[HANASHIR:7956] Re: Help with 7th Graders...

[Josh Miller <jmiller...>]

David,

At 03:00 AM 1/18/01 -0500, David wrote:
>So, instead of beating my head against a wall week after week, I'm looking
>for alternative ways to engage them in Judaic music. Something we did a few
>weeks ago that they enjoyed was a "singdown" with Judaic themes. I chose
>words such as "peace" and "life" which they could translate to Hebrew, and
>they got "bonus points" for songs that were in Hebrew, but they were allowed
>to delve into secular music as well.

Oh man I have been in this situation on more than one occassion. First 
things first, as others have said, don't believe for a second that you have 
done something wrong here and that's why they aren't singin'! And kol 
hakavod to you for identifying the fact that if you do try to force more 
singing out of them, they are just not going to enjoy it (nor will you), 
and the last thing a songleader wants is to have students who don't like 
Jewish Music class (!)

I think the suggestions that have been already made were great, here are a 
few more:

1) I recently taught a music class session on Israeli Rock Videos! I spent 
some time on the internet and downloaded videos and lyrics to my laptop and 
then brought it in to the synagogue and set it down on the table and showed 
them three "Dana International" videos that I found on some web-site in 
Japan (but there are others out there). I had lyrics copied for the kids, 
and we talked about what the songs meant, and the Euro-Vision Contest as 
well. The kids dug it. 8th-graders. Let me know if you want me to email you 
the web-sites.

2) I have also done listening sessions with Israeli rock songs, including: 
Shir LaShalom, Perach Bagan (Avihu Medina), Ramito de Violetas aka Sigaliot 
(Yonatan Gefen), Lifkot L'cha (Aviv Gefen), Oof Gozal (Arik Einstein). I 
even have discussion questions typed up, and lyrics and MP3s even if you 
want any of this stuff. I have found that the Israeli stuff goes over well, 
because it sounds like cool rock music to them, while some of our Jewish 
English stuff just doesn't have the same hip sound to it, and the kids 
catch on right away (as Rich was saying).

3) I also did a "Name That Tune" kind of class where I played clips of 
Jewish Songs from around the world out of my Jewish music collection, and 
then the kids had to guess what language they were sung in, what country 
they were from, and what century they were from. It went pretty well too, 
and helped get the message across that Jewish music comes from around the 
world. There were prizes, which helped too :)

4) Here's another activity: I've had kids break up into groups, and then I 
give them each the translation of a different Jewish song and they have to 
prepare a little skit, read it and act it out. They really get into the 
meaning of the song that way, which is good.

5) Israeli dancing also works too, if they don't get that somewhere else, 
and if you feel qualified to teach a little Mayim, or Tzadik Katamar (for 
Tu B'shevat), or Yesh is a good one, or some of the other basic basic 
dances that you might remember from camp... I usually play the dances on my 
guitar, which gives me the freedom to go really fast at the end. Kids like 
that sort of thing...

Hope this helps!

- Josh Miller
   Berkeley, California
   jmiller (at) songleaders(dot)org

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