Fourth Graders
Anti-Bullying Rap was the assignment set before to teach in a school whose students didn't know me. Could "Whole Child" approach work? Usually 4th Graders team up and eat visitors for snack.
Admin already tipped me off that the 4th Graders didn't like writing assignments,so I hit up the music teacher for percussives.
An armpit bongo drum, silvery shaker, wooden clacker strip and a boinger were my weapons of choice.
After I introduced myself, I asked the children to introduce themselves. They had to speak their names loudly and clearly enough that my old ears could pick up the sounds. The "getting to know you" process showed on their face.The division between us disappeared. The one-on-one eye contact alone was worth the few minutes spent. The game was no longer "them against me" but how we all can play.
Then came the word box they created which I wrote on the whiteboard. After the box was filled, I asked "who has rap rhythm?" Two came up...one to hold the armpit bongo and the other to rap spit.
The Fourth Graders were mine.
They forgot I was there: I was just another instrument helping them rap and roll.I was the catalyst percussive.
The game was to create a rhyme on resolving bullying that we could rap to.
Once formed, the poem added rappers from the class body to the silver shaker (an elegant sound), the boinger, and the wooden clacker strip.
We rapped against bullying.
The last few minutes the students wrote out the cooperative learning poem on their sheets.
The Truth in this lesson was that the teacher was not the bully, trying to force the lesson down or demand good behavior.
There were no arguments or behavior problems during the entire class. The assignment rubrics were achieved 100%. This was a 35 minute rapped success.
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