to choose the Bordeaux and put it together in this mini performance. And that was the best observation ever because it was all student led, um, a lot of options for teachers to use.
And I wanted a lot of songs because. Again, I like flexibility. Mm-Hmm. . And you don't have to teach the same songs to every student. So I see two class and a halves right now. So about 31 students in each class. Mm-Hmm. . And they're at two different levels. They're not quite at the same playing field. So we may do one song, the full grade level together, but then I may choose a harder song for one class and an easier song for another class.
Or maybe I do the same song, but maybe one class just says the xylophone accompaniment and the other class has time to do the soundscape. You know, there's a lot of flexibility. And I also wanted to make sure that there were opportunities for students to do things outside of just learning a song. So there are standalone activities, um, with games, children's literature and composition, just to try to encompass all the different ways you can be teaching record, teaching recorders.
Wow. That's amazing. I, I love what you said about, because one of the things that really changed the way that I taught and changed the way that I enjoy my classroom and my students is I sort of got away from that, what I have to do and the, you know, the, the very strict musical guidelines and I did what you did.
You know, I, I looked at my students and I reflected back. Okay, this didn't work. Why didn't it work? I need to add more of a fun element. And that is really one of my purposes is to teach music teachers that It is okay to not learn all the notes and not learn how to read the music off the scale. And if there is a different way to teach that is going to give your, your students more fun, more engagement, um, they're going to be learning better.
And when we really think about it. Music is not about reading the notes off the scale. Obviously there is a purpose for that, but music is about joy and about, you know, expression. And if we are not teaching our students from a very young age about the joy and expression of music, What are they going to do?
They're going to go to middle school and they're being like, Oh, no, I'm not taking that music class because that was awful, you know, so I love that. That it, and I, again, that's another reason I think that we've been sort of drawn to each other because we really have, cause we've been kind of, you know, conversing off and on for a while.
I was really excited that we, that we could do this. Right. And no, Albert. Oh, go ahead. No, you go. I was going to say before COVID, you know, I had some really strong players that knew lots of notes and lots of repertoire, but we didn't go very deep into the surface. And, you know, those, those skills that come, You know, composing and improvisation that those are really deep music skills that was really lacking.
So while my students may not be learning as many notes as before, they're going really deep musically into those notes, and I think they're going to. Just as prepared, if not more prepared. I agree. I agree. And to me, because I've taught sixth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade before kind of, you know, the, the math light bulb goes on for certain things.
The music reading light bulb really goes on in sixth grade and the difference between teaching. general music in fifth grade and general music in sixth grade is amazing. Like, I don't know if that's still happening after COVID, but I will tell you that like my sixth graders would, they were whipping through the notes.
They, they could read them so much easier. And that's really when I was like, why am I killing myself getting these kids to read these notes when they're going to forget the next week anyway, you know, I, I. And I used to be so stubborn saying, no, my kids are going to read music. We don't need to write letter names in.
I was leaving so many students behind and frustrating so many other students. And our goal ultimately is for them to be successful and feel that success and joy. And if I need to help them along the way, Yeah, that's okay. That's absolutely okay. And those skills will come. Um, it's just like kindergartners.
Some kids, some kids go into kindergarten learning how already knowing how to read and some don't get it until first grade. Absolutely. I love that you said that too, because so in my opinion, so important for music teachers, like To just let go of some of the stress because I really think we have so many things to teach.
And if we can just let go of some of that stress, it's, it's so much more worthwhile. I wanted you to go deeper. So tell us a little bit about, because I know that you have tons of recorder resources, but you also have other things going on. So tell me a little bit about that. Yes, I like to create resources for, um, or exploration.
That's probably one of my most popular resources, um, taking stories like Goldilocks and the Three Bears. And how can we use that for students to explore the xylophones? So my kindergartners and first graders have been doing a lot of exploration on the Xalaphos recently. One of my favorite resources I've created is my Orph Exploration Stories, where we take a story that the kids already know, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, um, or the Three Billy Goats Gruff.
