Thoughts on Parenting

Education and Creativity

It's pretty clear from what we write here that Elisa and I have chosen to home-school our kids, at least for their younger years. What may not be so clear are the reasons for that choice. As with any important decision like education, the reasons are numerous and complex, but this talk from TED cuts to the heart of how I feel about education. Yes, education is a good thing. But for those kids who think differently, or can't sit still, or feel emotion more strongly than the rest of us, school can be - and often is - a place where they are robbed of their potential and their future.

In this talk, Ken Robinson argues that schools all over the world exhibit a hierarchy of subjects: first comes mathematics, then languages, then the humanities, and arts at the bottom. And in the arts, drama and dance fall below art and music. He asserts that the education system educates us from the waist up, eventually focusing only on our heads...and slightly to one side. This may produce great university professors, but it can eliminate creativity and innovation altogether in some.

It's funny, engaging, moving, and thought-provoking. It is well-worth the 20 minutes of your life it would take to watch, and so I thought I would share it with you all. I know home-schooling is not an option or a possibility for everyone, but encouraging creativity begins at home by turning off the TV and taking away the DS or PSP. It's not just their future you're affecting...it's the entire world.

The Quest for the Perfect Toy

Sometimes I wonder why we even buy toys for the kids at Christmas. Feeling particularly happy with ourselves one Christmas morning a few years back, Duane and I rounded the corner to find the kids in an empty moving box playing pirates -- fancy Disney salon and basketball hoop nowhere to be found on "Ye Olde Pirate Ship". After that, I made one of my famous declarations emphatically stating that for next Christmas we would be visiting U-Haul to find the BEST. PRESENTS. EVER! 

Even though it is a little late in the season, there is help. It's the Parents' Choice Holiday Gift Guide put out by a great nonprofit that monitors quality children's media and toys. Their helpful website allows you to search by age, interest and budget making it pretty easy to get some ideas for toys that actually might get played with beyond Christmas morning. Of course, nothing will ever beat an empty box!

Here Come The 123s

Like many people who went to college in the 90's, Elisa and I have known They Might Be Giants for a while. We were suprised and excited when, back in 2005, we discovered their video for kids entitled Here Come The ABCs. It's educational, obviously, but the bonus is that the music is good, and the lyrics are witty. It's hard to find music for kids that won't make parents want to gouge their eyes out.

Well, TMBG has a new CD/DVD  entitled Here Come the 123's. For our family, the music ranks up there with BNL's Snacktime, but the greatest thing in my mind is the DVD. Like the ABC's, the DVD is filled with unique, creative animated shorts with a lot of character.

Barenaked Children

Boy, did we hit the mother lode today! In our never ending search for non-annoying music we can all listen to as a family, we discovered that somehow my favorite band had come out with a kid's album and we didn't even know it. Not since our dear friends Tyson and Laura (who are finally expecting their first, yeah!) introduced us to Here Come the ABC's, have we been so excited about a new album.

We have this silly game the kids like to play. We take turns counting, and when someone gets to 7 they just start giggling, because they know what comes next... 7 ate 9... of course. And when you're counting by two's it turns out that 6 ate 10. Another raucous round of laughter and squealing. Needless to say, the first track of the album was a hit with our crowd.

Usually when I get one of the kids' songs stuck in my head I ask Duane to just shoot me, but I've been happily humming Pollywog in a Bog all afternoon. And the kids just love the video we found on YouTube:

Listening to the album has been delightful, but I think the best moment came during, "Snacktime" (Part i. of The Canadian Snacktime Trilogy) when Gordon Lightfoot does a cameo and Duane and I mistakenly heard him say he likes Pasties for snacks, a regional dish from Northern Michigan and Wisconsin that Duane makes fun of everytime we go for a visit. "You know, Elisa, there is a reason these haven't caught on anywhere else in the country." We were ultra disappointed to know that Mr. Lightfoot really said, "Pasta" with a Canadian accent, but was still worth a really good laugh.

Road Trip to the Edge of Sanity, Part 3

The question of road-trip music has been raised, so I thought I would answer it in a separate post. First of all, we have tried very hard to get our kids to listen to music that WE like. We always heard stories of incessant, mind-numbing, kids' songs in the car, so we began exposing them early to Stevie Wonder, Jack Johnson, Maroon 5, and other kinds of music we like.

So, here's what we had on our 60-gig iPod for the trip:

Audio Books: Henry Huggins and Ramona the Brave (Ella Enchanted and James and the Giant Peach are ready for the trip home)
U2: custom playlist of hits & favorite songs
Bill Cosby: the kids say "we want to hear one of YOUR stories"
Custom playlist of various Pop/Rock songs including: KT Tunstall, Barenaked Ladies, Coldplay, Corrine Bailey Rae, Counting Crows, Dave Matthews, The Fray, Jack Johnson, John Mayer, The Police, R.E.M., Sheryl Crow, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Train, U2, The Wallflowers, etc., etc., etc.
Folk Playground by Putumayo

And, believe it or not, we also have periods where we listen to nothing at all! The kids work on their puzzle books, or play with pipe cleaners, or something else.

Thanks for the question, Melissa!

Singing on Pitch

Musical abilities begin at an early age, and despite what my mom says about my dad, there is no such thing as tone-deafness. Everyone can (and should) learn to be musical, and learning to be musical always starts with singing on pitch.

