Black History Series Part 1: Learning Black History through Music

10 Comments

1. Using music in the classroom is a great tool for many reasons, it can be used to get students up a moving, to help them retain information and to educate on the historical background of an era. A great example of this is mentioned in the article, specifically how black music was shaped by historical conditions. Often times, I think students are so focused on today’s music that they don’t realize where that music originated from. The article speaks about how students can use various hip-hop songs to highlight the struggle of African Americans, these songs could be used to compare to today’s music. Having students compare songs and find connections between them can help them to understand the stories of each and to relate to what the artists were feeling during this time.

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2. Music is a very powerful tool that should be taken advantage of in every classroom, especially when it is so easily accessed. You can begin a lesson by listening to music and picking out different parts for discussion or you could even have students write their own song based around their life at that very moment. Music tells a story with emotion and helps you put yourself in the situation of a certain song. If you were reading a passage from a textbook about that same situation, you would not quite understand the impact it really had on the people during that time.

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3. I am a music person, i love listening to music and teaching through music so this article is perfect to me. You can teach anything through music and such a great topic.

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4. This is such a great article. I love music very deeply. I hope to one day become a teacher and incorporating music into study seems to be extremely effective. The three lesson ideas that you gave are genius. Even though I chose to teach elementary schoolers, this method could still be very useful!

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5. Incorporating music into lessons has been something that I’ve been taught to do for the last couple of years. Let alone using it as a resource to teach about African American history. African American history can be slightly difficult to teach, so having the resource of the music they listened to, is easily a way to get around the hardness of this lesson. Music is much more than entertainment. Music is communication, and it’s a way for people to tell a story without actually telling it. Music has such a big impact on my life, it’s so easy to relate to.

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6. Incorporating music into education is a wonderful idea as it engages auditory learners and is an example of an aspect of universal design education. By employing music in the classroom, you are creating equal access to content for students with visual disabilities rather than handicapping them with the presentation of content in videos and photographs. Using music as a medium to convey history is a new world history technique which allows historians to gather evidence from a multitude of sources and source type rather than just written documents. Using new world history techniques prepares students for university level history and the history field.

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7. I agree that music is a big part of history, as mentioned, music was a “response to a variety of emotions including happiness, joy, suffering, disappointment, despair, exhilaration and pain”. Music helped people get through hardships throughout history. I loved reading about the different genres music progressed to as time went on. I agree that black history month is important and it is important that we teach ourselves and others on this matter because you are 100% right when you said African American history is American history.
   I once took an appreciation to jazz music course and this article reminded me of the class. Good times because I loved that class.
   I enjoyed this article and I really enjoyed listening to some of the various songs you listed towards the end!

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8. I was interested in reading this article because I have a love for many different types of music. I find it interesting through the given lesson plans the many different ways that, as a teacher, I can incorporate historical music into the classroom. Many of the lesson plans were intriguing to me. I know that I am listening to music or music is being played in the classroom the atmosphere is completely changed. Often times the vibe of the classroom is positive and gives a welcoming and engaged learning feeling. I also enjoyed this article because I have listed to many of these songs and I still do today…they bring back many different memories and experiences in my life. Music is also a way for teachers to draw upon student experiences or feelings. I see myself definitely implementing music/historical music within my own classroom!

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9. I really enjoyed reading this article. I love music and just reading this article and seeing how influential African American music was and what genres of music it would go on to create is amazing. I also loved how it acknowledged that slavery and the civil war are not just the only important factors but music is also important because it described the times. Overall this was a really great article because it provided information that some may not have known.

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10. I really enjoyed this article. My whole life has revolved around music. Coming from a family of musicians I’ve always loved and enjoyed different genres. As I got older I began learning the clarinet, and singing. On the clarinet I loved learning the jazz styles and playing around with grace notes. When I started singing my choir teacher noticed I had a tendency to sing alto range, but carry high notes. She introduced me into soul singing. I am so happy this article is here. I feel like people don’t realize the lessons that can be learned from African American music.

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