GET OFF THE PODIUM
...and enable creativity to thrive in your students!
![]() | ![]() MovementMoving to music keeps the channel open between kinaesthetic and aural intelligence. | ![]() |
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![]() PROCESS NEW THOUGHTS'Acting music' workshop with Music Ed majors, Western Washington University, SA | ![]() OWNERSHIP OF NEW KNOWLEDGEJodie with some of her clarinet students in Yass, New South Wales 2008 | ![]() |
![]() BODY PERCUSSIONAdding elements of body percussion within a piece for young band provides fun co-ordination challenges and consolidates ensemble pulse. 'Belah Sun Woman' workshop Eltham High School Eltham, VIC, Australia Photograph by Ingrid Martin | ![]() CHAIR AND STICKLearning rhythm first gives your students confidence and it's also heaps of fun! 'Belah Sun Woman' workshop McCracken Middle School Skokie, IL, USA. April 2013. | ![]() |
![]() MY BANDSt Patrick's College Intermediate Band Conducted by Jodie 2000-2002 Photograph by Jodie Blackshaw | ![]() Sado Island, JapanMusic excerpt from 'Letter from Sado' BandQuest commission 2014 UMN Wind Ensemble; Kirchhoff conducting | ![]() |
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- When does it become fascinating?
- -
- Excerpt from 'Letter from Sado'. UMN Wind Ensemble; Craig Kirchhoff conducting
Inspired?
Explore these works. If you need a starting point, I recommend Belah Sun Woman. This works sits at the heart of my pedagogy.
"For me, inciting fascination in students is the sign
of
good teaching.
When students become fascinated they
seek new knowledge,
discuss and challenge information
and then
apply these new thoughts
to
everyday life.
So how do YOU incite fascination
in students?
One simple process:
CREATIVITY
Creativitiy
provides students with the opportunity
to
process new thoughts.
It is during the CREATIVE process
that
fascination is stimulated.
Fascination
leads to
independent Ownership of NEW Knowledge.
Information ceases to be abstract concepts
imparted by a (BORING) talking head
& instead,
TRANSFORMS
into
colourful ideas
and
lines of thinking
that
EXCITE the mind of the child.
To teach instrumental music without creativity
is to teach mathematics without problem solving,
science without experiments
and
literacy without creative writing.
Imagine teaching visual art where students simply copy artworks already created by the masters?
Yes
they may acquire some skills
but when do they
relate that skill
to
their own personal identity?
When do they process that information
and regurgitate it with their own mutation?
When does it become...
fascinating
?
If we teach music in band without creativity,
we are not providing the opportunity for our students
to develop new, original thoughts about music.
To teach without creativity is to instruct.
To teach with creativity is to educate.
PLEASE EDUCATE YOUR STUDENTS."
Jodie Blackshaw, Faulconbridge, N.S.W. Australia 2014
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
Nelson Mandala