Abstract
The purpose of this article is to share principles and strategies that may be used to teach appropriate behaviors to students that that may struggle with an emotional behavior disorder. Operating from the principle that music is naturally rewarding, classroom procedures and lessons that address preparation, imagination, effortful control, pacing, and collaboration are offered as areas that may provide potent forms of redirection and positive practice for behavioral change.
Success in any classroom often hinges on classroom management skills. Much of the information in classroom management survival books can be helpful to a music teacher; staying organized, chunking tasks into smaller steps, and maintaining a positive atmosphere with consistent affirmation are all basic principles that work anywhere. However, often affirmation is couched in “thank you” language. While this is not necessarily bad advice, it may be that only our already generally well-behaved students care much about a “thank you.” For the students we need most to reach (the one hurdling over the xylophones), thanking for compliant behavior may often seem powerless. Without effective positive behavior supports, we may find ourselves relying too frequently on punishment for those students. Usually, this also means they are not fully engaged in the planned lesson.
The Problem with “Thank You”
For a “thank you” to be effective, the student must want public affirmation of compliant behavior. While the behaviorist in me believes that all humans like approval, many students resist the public endorsements of bending to a teacher’s will that may be implicit in a “thank you for sitting quietly.” To those with a different social reward system, these words could be an invitation to stand and talk. Those students may be seeking what our teacher perspective would label as negative attention. The student struggling with an emotional behavior disorder (EBD) 1 may want this negative attention, to be recognized by his peers for his fearless defiance rather than eager compliance.
In such situations, showering the rest of the class with approvals for compliance and stern disapprovals and consequences to the defiant student may not always work; instead, it may be reinforcing the behaviors the teacher is attempting to extinguish: withdrawal, socialized aggression, and attention seeking. Constant praise and punishment creates a contrast with the rest of the class; defiance is made special. 2 When the textbook positive behavior approach is not working, desperate teachers may reach for desperate solutions.
Teachers may use several common punishments, none of which may actually help the needful student change behaviors. Time out may serve as further practice of the student’s tendency toward social isolation. Responding with public anger allows the student an opportunity to practice further defiance in front of a gripped audience. Humiliation is never appropriate, yet when a teacher resorts to such it is ineffective because it further injures self-esteem which may be at the root of seeking negative attention. Group punishment for an individual’s behavior can further harm the already likely damaged relationships in the class with the student. High frequency of any punishment technique can begin to erode the learning environment. Such teacher habits may further encourage the maladaptive impulse in the targeted student while failing to teach any positive alternatives.
As frustrated as teachers may get “in the moment”, teachers must find constructive solutions that are effective in the short term and promote a learning environment that feels safe for all. If students do not feel safe, our music lessons that involve some degree of vulnerability (singing, improvisation, group projects, soloing, or creative movement) will not work. As a realist with experience in Title 1 urban and rural schools, I fully understand there is no perfect technique that will work everywhere all the time. However, music teachers are in a unique position to teach behavior because music is naturally rewarding to students (Standley, 1996). We can use music to teach behaviors without resorting to the monotonous daily barrage of “thank you”s, “stop it”s, and “quiet!”s or the constant use of questionable punishments that are particularly ineffective with students with an EBD. Using music to redirect and reinforce prosocial behaviors can be a natural part of music classroom procedures and learning goals.
Music success often relies on behaviors that are generally incompatible with poor self-control and disrespectful behavior. Body awareness, impulse control, listening closely to others, and responding with sensitivity are generally concerns in producing a quality performance. By focusing on music behaviors, we have the power to tap into a motivation center (music success) that commands students’ attention and imagination. Through music, we can teach transferrable behavioral skills where students are rewarded by their peers’ approval, participation in a desired activity, and self-efficacy.
Prepare for Music Through Nonverbal Sequences
In music, silence precedes sound. Gestural preparation, a visible breath, or eye contact all silently indicate preparation for a meaningful event. A general music classroom is no different: All movements and sounds need to be adequately framed. Preparation focuses attention to the task.
