Kansas Music Review

At the start of each new school year, you may be faced with a variety of special learners in your classroom. How well you handle their needs will influence not only their growth in music, but also their social interactions and self-esteem. Handling demanding situations with empathy, patience, and grace will teach all of your students to be compassionate and accepting.

What can we do in our classes to promote an atmosphere that is encouraging and supportive? First, we can look at our own attitudes. Research shows that teachers' attitudes are the strongest indicators of success or failure when special education students are included in the regular education classroom. Do we sigh with exasperation when special learners distract our class? Or do we respond with kindness as we try to redirect them? In our own behavior, what do we model for our students so they will learn to be tolerant classmates, neighbors, and citizens? I have noticed that some children seem to be innately understanding and sympathetic towards a classmate with special needs. Without being asked, these sensitive souls may be supportive by helping to locate the right page, repeating directions, and gently encouraging their classmate. Yet, there are other students who are not as sensitive, in part because they don't understand what it means to have special needs. In their ignorance, they make fun of those who are different.

How can you help your students become more tolerant? Depending on the age of your students, you may wish to include some activities that will help them understand the difficulties encountered by their classmate with special needs. Be aware of confidentiality issues when describing individual students to their peers, however, and be sure to get parental approval before doing so. However, describing a hypothetical situation without naming anyone specific may be enough to start students thinking about how children cope with various disabilities.

When words are not enough, some hands-on experiences may help children better appreciate how a disability may impact someone's life.

Here Are A Few Examples:

Charlie, who has cerebral palsy, is eager to play an ostinato pattern on the xylophone. Even though you've adapted the mallet for him by fitting it with a rubber grip, he is unable to play with accuracy. Some children laugh when he tries, as he struggles to synchronize the motor coordination of his hand with his balance issues. When Charlie is absent, you might explain to the children a bit of what he's going through. To simulate his experience, you could attach a mallet to a ruler, and ask them to play the xylophone pattern while standing on one foot. They may be more understanding when they realize the energy it takes for Charlie to complete a task.

Maura, who is hard of hearing, mispronounces words and has trouble singing on pitch. Some of her classmates make fun of the way she speaks and sings. Hearing loss is a topic that may easily be worked into a lesson about how sound is produced, travels, and is processed by the ear. Students can experience what a hearing loss is like by wearing ear plugs for a short time, or by listening to some hearing loss simulations found on the internet.

Tony has motor issues that prevent him from progressing as quickly as his peers on the recorder. Some of them are expressing annoyance because he's not playing the correct notes. One way to help other students understand Tony's difficulty is to ask them to play the recorder with gloves or mittens, to approximate his poor motor coordination.

Roberto has visual-spatial issues that make it difficult for him to write notation clearly. You've adapted your class work so that he uses a computer with notation software, but he often mistakes horizontal for vertical, and has trouble determining which line or space a note is on. Some of his classmates make rude comments about his being allowed to use the computer while they write with pencils; others ridicule him for being the last one to complete every assignment. If you give them an exercise that challenges their visual-spatial abilities, such as copying notation by looking through a mirror, your students might become more thoughtful about Roberto's difficulties

The preceding examples should give you a place to start; with a little creativity you can tailor the activities to suit the children you work with. Note that our goal is not for our students to feel pity or fear, but for them to appreciate the difficulties some special learners deal with in music class. In fact, you may wish to supplement these activities with discussions, stories, or short films that demonstrate how people with disabilities lead full, productive lives.

Taking just a little time from your classwork to engage in disability sensitivity activities is a worthwhile endeavor. By enlightening your students, you can be sure that the benefits will extend beyond your classroom, school, and community. With a deeper awareness of the diverse society we live in, they will know how to treat others with empathy, kindness, and compassion.

Resources

Audio simulations of degrees of hearing loss:
http://facstaff.uww.edu/bradleys/radio/hlsimulation

Other disability sensitivity activities and information can be found at:
http://www.successlink.org/gti/lesson_unit-viewer.asp?lid=3238
http://www.openroad.net.au/access/dakit/welcome.htm
http://nichcy.org/publications