Behavior Management in the Elementary Music Room

 If you are an educator in a music room, you are well aware that classroom management in your school space looks different that any other space at the school.  During the first couple of weeks we are offered the opportunity to assess and reassess our students to establish the best procedures and relationships in our young musicians.

As you compose your procedures, routines and lesson plans for the year and for a unique community students, it is apparent that behavior management in a music room is its own art form. It is my hope you might glean some strategies here to help your classes run smoothly.

In my opinion it is quite important to keep your expectations simple.  I recently posed these questions to my colleagues in Columbia Public Schools:

What are the non negotiables in your music room?  What are your boundaries? What if you could only choose two rules?

My non negotiables are:

Be Respectful and always musical.

Here are some of the responses I received from my collegues:

Respectful, Responsible, Positive, Safe, Do Your Best

My focus this year is Kindness and all property must be treated with respect.

All children deserve to love their school experience

"Whole Brain" teaching rules 

NO negative talk, towards others or towards yourself!

Always be musical. Respect one another, do not disrupt the learning process. Take good care of our classroom and our materials.

In preschool, our three school rules are Be Safe, Be Kind, Be Responsible. Those are our non-negotiables.

If you could only choose two or three non negotiables in your classroom what would you choose?

I have chosen to stick with the Actor's Toolbox model I learned from Sean Layne in a Focus Five: Acting Right Arts Integration Professional Development.  With this model, I am able to utilize what I know about Social Emotional Learning along with the importance of simplicity. 

1. Control Body

2. Control Voice

3. Use Imagination

4. Concentrate

5. Cooperate

As you continue to evolve as a teacher and build your musical community revise and consider what simple expectations work for your community and feel authentic in your classroom.

Once you have decided what your non negotiables are, it is time to dig in to the work with your students so you and your students can be active musicians and creators. Here are a few structures to put in place to help your year run smoothly.

1. Teach and model and practice routines & transitions.  It seems to be a point which is obvious but as adults we don't always stay in this mode long enough for our students because we understand the expectations quicker due to life experience.  Students often only visit the music room once a week and the routines and expectations need to be calming taught, modeled and re-taught several times throughout the year. How should students enter and exit the room? How are instruments supposed to be played and respected? How do we show respect? How do we move through space? How do we ask the teacher questions? How do we respond to we respond to each other?  Be firm and consistent with these procedures for each student and they begin to trust you. Behavior is a learned skill that takes TIME and PRACTICE. Remember each transition in your room can offer an opportunity for musicality and a teachable moment.

2. Build Relationships. We see every student in our schools so in can seep to be an insurmountable task to know about each student but you can make each child feel important by making eye contact, speaking to them by name (keep a class list near by on a music stand if you need), be in the hallway before and after school if you are not on duty. Take the time to walk around the building and build relationships with other teachers and see the dynamics of each class outside of your room. This takes TIME but it will pay off.

3. Sing, Play and Dance.  The students did not come to your room to hear you talk.  Also much of their day is spent in a chair. This may be the most creative point of their day.  Transition through a variety of activities during the hour you have your students and give them the desire for more. 

4. Take time for Assessment.  Both you and your students need to know what your strengths and weaknesses are.  An assessment as a class doesn't have to be elaborate.  It could be as simple as asking the students what they notice about an activity.  It could simply be the teacher letting the students know what went well along with one goal or expectation for next time (keep it simple). If you provide quick assessments for you and your students throughout the year, you can better customize the material for each class so that it is not too hard or too easy . . . 

I hope these thoughts help you to jump into the year in a thoughtful and reflective manner. 

Musically Yours,

Elizabeth