The ability to sing on pitch, also called pitch-matching, can be learned at an early age, typically around 4-5 years old but sometimes earlier. There are a few basic principles you can incorporate into your daily rhythm that will help your child learn to match pitch.

• Sing with your kids. Singing together is just as important as reading together, and it doesn’t matter if you think you have a good voice.

 

• Sing and listen to songs with simple melodies. A melody I would define as simple would go up or down the scale without many “jumps” or leaps. For example, “Mary Had a Little Lamb” is all step-wise motion with only one leap (a minor third).

 

• Sing folk songs or good old-fashioned children’s songs. The ones we know and love are still great: Old MacDonald, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Itsy-Bitsy Spider, and anything else you remember from your childhood. Here’s a great list of the top 50 children’s songs.

 

• The first interval all (western) children learn is usually the descending minor third. If that doesn’t make sense to you, then go to a piano, play a C followed by an A below it. This is the interval that begins “This Old Man,” “Rain, Rain, Go Away,” and the typical children’s playground taunting (Nyah-nyah, nyah-nyah).

• When singing with your child, try to sing in the right range. The typical range for a child (boy or girl) is from A below middle C to F at the top of the Treble Staff. A good guideline would be to stay on the Treble staff. Singing in the keys of F or G are best.

                  

If you're looking for music to listen to, John Feierabend, professor at the Hartt School of Music, has put together a great collection of children’s folk-songs and rhymes that is a favorite in our house. There are three CDs in the series and they’re all wonderful. Also, Putumayo Kids has a CD called Folk Playground that contains songs by artists like Dan Zanes and Laurie Berkner. We love this one because the songs are great and not so mind-numbing as other "kids" music. Keep in mind that you need to like this music, too!

The bottom line is that singing is part of being human, so encourage your children to sing by singing with them the songs that people have been singing for generations, and have fun!

Keeping the Beat

I get a lot of questions about teaching music to preschoolers, which is probably due more to the fact that I am a parent of preschoolers than the fact that I have advanced degrees in music. While I don’t claim to be an expert on teaching music to preschoolers, I do have some knowledge I don’t want to take for granted. At the very least, exposure to musical training has a measurable effect on brain development and intelligence, so it’s worth talking about.

The question is this: what should a parent do for infants and toddlers to lay the groundwork for later involvement in music lessons, study, and performance? The answer is probably simpler than you think.

Steady Beat
Beginning with infants, one of the most important concepts to instill in young children is the concept of a steady beat. This is a complex and difficult skill to master, and most children can’t really do it well until they are in the primary grades. There are a few simple things you can do to help your kids practice this essential skill:

1. While listening to music with your infant or toddler, tap or pat the beat on their bodies. Use their hands or feet to tap the steady beat, or pat on their tummies, lap, or shoulders.
2. While any music will work , try to use music that has a tempo around 120 beats per minute. That’s about two taps per second.
3. Once your toddler is ready, the first kind of keeping the beat activities are sitting activities. Have him pat his own lap, tap his head, etc. He could also lean to one side and pat the ground, then lean to the other side and pat the ground on the next beat, alternating each beat.
4. When the sitting activities become easier and she has success with those, you can move to standing activities. Marching around the room, keeping the beat with her feet, hopping up and down, and even simple dancing will all help reinforce the beat.
5. To help explain or reinforce the concept, identify and talk about other things in their everyday life that have a steady, recurring beat. Some good examples are your heart, a clock, or a train.

We all listen to music all the time. With a little effort, you can encourage your child to develop a sense of rhythm just by keeping the beat. (There is no such thing as people who have rhythm and people who don’t…anyone, child or adult, can learn to keep a steady beat, and a steady beat is the foundation for all rhythm.)

If you’re interested in a great collection of classical music specifically designed for preschoolers to keep the beat, check out John Feierabend’s “Keeping the Beat” CD. It’s 36 tracks of classical music, arranged chronologically, with a mixture of major & minor, duple and triple meters, all at the ideal tempo for keeping the beat.

Playing Music Might Aid In Language Acquisition

I only know about seven words in Spanish. Apparently I pronounce them really, really well, though.

A couple of years ago my wife and I went to one of those all-inclusive resorts in Mexico for her cousin's wedding and there were several occasions when the staff asked me if I spoke Spanish just because I said, "with ice, please," or "thank you very much" in Spanish. I don't know why, but I've always had a pretty good accent whenever I attempt to speak a foreign language. My wife marvels at my ability to discern aural minutiae like double consonants in Italian, or the varying shades of the "ch" sound in German. I never thought it was a big deal.

Apparently, there may be some connection between this seemingly superhuman capacity for foreign diction and my musical training. I just came across this study in which Stanford researchers find that playing music helps with the understanding of language. The study shows that adults who have been playing a musical instrument from age 7 or before were better able to discern minute differences in spoken syllables far better than non-musicians. One of the coolest parts of the study was that they used a type of MRI scan on the brain and found much more focused brain activity in the musicians. The implication is that there might be a connection between musical training and language acquisition.

I know that some people don’t need a reason to teach music to their kids, but I also know that some people aren’t convinced that music lessons are worth the time and expense. There are a lot of research studies out there that are beginning to shed light on the connection between musical training and intelligence that some of us have suspected for generations. There are no easy ways to make your kids smarter and more successful…but music couldn’t hurt, could it?