And we add xylophones to them. Um, so they're practicing techniques with those repeated patterns. Anytime we say, um, the, you know, little billy goat gruff, we're going to go little billy goat gruff, and they're practicing hands together, or if they're going over the bridge, trip, trap, trip, trap, trip, trap, trip, trap, and they're practicing crossover without having to play specific notes.
And what's, what's great is that the students are practicing different orph techniques without having to play specific notes. I have the bar set up in C pentatonic scale, so we can practice hands together like little billy goat gruff or trip trap, trip trap, trip trap, trip trap. And it's a great way for students to be engaged and playing on the xylophones and accompanying a story and being musical without having to worry about.
Specific notes. Right, right. And again, you're speaking my language because you know, I'm the stories that sing lady and I do the same kinds of things, which is so amazing. And you know, my kindergartners have been on the orphan instruments like all year. I mean, we started with them probably the third week of school and they are now I'm so impressed because I haven't taught kindergarten in.
Oh my gosh, like 12 years, something like that. So, because I, I was teaching only fourth and fifth grade and my kindergartners are holding those mallets like nobody's business and they're, they're bouncing off the keys and they're, they've got their wings going on. And, you know, I mean, they're, it's amazing to me, but.
It's because we're not giving them anything that they have to really think hard about, you know, they're having fun. And the only thing they're focusing on is how to hold those mallets. And are we doing hands together? Are we doing alternating hands? Are we doing a little crossover, you know, and you can build those skills.
So that's awesome. I'm those. I did not know you had in there. I'm, and I'm really excited to check them out. I guess I just never saw them. What else do you want my listeners to know? What, what else are you doing that, goodness, sorry. What else are you doing that you want my listeners to know about? Um, I'm trying to find ways to reach out to teachers, um, to see where their needs are.
Um, so I have, um, my TBT store with lots of teaching resources. I have Instagram where I post some teaching ideas and things that I'm doing in the classroom. Um, And I have a YouTube channel where I talk about lesson ideas and teaching strategies because we didn't get enough of that in college. And as someone who has.
Elementary school and now five different buildings, all very different sets of students and expectations. Um, I want to be able to help teachers as much as possible. I love it. I love it. We are totally on board with that together. So how can people get in touch with you? Yeah, well, they can find me in my TPT store from DoReMeToYou, um, and on Instagram as well, and on the YouTube channel.
Oh, and I have a blog and a website. So there's lots of information. As well. And what is your website? So that because we're going to put right it out there. Yes, from delrayme2u. com. Awesome. Okay. I did want to ask you one other thing and we'll see. Maybe we'll put it in. Maybe we won't. But sure. I know that as a business owner, With a full time job and a family, how do you structure your life so that you're not pulling your hair out all day long?
Because you have to be so busy. I am, and I don't want to say that I always do it well. Um, I don't think any of us always do it well. Yeah, and it's hard. Um, I have a very supportive husband who I cannot give enough credit to. I, um, When I'm working on my business, you know, I had to be really mindful of the time and other things that I have going on.
So there are seasons of my life where I'm not doing a lot with Teachers Pay Teachers, um, and other times where I'm able to plug out an hour. A night, um, as well. I'm not an early morning person. That's for sure. I wish I was, but I'm not that's awesome. But you seem like you're really organized because I, you won't be able to see this from my podcast, but she's got this amazing calendar behind her with all these color coded stuff.
squares. I'm asking for a picture of that when I'm here, because that looks amazing. This does not always happen. This is my dream right here. I love it. Well, it's a good dream. I, that is, I need to have a dream like that. I'm very much a visual person. If I don't see it, it's not going to happen. Yeah. Yeah.
I'm the same way. Well, it has been such a pleasure to talk to you, Erin. I'm so glad Absolutely, same here. We'll take a little time. Absolutely. Thank you so much. You're welcome. If you got some great tips and tidbits that are going to help you become a happy music teacher, I would be so thankful if you'd leave me a review.
Thanks so much for your time. Well, that's all I have for you today, but before I go, let me remind you. Keep learning, keep growing, and keep being fabulous you.