Imagine a scenario. Ms. Jones has a behaviorally challenging class. Alexander is always touching other students, and Jenny just got an angry earful from Ms. Jones so she is leaning dejectedly against the wall outside the music room, perhaps even kicking the wall. There is raucous talking and the “class leaders” are looking desperately at their music teacher for solutions. Rather than tackling each issue independently and risking further opportunities for defiance, she tries a few music redirections. She uses the isomoodic principle 3 to meet them at their emotional level and then sequentially brings them slowly to a level appropriate for entering her classroom. Her strategies might include the following:
A mime/copy sequence from electric guitar to trumpet player to piano to pretending to tap one perfectly placed soft triangle ding at the end of an imagined music phrase.
Stretching high, wiggle fingers, shooting hands into a fireworks motion, slowly bringing them down, cupping hands gently, pretending to hold something very delicate as they walk in.
Having students copy beats from their head to shoulders to lap to chest to fingers.
Echo-copying body percussion from “We Will Rock You” to a swing feel to a class rhythm concept being taught. Copying the last rhythm onto softer body percussion sounds.
These examples all touch on music objectives (music identity, instrument knowledge, gesture as imagined sound, beat, decrescendo, etc.), yet they also have a playful way of taking a class from disarray to controlled music focus. The isomoodic principle can also be used with a low-energy class by starting with low-intensity mirroring and slowly building up in intensity.
After echoing movements, students may learn nonverbally through mime instruction a precise way to use their bodies to enter the classroom. Imagery of robots, tippy toes, “tough guys,” or boats swaying, are all possible suggestions that can fit a variety of ages. Once their entry movement is defined, the teacher may direct the tempo of entry by an improvised recorder melody, hand drum, or preview new melodic content. He might stop and start several times to ensure that they are listening to the music directions. The teacher watches closely for good examples and comments on “excellent performances.” This transition technique provides students a creative, yet precise, way to move. The students are being directed by music rather than verbal commands. Often, using some of the above techniques can redirect the frustrated students enough to bring them into the classroom by their own free will.
This method reduces the need to start class with threats over defiant behaviors. It is never desirable to carry over the student conflict the homeroom teacher brought to the door. Challenging students to figure out their jobs by teaching nonverbally is a powerful tool to activate their imagination and leave any residual anger behind.
Constructing Behavior with Scene Imagery
The imagery a teacher creates for her lessons engages students’ music sensitivity while providing the teacher a valuable tool for behavioral correction that is nonconfrontational. A movement teacher knows that telling a child to “gently flap their arms” will not produce the same quality motion as “float in the wind.” A conductor of a professional orchestra often follows the same principle; shushing the trumpets is not as effective in the long term as providing players with imagery that suits their part (Whitaker, 2015). Artistry comes from an active imagination. Creating imaginary scenes in a lesson can provide meaningful practice of behavioral and music objectives.
Beginning a lesson with a relevant book to evoke imagery is one such practice. The ensuing discussion can provide a class with shared terminology for desired responses. Such a discussion could result in making an instrument sound like the characters rather than simple triangles, making movement intentional by giving it a fictional character, setting an imaginary scene complete with dangerous obstacles to avoid. However, this idea can be taken one step further by identifying a sequence in the book they can then act out with relevant accompanying instruments or a learned song. While students think they are playing pretend with some added music content, the teacher has essentially constructed a behavior practice “etude.” The following lesson demonstrates how an imagery sequence can provide music practice of classroom behavior objectives.
Read One Little Seed by Elaine Greenstein (2004). This story uses simple phrases and illustrations to introduce children to the plant cycle. Cycles like the plant, water, or seasonal cycle work great because of the built-in repetition.
Reconstruct the cycle onto the board from class discussion.
Act out each successive step and pair with a nonpitched percussion sound. Pay close attention to and label “convincing” movement you observe as quality movement teaches body awareness.
Practice being planted, getting watered, growing, blossoming, and then sing a song about flowers or personal space once they are “grown.”
Show or explain that seeds may float slowly in the wind (like a dandelion puff).
Before having students scatter about at once, discuss the importance of having a well-spaced garden and provide visuals. Explain why a clumped garden “cannot grow.”
Watch individuals move slowly as they float to wind chimes. Have the class evaluate the movement’s believability.
