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ing for Jamey’s answer. •


If your voice/instrument is too loud right now, I’m going to assume you are not listening as you sing/ play. Let’s see what it sounds like if each of you listens to others as you sing/play.


Aim To Understand Rather Tan Agree


When someone agrees with us, we can feel validated and relieved. When someone disagrees with us, we can conjure all sorts of negative reactions. Conflict has the reputation of producing stress, fatigue, paranoia, short-sightedness, and many other dis-eases. Tankfully, we have more power than we may realize to manage those inevitable tensions. A sim- ple antidote to fear and anger during conflict is easily within reach: aim to understand rather than agree (Rusk, 1993).


With conflict, we oſten jump immediately to conclusions, not only about the action but also about its underlying rea- sons. Tat is why we suffer—we think we know the intent of another’s choices (Ruiz, 1997). But if we momentarily suspend our assumptions, we can pursue a path of under- standing. Ten, we have a broader palette for interpreting disagreement.


Spoken with calm curiosity, not sarcasm, aggression, or confrontation, simple questions and statements like these can pave the path to understanding.


• Can you tell me a little more about what led you to that decision?


• Why do you think that? •


Interesting. I had a very different reaction. Tell me how you interpreted that.


• What can you tell me that will help me understand what just happened?


Conflicts, large and small, can be reframed by shiſting from agreement to understanding. Even if you leave a conflict in disagreement, sharing perspectives with civility and intent to understand will serve you well. If the other person hap- pens to explain without asking your opinion, simply say, “I think I understand your position on this better. Now I’ll tell you my thoughts, so you can understand my perspective as well.” Releasing the pressure valve of conflict in this simple way can refuel each party’s vitality.


Relearn How To Be Playful


No matter how many years you’ve been teaching or what ages you teach, an attitude of playfulness can help rebalance a pattern of discouragement. Playfulness steers us toward replacing harsh criticisms or quick judgments with light- hearted responses. (Bennett, 2014)


Adopting playful responsiveness may seem like letting people off the hook for their annoying behaviors. Yet it may also be craſting a quality of interaction that serves both the sender and receiver. Examples of playful commentary could be:


• Tat wasn’t quite what I had in mind when I said “Grab your folders.”


• Okay, your giggles are interrupting our study. Let’s take five seconds to get the giggles out so we can study the sounds in that piece.


• Tis lunchroom talk is a little tough on my diges- tion.


• Te students are so fortunate to have such an array of teachers as us!


Important here is to stress what playfulness is not. It is not the teacher telling jokes, entertaining, dominating the les- son, or using sarcasm as humor (Bennett & Bartholomew, 1997, pp. 155–158). Playfulness is instead an eagerness to teach and engage with curiosity, suspended judgment, lighthearted banter, and genuine puzzlement. Beware that if playfulness becomes too clever or too showy, students’ behaviors may escalate rather than comply.


Preserving Musicality


Our passion for music and our desire to share music likely motivated us to become music teachers. It should be no sur- prise, then, that the quality of the music in our classrooms and rehearsals can influence our vitality for teaching!


Musicality, the quality of expression, fluency, and nuance that makes music musical, is at the heart of our passion for music. Yet sometimes it is our quest to teach the intricacy and accuracy of music notation that diminishes the very thing that inspires our passion for music (Bennett, 2016). What a paradox to consider that teaching music can cause us to lose our musicality! How does this happen?


When we turn music reading into an arithmetic drill (beats, note values, measures) and let the notation of music rule its performance, we may be strangling the aesthetics for our students and for ourselves. If this sounds familiar, it may be time to reconnect to musicality in all music classes, for all ages.


Do you teach rhythms and intervals out of context and use arithmetic relationships, rather than sounds that musical- ly and linguistically cluster together, to define patterns to study? Are ensemble warm-ups more routine than musical, more habitual than aesthetic? Are students encouraged to be expressive and nuanced in even the simplest patterns as they sing and play?


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