Every child is a surprise package

Passionata – Music lessons make all the difference

As I read through the lists of names for my new first-year classes this summer holiday, many thoughts crossed my mind. Is Viviana* as quiet as her big sister, who used to be in my class? Will Luan's folder get ruined as quickly as his namesake's did four years ago? Then I paused. I was in the process of labelling former and future schoolchildren.

My girlfriend once compared children to surprise bags. I like that image: the anticipation of something that is still hidden.

As the new school year begins, I would like to share an educational experience I had with my former pupil Erik on this topic.

Erik was often distracted at school, and it seemed to me that he didn't get very involved in music class activities during his first year. For example, he didn't join in when all the children slipped under the fog cloth. This is a large transparent curtain fabric that serves many purposes.

That morning, the whole group lay down with a loudspeaker underneath them to listen to a recording. Except Erik. He stood a few metres away and grinned in our direction with a frown on his face. When I went over to him and asked if he didn't want to listen to the result, it turned out that he hadn't noticed how we had just recorded the autumn song with our own arrangement of mallet instruments, triangle and rain pipe. Even though he was there and standing right next to me.

Like a young bull

His placement was no coincidence. To avoid conflicts with other children, I planned my lessons so that Erik was close to me. Nino, who had difficulty controlling himself, was particularly quick to feel provoked by Erik's passive behaviour. When arguments arose, Erik was verbally inferior to the other children and would ram his opponents with his head down like a young bull.

The dynamics in the class preoccupied me. In order to minimise disruption from the music mornings, I looked for tasks and content that were suited to the children's nature. At least, that's what I believed.

I didn't even trust him to have understood the task.

Until that late summer morning when I placed a xylophone in front of the class at the beginning of the lesson. My plan was to offer the children a little puzzle fun with some challenging listening exercises. I sang a melody using solmisation syllables (do-re-mi, etc.), and whoever volunteered had a chance to try to play the melody.

When Erik immediately raised his hand, I didn't call on him. I didn't expect him to contribute anything to the topic, but thought he might want to talk about the cat he had spotted outside in the playground. Instead, Yasmina was given the chance to try her luck on the xylophone. She didn't manage it.

His trick

Even on the second attempt, it would not have occurred to me to take Erik, who stretched up again and fixed me with his eyes. I was sure that he had too little understanding of the tonal range to accomplish this task; I did not even trust him to have understood it. We had just played the scale up and down the stairwell with boomwhackers (musical plastic tubes), and Erik had missed every one of his cues. So I handed the xylophone mallets to Gino. But his attempt was also far from the correct melody.

Erik now shook his outstretched arm energetically in my direction. Maybe he urgently needs to go to the toilet, I thought, and called him over. He stepped forward, took the mallets from Gino's hands, sat down and played exactly the seven notes I had sung. And on top of that, he also began to explain «his trick» to the other children. «There,» he pointed to the left like a traffic cop, «is lower, and there,» he slid the felt head of his mallet across the xylophone, «is higher. First three notes, C, D, E. Then jump to G. Then an A above, back to G again and C.»

Human beings are fundamentally mysterious, not just temporarily until we get to know them a little better.

Hermann Siegenthaler

I was thrilled that Erik had performed so well and had to tell the class teacher about it right after the lesson. On my way home, I happily replayed the scene in my mind.

But suddenly I asked myself the crucial question: why was this morning literally unexpected for me? The answer can be found in Hermann Siegenthaler's book on music education: «It is simply easier to label people with clear terms than to grant them infinite openness and potential for change.»

It was a mistake to believe that I was adapting my lessons to the children's nature. It was their previous behaviour and the conflicts they had experienced that guided my lessons. Overwhelmed, I forgot how valuable it would have been for me to continue approaching the children with curiosity even after a year. I planned the lessons in advance without noticing what was coming my way.

Siegenthaler writes about this too. During the summer holidays, I studied the passage again and came across the following beautiful sentence: «Human beings are fundamentally mysterious, and not just temporarily so, until we get to know them a little better.»

Back at the school, I labelled and decorated the boxes for my new first-year pupils' equipment, and I felt a sense of pure anticipation. Because regardless of whether the children skip across the threshold of the singing hall on their first day or sneak in timidly, I will once again have two years to marvel at what's inside the surprise bags every week.

*The children's names have been changed by the editors.