Work toward the entire class being able to float and then fall softly to the ground as the wind chimes stop. Repeat plant cycle with movement, song, and controlled slow class movement.
The above activity provides practice with free movement while the teacher uses vocabulary based in imaginary play to correct unwanted behaviors. “Seeds are silent,” “floating in the wind away from other seeds,” “plant yourself into a space that lets you grow,” “plant in good soil, not around rocks” (xylophones or other classroom obstacles). The posted visuals of a well-spaced garden provide another nonverbal way to correct behavior by simply pointing to pictures.
Many unwanted behaviors can be corrected with the imagery of the task because the constraints associated with the image sequence are logical and necessary to students. A seed has to float and land gently on the ground. What the teacher previously had to tell students overtly is intrinsic to the lesson. Additionally, the freedom of movement offered to the students is often reward enough to keep them engaged and following directions. Meanwhile, the teacher is providing positive practice on a skill that many classes never master: responsible, simultaneous free movement. Free movement requires self-control from an entire class. At many schools, students may struggle with moving responsibly in a crowd; this lesson teaches a skill that will be used often in music class and beyond. By engaging the imagination, the students have a music activity to practice transition behaviors with meaningful repetitions.
Delaying Gratification to Teach Effortful Control
Creating and delaying expectation in music is a key element of aesthetic response theory (Meyer, 2008). Part of the pleasure of music listening is thinking we may hear something, being denied initial fulfillment, and then finally meeting our expectation in some form. Aesthetic pleasure depends somewhat on delayed gratification. Loud anthem-like choruses are made stronger by softer, less dramatic verses. This phenomenon could be applied to many aspects of our lives. Smelling chicken marsala on the stove for an hour before dinner only makes it taste better. Forcing a son or daughter to save up for a car is a classic parenting application. Enjoying something is related to presenting temptation and delaying gratification. Understanding and being able to appreciate this phenomenon is also explicitly connected to developing self-control. Students learn self-control when the music payoff in the classroom is delayed, simultaneously mastering successful music behaviors while building self-efficacy in impulse control.
Students self-regulate largely by one of two mechanisms: fear of punishment or “effortful control” (Posner & Rothbart, 2000). Effortful control is the student’s conscientious self-regulation; it implies that self-control is possible with effort. While fear may seem to work in the short term in our classrooms, teaching students to self-regulate through effortful control will serve them not merely in one environment, but for life. Rothbart, Ahadi, and Hershey (1994) found children who demonstrate greater effortful control also demonstrate greater empathy toward their peers. Providing learning opportunities in music that directly address effortful control takes the long view of success for the child. The music room, with all its instruments, is a natural place to acquire positive practice with conscientious control of their impulses.
One common way to achieve effortful control into the student’s mind is to forecast the instrument or performance privilege that will be given for exhibiting a particular behavior or accomplishment. All preceding behavior then becomes an “audition” for the promised performance privilege. However, there are other ways to use delayed gratification to heighten interest and teach effortful control. Carefully managing transitions with high praise for achievement provides examples to the student that they are capable of controlling their impulses. Being explicit about how one is to approach, choose, or carry an instrument may take valuable time, but using class time to promote student models of correct behavior instills a value for effortful control that pervades the environment.
An example may be a “play by play” narration, as if the chooser is a star slugger stepping up to the plate. As you choose a student who occasionally needs behavioral assistance, say to the class “Johnny’s up. Let’s see how he’ll do. I wonder if he will remember all the rules of selecting an instrument? Let’s watch!” Proceed to narrate each correct step the student makes in his transition; by making it into a sports broadcast, the positive behaviors are noticed and made special. A violation can send him back to the dugout. For many of our students, carrying a ratchet back to their seat quietly is an extraordinary accomplishment of control and it should be recognized as such in front of the class.
If the teacher is passing out instruments, make an “effortful control” chant for the occasion. Finding fun ways to remind students of the rules and procedures makes following directions into a game. Additionally, following the directions of the chant provides a “mastery practice” opportunity to those that need it to develop critical beliefs of self-efficacy. 4 One example:
“Not a sound or a touch when you get your stuff, because self-control is how you show your stuff.”
