Music Education at the Ross County YMCA

The School House Rockers:
Wayne Branham
Penny Hall
Rylie Hill
Jennifer Slone
Karen Wiginton

Communications 205 / Dr. Wallace
November 6, 2007

Overview

For the COMS 205 service learning project, our group, The School House Rockers, chose to bring musical education to the latchkey children at the Ross County YMCA. In a day and age where art and music programs are being cut left and right, it was the least we could do as a group activity to bring some enjoyment to these children while teaching them something about music at the same time. This paper will outline the group processes we utilized to yield a successful program.

Our program lasted for three days, and we spent approximately one hour each day presenting different musical activities for the children to participate in. We worked with three groups of children, who were split up according to their ages. This worked wonderfully, because the age groups rotated locations from day-to-day, and we were able to work with all of the children in the program.

Creative Activity

We organized three main activities to share with the children. First, we decided to use the popular video games Guitar Hero and Dance Dance Revolution as staples in our program. We wanted to give the children an opportunity to test-drive these games, which promote coordination and rhythm, and give users a variety of musical styles to be exposed to. Initially, we thought this activity would work best for the older children, but in the end, all age groups had an opportunity to play.

Next, we decided to make home-made instruments with the children, to give them an introduction to noise and how music works. We researched this online, and found many varieties of instruments we could make quite easily. We settled on jingle bell bracelets, castanets, and shakers. We wanted to limit our crafts to items we could all provide at little or no cost.

The third activity we planned for was making coloring songbooks with the children. This is an enjoyable project that we thought would teach children some of the timeless classic nursery rhymes. We found the project at http://www.storytimesongs.com/Lyrics.html. The project, which we had in mind for the youngest group, consisted of us preparing the songbook materials and stapling the pages together. On one side of the booklet was a picture that accompanied the song on the opposite page. The children were able to color the pages of the songbook, which had a nice cover and a place for their name. This was a souvenir the children were able to take home. While they worked on the project, we played songs from Baby Genius' "Favorite Nursery Rhymes" album. The songs on the album complimented the songs in the book, which was a nice touch that the children enjoyed.

Our final activity was geared towards emotive drawing. Our goal was to show the children how music can generate a variety of emotions and feelings. We gathered various songs expressing different emotions and asked the children to draw the emotions they felt while the songs were playing. From Bob Dylan to Janis Joplin to the Rolling Stones, the children were exposed to a several artists who have contributed to the history of Rock and Roll.

Group Process

First, our group was faced with the task of choosing which activities we would bring to the children. This is where we faced our first small group communication hurdle. Jennifer had compiled a very large list of activities as options for our program. During a group meeting, the rest of the group vocalized that the list was far too ambitious, and Jennifer responded very negatively. She found that she was personally offended by the group's resistance to her proposition. After some thought, she realized that, having just left a job as a delegating manager, this project was not nearly as grand a scale as those she was used to organizing. She came to the conclusion that the project needed to take more precedence than her emotions, and that her conflict was a result of not working with this size of a group with members sharing the responsibility.

Our group then narrowed down the list to the three activities listed above. Our group work was then focused on organizing the materials and deciding upon a schedule with the YMCA. Karen worked directly with Jenny Beverly, the YMCA director, to organize our visit. Penny and Rylie handled the task of either getting donations for or purchasing craft items for the instrument activity. Jennifer and Wayne gathered the consoles, games and televisions needed for Guitar Hero and Dance Dance Revolution. Jennifer prepared the materials for the coloring songbook activity, and compiled CDs of music for the songbook and emotive drawing activities.

Analysis of Group Process

All in all, each group member was very satisfied with the outcome of our project. When we arrived at the YMCA on day one, we found that our perception of how the groups were organized was slightly different. We assumed we'd be spending time with each group every day. Instead, we found that, to avoid stagnation, the groups rotated locations each day. In other words, we would be working with different age groups in different locations each day. We were also told that the group in the gym would be impossible to work with, as they are accustomed to playing basketball and doing more sport-related activities there.

So, we began our first day with the older children playing Guitar Hero, and the middle-age children making instruments. On day two, the middle-age children moved to the game consoles (they also chose to play Guitar Hero), and the youngest group came up from the gym to the activity room, where we made the coloring songbooks. On the third day, the younger children moved to the game room. Here, we were faced with the challenge of these children lacking the coordination to play the game properly. Therefore, we switched to Dance Dance Revolution, which required less skill. On this day, the older children were in the activity room, and they participated in the emotive drawing activity. Our group split up three-to-two to manage the activities in the separate rooms. Wayne stayed in the game room all three days, Karen stayed in the activity room all three days, and Jennifer, Rylie and Penny rotated each day.

Observations

We were all thrilled with the children's reactions to our project. When we first arrived, we found the children were excited for us to be bringing them something new to do. As soon as they learned we were bringing them music education, they were even further thrilled. When we brought Guitar Hero into the game room, the children's faces lit up like Christmas trees! They all seemed very grateful to have a group of individuals paying attention to them and giving them something interesting to participate in. Each day, the children asked questions regarding what we'd be doing with them the next day. It was very rewarding to see the children showing their parents the things they had made when they came to pick them up. There were many children saying, "See? That's why I want a Playstation!" to Mom or Dad, and we were thankful that they were able to exhibit the benefits of gaming to their parents, rather than the typical graphic violence that people are used to seeing come from game systems. We were also rather surprised at the children's reactions to the emotive drawing activity. After the children produced some drawings, they decided they wanted to become rock stars! They begged us to replay Jimi Hendrix's "Voodoo Chile," and they proceeded to play air guitar and dance around the room. Even though our activity took an unexpected turn, the children obviously had a great time and were exposed to classic rock. All in all, the students worked very well together on each project. We generated the most obvious competitiveness with Guitar Hero, though. The children argued from time-to-time about who's turn it was and how many turns each child had taken, but we, with the help of the classroom monitors, were able to maintain order.

Group Lessons

Each group member has learned the rewarding value of working with children. We have all been inspired to participate in similar activities in the future. We have learned that organization is key. Although our group process was challenged slightly by the rotation of the age groups, we were quickly and efficiently able to adapt thanks to our superior organization. We chose activities that were cost-effective, as well, and no large financial burden was placed on any member.

Conclusion

We were all a little bit sad to see the three days fly by so quickly. It would make for an excellent program to be able to have at least a couple weeks with the children. Perhaps if we had more time, the ambitious list we started with could be completed. We were all impressed by the organization of the YMCA and its methods of keeping the children entertained.

Wayne expressed just one complaint regarding the latchkey monitors. He faced some difficulty on the third day because the monitor with the youngest group of children didn't help out very much; he let the children run wild and Wayne had a difficult time getting the children to behave while he was getting them acquainted with the game. Other than this instance, the employees of the YMCA were more than helpful in our activity process.

After our project was completed, the YMCA director said she was very pleased with our program, and that she noticed no problems with our visit. She also said the children were asking where we were the day after our program ended. Our enjoyment of this project was further validated by the director and students' appreciation.

Our goal was to bring music education to these children in a light that they may have never seen it in before. We feel we were very successful in doing just that, and we're confident that the students will utilize the knowledge we shared with them for a long time.