Challenging times:innovation in the music classroom

By Eleni Stampoli, Musicteacher in the STREAMS program at Huamei International School

The second semester of2019-2020 year presented some unprecedented challenges for the Music program:The most important one was the inability of teacher and students to meet inperson. As the music program in STREAMS is mainly performance-based, thiscreated a barrier that we needed to overcome. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic,teacher and students were staying at home, in various locations across theworld. There were no classroom musical instruments and no opportunity for groupwork.

However, there was a lot oflove for music and for learning that shouldn’t stop. So within a very shorttime, the method was transformed. We researched new resources and tried outnovel online programs. When the online period of learning started, the musicclass was ready!

We used visualrepresentations of music to help students to continue practising their readingand playing skills. We added hands-on activities that could be conducted athome, with the invaluable help of parents. We established a weekly live classsession so that the kids could still see, keep in touch and interact with theirteacher, a very important step towards keeping them engaged and interested. Inkeeping with the STREAMS holistic view of learning, we organized units around acentral project, using puppets to teach and model correct singing techniquesand performance skills. We taught songs that united, inspired and motivated thestudents to keep their spirits up and continue to work happily from home.

Homework was sent viaelectronic media, corrected on the spot and feedback given immediately, as muchas possible due to the time difference. The main goal was to keep everyoneworking happily and to teach that learning never stops, no matter what disastercomes our way.

It was a great joy for meto see that this is indeed what happened. Kids were looking forward toconnecting on Zoom classes, and parents were helping (and sometimes took anactive interest in our songs and materials). Te result was that a new type ofcommunity was shaped, that did not rely on our physical presence in a room, buton the connection formed by a common learning goal and warm human relationshipstranscending borders and geographical locations.

It is a bold statement tosay that I am grateful for this situation, when so many humans have been goingthrough terrible suffering. I and my loved ones have been lucky to haveescaped, while others have dearly suffered loss and sacrifice. But newobstacles bring new challenges, and they teach us to bring a clear view in ourminds of what is important, what needs to be preserved and what makes humanityunite: As the song for our final project reminds us, no matter where we are andwhat we do, we need to remember that we live in “One moment”, we are “Onepeople”, we have “One lifetime”, so our song must be “One song”. May the futurebring us new opportunities to prove it, now and again!