I had to wait until today to make this post because it was only yesterday that I had the opportunity to try out something in my class related to what is currently being discussed in EDCI 7307.

Yesterday, for two classes, instead of listening to the same old light classical or popular songs arranged for piano and flute we turned Pandora to a station of movie scores and for the first time in the class since I’ve been there, consistent rhythms were played throughout the periods.

I watched carefully for any change in behavior, any sign that the sometimes raucous drumming in some of the tracks was affecting the students differently than the gentle feathery piano or classical guitar we had played previously. The rhythms were (to my surprise) not distracting to the students as I thought they would have been, if only slightly. But the kids didn’t really respond at all to the change. I know from my mentor that the music has not changed before so this leads me to believe that the music, aside from providing a kind of steady atmosphere in the classroom, is mostly ignored by the students. I can’t deny that the kids are calmer when it is playing. I’m loathe to start referencing philosophies especially since I’m not incredibly well-versed but I did take a class as an undergrad in Phenomenology and the students’ response to the music—or lack thereof—reminds me of Heidegger’s theory of “gear” vs. “objects” and the relation of Dasein (man) to them. To simplify his explanation, or rather to further simplify a simplification that my professor explained to me, gear is an object when it is in use, i.e. a pencil when you’re writing with it. The moment you stop to consider the pencil, it becomes objectified and therefore no longer gear but an object. In this way I think of the students’ “listening” to the music as a dasein-gear relation in which they are not aware of the music, not objectifying the music but rather using it—perhaps unconsciously—to focus them on the task at hand. If they were to actually pay attention to the music, they would objectify it and it would become a distraction to them much as if one was to begin to pay attention to a pencil during a writing task, one would become distracted to the point where they would be unable to continue writing. I want to reiterate here that I am no philosopher and that I don’t claim to understand everything someone like Heidegger has written about. I’m sure there is some physiological explanation to this phenomenon of which I am as yet unaware. 

And I have to wonder now; if Heidegger’s theory has any relevance here, how are we able to ever truly multitask? Is it all simply age related? In the article, “Bridging Music Neuroscience Evidence to Music Therapy Best Practice in the Early Childhood Classroom. Implications for Using Rhythm to Increase Attention and Learning,” the author writes primarily about early childhood development in regards to the whole rhythm thing. If it that when we are young, we are better able to focus on separate activities or things in our environment and as we get older we lose that ability?

Aside from all that, we allow some students to listen to music of their choosing on Youtube via headphones during class (depending on the activity). Whereas you may think that it would be liberating for the students to be able to choose what they listen to, the process of finding the right song, changing to some other song every time one ends, proves to be an incredible distraction and keeps them off task for significantly long periods of time if they are not redirected.

I’m looking forward to trying out some of Zadina’s motivation techniques in the near future.