“Self control!- (self control!)” 2×s
Once all instruments are distributed, the students practiced a call/echo chant that can be quickly adapted to the instruments in front of them. The chant itself requires attention and self-control as they wait patiently for their one moment to echo say or play “self control!”
While delaying gratification is an important component of self-control, it challenges the very natural impulses of children. If a teacher is intentionally drawing out a process to elicit patience, students must know that their self-control is being observed. It is important to label the self-control behaviors so that EBD students realize they are being given an opportunity to actively practice the skill. They could master it in your class with the “instrument as carrot,” but without the label, they may fail to recognize their own potential to use effortful control in other environments. It is our responsibility to teach effortful control, not just punish its absence.
Reduce Opportunities to Fail with Continuity
“A little idleness causes the ruin of the beehive”: The world has many variations of this old proverb. While we cannot always engage all students, it is true that most behavior problems happen in the gaps between our instruction and activity. While quickening the pace is a classic mantra for preventative behavior management, perhaps we should instead be thinking about keeping activity continuous rather than just “moving quickly.” Repetition is one of the most valuable practice strategies musicians have to improve, yet with young students, repetition can lack reward. Many folk songs teach a basic wisdom about kids and repetition; even small changes create a world of added interest in a repeated melody. Fingerplays, extracting words, or adding different names to new verses are classic examples.
Some other ways to keep students engaged with continuity may include using backing tracks. YouTube has greatly expanded our music resources; now we can type “Em pentatonic hip hop” into the search tool and then have a music context to use with any lesson with most any pitch set. It may not be the traditional accompaniment, but the kids will gain a new appreciation for changing harmonic or rhythmic contexts as they feel their class melodies transform.
Another way to maintain continuity is to generate a B section for a melody. While traditionally such a B section may have thematic content related to the A section, a behavioral spin may be to include imagery that will direct their behavior as needed. A sample B section for a Sally Go Round the Sun activity with group movement may be “satellites orbit around the earth, satellites never crash. When you see a satellite near, safely by you’ll pass.” The students chant this as they pretend to be satellites moving about the shared space. The sing/chant combination, when paired with changes in physical location about the room, provides enough variation in the child’s mind to create a desire to keep repeating the song. Most important, creating an activity that can repeat without constant hands-on teaching provides opportunities for the teacher to correct individuals in a private manner rather than publicly chastise misbehavior.
Embrace Collaboration Activities
The group work activities commonly seen in elementary music-teaching workshops can sometimes be intimidating to bring to a class with known behavior problems. Sometimes, the more “creative, collaborative” elements of a lesson may be left out for management concerns. Sometimes, this is a valid concern. However, consider some of the unique problems students with social and emotional behavior problems face and then consider the benefits of structured, purposeful group work.
Attention seeking. Small group music collaboration with an ending performance provides an opportunity for public display of their effort. Excellence is rewarded by public affirmation and applause.
Socialized aggression. Group work is positive practice in working with others toward a shared goal.
Withdrawal. Group work is flexible to find a level of participation that accommodates all members.
Jellison, Brooks, and Huck (1984) found that socially isolated students with a disability receive more acceptance and social positives when working in small groups as opposed to whole class activities. Peer-assisted learning has been found to increase inclusion and, by extension, contribute to a positive environment (Jellison, Brown, & Draper, 2015). Small group work may be one of the most effective interventions a music teacher can enact to mend the damaged relationships surrounding an EBD student.
When the environment can be constructed to make group work structured and productive in music class, EBD students have an opportunity for positive social practice at a level of their choosing. Choices are extremely important for EBD students as they have a tendency to react negatively to being “boxed in” to one way of acting. Constructing class time to invite more divergent responses through monitored small group work may provide the change needed to reach the student that habitually resists compliance in large groups. Such activities can break the damaging chain of social isolation that EBD students often experience for most of their school day.
Conclusion
If we have students who do not respond to the “thank you” model of management, then we can make music our behavior ally. By letting the benefits and pleasures of creative music participation be the reward, students are affirmed as artists. Defiant behavior is redirected through a desire to show off artistic individuality. Rather than always telling students what to do, we can use the student’s affinity for music, movement, and creativity to guide them into a new way of thinking.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.