Connecting with Your Students’ Culture Through Their Music

• Mary Cohen
• Posted 1/28/21
• 0 comments

When I taught at Stanley Elementary in Overland Park, Kansas, the second-grade students learned about their ethnic backgrounds. To connect with that learning in the music classroom, I gave a letter to all the second graders and invited them and their parents to explore songs important to their families. In the letter I wrote to their homes, I invited them to discuss these ideas over Thanksgiving and bring back a musical piece after the break. Then, I asked the students to share this song with our music class.  

A Singing Classroom 

In my music room, kindergarteners, first graders, and second graders took turns sharing solos at the end of each class. Students sang songs they knew from music class, from home, or one they made up. I kept track of what and when they sang, and each person had an opportunity to sing before the class got second turns. After they sang, I gave them a certificate that said “I Sang a Solo Today!” with the date and name of the song, and their homework was to sing that song to their family. 

For each new round of solos, I created a different certificate indicating which solo it was: “I Sang My Second Class Solo Today!” for example. One year the students in a kindergarten class sang seven different class solos by the end of the year. Each year I kept track of what they sang, so when they sat in the “solo chair” to sing, I reminded them what they sang previously. 

Family Heritage Program  

Usually, the children sang the song meaningful to their families (since they were already comfortable sharing solos at the end of class). Occasionally, a student shared a recording of their family song. Then, each student explained to the class why that song was important to them. These songs became the content for a performance called the “Family Heritage Program.”

One year, two second-graders’ grandparents (one grandmother and one grandfather) composed songs when their grandchildren were babies. The grandparents even performed their original songs with the second graders (“Emily” and “Grandmother’s Lullaby”—described more thoroughly below) for the school programs. Each student who shared a piece explained to the audience why their song was important to their families. Their families helped them write this introduction. 

Culturally Relevant Teaching  

Given more recent research on culturally relevant and sustaining pedagogies, I encourage music teachers to consider other goals for this project:

Micro Peacebuilding: The basic idea with this theory of peacebuilding is that we cannot be at peace with others until we are at peace within ourselves…this is a life-long process. See resources at the Min-On Music Research Institute and Kevin Shorner Johnson’s Music & Peacebuilding Podcast and resources.  

Encourage students to learn about and celebrate their own ethnic heritage.  

• This process might involve learning about the history of when their parents, grandparents, great grandparents, etc., were alive.  
• Did they immigrate to the U.S.? When and why?  
• Are any of their ancestors Native to North America? If so, which Native Nations? Which tribes?  
• What are the foods, traditions, and musical styles important to their ancestors? 
• How does it feel to each student to know about their ethnic heritage?  
• How can they celebrate their ancestors through original songs or musical compositions?  
• If the child was adopted or is in foster care, the child can choose to explore an ethnic heritage they feel makes sense to their identity or use their imagination to create a family “elder” to study. 

What was happening with American and world history during those times?  

• Explore relationships among social movements, including Civil Rights.  If you do not know the book The Black Child Savers by Geoff Ward, check it out! It is a history of how when the juvenile justice system began in the U.S., and how Black mothers realized the system was only for White children, and how this led to a rise to “targeted criminalization” (a more accurate term than mass incarceration). Erica R. Meiners used this term in her book, For the Children? Protecting Innocence in a Carceral State.  
• Choose one or more family members and find out who was president, who were the local political leaders in the areas where their family lived, what movies/books/television shows were popular?  
• What were the top forty popular musical artists and songs?  

Given the oppression that is part of U.S. history, the children may uncover difficult information. You can invite them to send healing blessings to the past and encourage them to learn more about what was happening in history. Remind them stories are told from the viewpoint of the storyteller. How accurate is the story you have learned about the history of your ethnic heritage? 

Macro Peacebuilding: Invite the students to learn about and celebrate their peers’ family heritage. We all have different backgrounds, and we all have a lot in common.  

• How can we celebrate and honor other people and cultural groups represented in our classes, our school, and other groups across the country and globe?  
• How does learning about others help us learn about ourselves?  
• How does your behavior and your relationship with others impact the greater good?  
• To what extent are you able to hear everyone else’s stories in your class? 

Earth Peacebuilding: How can what we learned in this activity translate to more healing ways of living on the earth for sustainable, healthy environments?

The Songs They Shared

The second-grade students I taught while at Stanley Elementary School shared a wide variety of different songs. For example: 

• Santa Lucia (one family celebrated Santa Lucia day and the student dressed up in a white gown with candles on her head for the Family Heritage Program) 
• You Are My Sunshine: Many times, a group of students shared this same song as important to them. Then the group of students led this song together at the program. 
• John Martin Jingleheimer Shaaf (the student’s last name was Schaaf) 
• Dirty Lil — Do you know this funny song? The lyrics are: “Dirty Lil, Dirty Lil, lives on top of garbage hill. She don’t wash, never will, Hock-too (spitting sound while making an arm motion to go with it) Dirty Lil!” 
• My Favorite Things 
• Korean Rhyme Song 
• Suzy Little Suzy 
• Swing Low, Sweet Chariot 
• Tiny Tim 
• Mealtime Song 
• When Irish Eyes are Smiling 
• The Little Birch Tree (Russian Folk Song) 
• Frere Jacques 
• Old Dan Tucker 
• Down, Down Baby 
• Attack of the Killer Tomatoes 
• I Love You, a Bushel and a Peck 

Sometimes students or their family members created and shared original songs: 

• Stanley Wildcats by Maribeth Emmert 

Stanley is the place to be 
Come inside and you will see 
It is cool as it can be 
We’ll have fun just you and me 
At recess we can run 
When our work is finally done 
We can have some much fun 
Dancing in the morning sun! 
1-2-3-STANLEY!!!! 

• One year TWO grandparents composed songs for their children: “Emily” and “Grandmother’s Lullaby.” The grandparents came to Stanley Elementary School and performed the pieces with the children. It was POWERFUL! Find out what musical activities are part of your family’s lives, and use them. Find out what people in your school community are involved with music and invite them to play and perform with your classes. 
• We started one concert with an echo song “I Am a Bright Light” by Barry Bernstein from his CD “Songs of the Spirit.” 

I am a bright light, 
I am a bright light, 
I am a bright light, 
Perfect just the way I am. 
Yellow, brown or black or white, 
Don’t you know we’re all all right? 
Yellow, brown or black or white, 
Don’t you know we’re all all right? 
I am a bright light, 
I am a bright light, 
I am a bright light, 
Perfect just the way I am. 

Reflecting on the Program and Additional Ideas

• What about including an audience reflection in the program?  
• Could audience members share a brief reflection about how it felt to hear their family’s song performed in the concert?  
• Could some songs be performed twice—once by the students and a second time with everyone?  
• Could audience members reflect on what they learned about their school community’s ethnic backgrounds?  
• What other ways could you incorporate micro- and macro-peacebuilding ideas into the program or your music class?  
• What ideas do your students have for building micro and macro peacebuilding in the program, the music class, the school community, and their lives?  

If you come up with some new ideas that work or don’t work, let me know! My email is mary-cohen@uiowa.edu. If you would like to share what you did with your students with my college students in our general music methods class, please let me know!