[HANASHIR:7970] Re: Help with 7th Graders...

[Ethan Leigh Bueno de Mesquita <mesquita...>]

I'm not sure if the specific question that was put out there was about a
class that was obligatory or was an elective, but in any case, I'm going
to make a suggestion that is relevant if the class being taught is an
elective. 

For a few years I taught an elective to 7th and 8th graders on "Jewish
Sprituality." Although not specifically a music class, I ended up using my
guitar a lot and teaching more music to the students than I have in many a
music class in which I was acting as the songleader. The course was
usually about 8 sessions and involved both study of theology (we started
with childhood theology, using children's letters to God, and then moved
on to more adult theology and Jewish philosophy.) We did this text based
intellectual stuff every other week. Interspersed were Jewish
prayer/spiritual experiences, and this is where music became important. We
did a healing service that I have also led for adults and during/in
preperation for this, I taught them a bunch of healing music
(including some wonderful songs by Rabbi Aryeh Hirschfield who someone on
this list put me in touch with) which we used as part of our prayer
experience. We did a week on Jewish meditation in which I taught them some
guitarless chant music. We did a week in whihc we spent the hour disecting
the six words of the Sh'ma in as many ways as we could (e.g., each student
wrote their own interpretation speculating on things like  where the
punctuation should go, what exactly Israel refers to, etc., we did
handmade midrash on the idea of Ha-Shem Echad, and we sang as many
versions of Sh'ma as I or they could think of...). 

Anyway, the course was succesful both on its own terms and in terms of
teaching music for, I think, two reasons. One, because the class was on
prayer/sprituality, the students were able to see some of the relevance
to their lives that we have been talking about on this list. They could
see that music could sometimes help them connect with God because it was
put in an explicitly spritual context for them. As a result, they were
eager to lead. Interestingly, I find that students take much more
seriously the usually ineffective plea to be respectful so as not to ruin
other's experiences in a prayer environment (particulary after they had
experienced the healing service together) than in simply a "music"
environemnt. (2) Because it was an elective that told students that it was
going to be about both studying and experiencing the spiritual, the
students who self selected into the class were usually fantastic! I find
that this is not always the case when you advertise a music class, but it
has always been the case when I've done a spirituality class. THe teens
(and preteens) who are willing to sign up for an experiential class on
prayer are usually remarkable kids who are super eager to learn and try
things.

Anyway, this is just one approach, but I think the larger point is that
sometimes we might all think about ways to teach music in service of other
things. This can help  to keep it relevant and recognizes that at
certain ages learning Jewish music, per se, may not be cool but if it is
relevant to something else you can slip it in in very effective ways and
it may even prove to be more lasting.

Shabbat Shalom.

Ethan 

*******************************
Ethan Bueno de Mesquita 
Ph.D. Candidate

mesquita (at) fas(dot)harvard(dot)edu
www.fas.harvard.edu/~mesquita

Department of Government 
Littauer Center, North Yard
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA  02138


"Can lack of bias ever compensate for absence of insight?" 
        -Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel 


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