Lesson Plan: Show this Movie...

Last Friday I received a call from the secretary of the school I sub at on a regular basis wanting me to sub for the music teacher. I explained to the secretary that I know nothing about music! I don't know instruments, I can't read notes, I can't even carry a tune. But, she assured me that I would probably just show a movie. I don't normally like these type of assignments where I feel I am babysitting instead of teaching but since it was conference week I hadn't worked all week, I was happy to get out of the house for the day.

The movie was actually a puppet show about Peer Gynt, a Norwegian boy who runs away from home and travels the world only to return home in the end because he realizes his mother isn't as bad as he thought. I watched this movie wondering what it had to do with music. It had music in it and if I was a music teacher I would be able to explain to the students what instruments were they were hearing, but I had no idea what they were hearing. When the movie ended I realized that I still had 15 minutes with them. I have nothing in my sub bag that had to do with music. So, I was left with discussing why the music we heard in the movie is important. We talked about how music helps to change the scene, how when the Peer's boat was being flipped by waves the music was louder and that maybe cymbals were used, that when Peer was in Persia we maybe heard flutes when we watched the princess sleeping putting us in a calm mood, and that when he went to Africa we maybe heard drums when the Masked Pygmies danced making us want to dance too.

Although I wasn't completely sure that these were the instruments that were used, I was able to point out how music is a big part of a movie in how it effects the way we view it. I was happy I made it through the day and felt like I had taught a little bit.