So much for thinking outside the (boom) box
Jennifer McDaniel, an English teacher in Downington, Penn., may not have known that permitting her 9th graders to plug in their iPods during a writing exercise violated the establishment’s acceptable standards for learning.
But she did see the benefits.
“For the first time this year, my entire 9th grade class is on-task,” McDaniel writes in the current edition of Teacher Magazine. “….Everyone is, miraculously, working on the same thing at the same time. The room is almost silent.”
Soon, McDaniel integrated “iPod Fridays” — a half hour spent cocooned in each student’s music of choice — into the classroom routine.
“I grant that some people need absolute quiet to work their best,” McDaniel acknowledges. “….But there seems to be just as many of us who can’t ‘enjoy the silence,’ as the old Depeche Mode song would have us believe. Plenty of productive people work best with background noise, and as adults who can decide what’s best for us, we create such noise in a variety of ways: the radio during morning commutes, the evening news as we cook dinner, the cozy chatter that envelopes us as we work or read at our favorite coffee shop.”
Citing research that supports the theory that listening to music and learning are not incompatible, McDaniel is backed by Elon Harjes Hartjes, the publisher of the “Teachers at Risk” blog.
As McDaniel found out, the true definition of incompatibility is logic butting heads with hidebound educational tradition, no matter how outmoded.
“iPod Fridays” ceased to exist after McDaniel — then a first year teacher — shared her experiences with a classroom veteran. “It’s a distraction, you can’t control what they’re listening to. PEDs (personal electronic device) are not allowed,” the vet informed the rookie.
Nor, McDaniel reasons, can she “hear and censor my students’ thoughts.”
There’s that logic again.
“The death of iPod Fridays saddens me,” McDaniel reports. “I’ve tried other rewards (granola bar, anyone?), but none hold the same allure that just thirty minutes of the freedom to listen to the music of one’s choice did. And ironically, without this music, Fridays haven’t been as quiet.”
Hi,
I noticed that you spelled my name incorrectly. It should read Elona Hartjes, publisher of Teachers at risk.