Progressive Ed Moments | More Than Music With Orchard Teacher Sally McSpadden

A key element of progressive education is for students to have joyful partners in learning. Orchard’s early childhood through second grade music teacher, Sally McSpadden is the epitome of this. Sally’s passion for music is contagious, providing a safe place to learn from mistakes, work as a team and experience pure joy. Her students feed off of her positive energy and bring their best to every class.
 
“I love Mrs. McSpadden because she makes us get up and move and she’s also really funny,” Emma (2nd grade student) said. “She lets us write our own songs, too, with our beat buddies! She’s just also really talented.”
 
Orchard is very lucky to have a teacher who truly understands the power of music when exposed to young minds. “I’m a music teacher because I believe music is one of the best parts of being alive and I love sharing this with children,” Sally said. “Music is not only a tool for expression but it is also closely linked with other types of development: gross motor, fine motor and hand-eye coordination.”
 
Sally credits Orchard for the freedom to be the best teacher she can be. “I'm able (and encouraged) to pull from a wide variety of sources all over the world in order to expose children at a young age to all different types of music and many different ways of experiencing music,” she said. “We work hard learning difficult concepts, but we are also able to relax and just enjoy making music together.”

Below are photos from an hour with Sally's second grade music class.
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    • "Sight reading (practicing reading rhythm notation without preparation) is an important component to a music class. It helps solidify known rhythms allows students to practice their rhythm reading skills."

    • "Alabama Mississippi" is a song and dance written by Martin Luther King Jr. and Bessie Jones. It's all about shaking off meanness and hatred. Bessie said "the most important thing is that they know what I mean. I tell them before we start. Not the body, 'cause you're gonna shake that anyhow, but your brain, your mind, your understanding, the life you have to leave these days. Shake it off." This adaptation of the game comes from New England Dancing Master's book called "Down in the Valley."

    • "To start the class on a fun and energetic note, students listened to a popular song from the 1960s when Martin Luther King Jr. was alive. While listening to "Aint No Mountain High Enough" students were able to dance any way they chose. Occasionally the music is paused the teacher called out a word to cue them what size of groups they should create (solo, duet, trio, quartet, quintet). It is a great way to build community, let out some energy, and practice music vocabulary words."

    • "Second graders begin learning melodic notation using specific notes from the solfege scale (do, re, mi, etc.). We start with sol and mi. Using the music staff on the rug, students take turns laying down "beat buddies" (stuffed animals) as a sol or mi note. At the end we sing our newly created melody."

    • "It's important for musicians to first feel music in their body before they learn to write it. We start by walking around on a steady beat (quarter note), then add modified running (two eighth notes). In this lesson students began to feel half notes by extending a long jump. Later on we will transfer this skill to instruments and written music notation."

    • "Being a teacher at Orchard allows me to follow the interests and music development of each child."

    • "There is no better way to build a community than through making music together. I love my job and I feel incredibly lucky to be at The Orchard School."