This morning, I finally got around to viewing a couple videos a colleague of mine sent me weeks ago. They were titled, "Tour of the United States - Official Music Video" and "Tour the World - Official Music Video." If I'm being honest, I did not view them right away because I was expecting them to be either lame, cheesy, or annoying songs (as in the kind of song that gets stuck in your head - I am still occasionally haunted from my days playing, Mean, Median, and Mode to my AP Psychology students).
And while these songs were indeed cheesy, they were full of information regarding geography. Not only did they cover each country or state in the lyrics, but they also displayed illustrations on a white board teaching relative location and aspects of culture. The song certainly has the potential to be annoying and get stuck in your head - but in doing so - you can remember all the countries in the world or all the states in America, along with their capitals - quite an upgrade from the song - Fifty Nifty United States.
There is power in music, particularly when it comes to enhancing memory. I still know all the countries and their capitals in Central and South America because I had to sing songs about them every year in Spanish class. Here's an example of a history teacher using, "We Didn't Start the Fire" to teach about events in the 20th Century. I certainly never realized growing up as I listen to Billy Joel with my dad that I was in fact learning history until I taught a history class and used this song as part of an engage activity with my students. Songs help our brains remember information and evoke emotion. Think about a song that triggers a memory for you - maybe from a major event like a wedding, your college days, an experience in high school, etc. Songs are powerful and they can be powerful tools to support building our students' bases of knowledge -- even if the songs are a bit lame, cheesy, or get stuck in our heads.
I would love to add to my collection of songs that can be utilized in the classroom - if you have one - tweet it - @bvsocialstudies #powerofmusic
And while these songs were indeed cheesy, they were full of information regarding geography. Not only did they cover each country or state in the lyrics, but they also displayed illustrations on a white board teaching relative location and aspects of culture. The song certainly has the potential to be annoying and get stuck in your head - but in doing so - you can remember all the countries in the world or all the states in America, along with their capitals - quite an upgrade from the song - Fifty Nifty United States.
There is power in music, particularly when it comes to enhancing memory. I still know all the countries and their capitals in Central and South America because I had to sing songs about them every year in Spanish class. Here's an example of a history teacher using, "We Didn't Start the Fire" to teach about events in the 20th Century. I certainly never realized growing up as I listen to Billy Joel with my dad that I was in fact learning history until I taught a history class and used this song as part of an engage activity with my students. Songs help our brains remember information and evoke emotion. Think about a song that triggers a memory for you - maybe from a major event like a wedding, your college days, an experience in high school, etc. Songs are powerful and they can be powerful tools to support building our students' bases of knowledge -- even if the songs are a bit lame, cheesy, or get stuck in our heads.
I would love to add to my collection of songs that can be utilized in the classroom - if you have one - tweet it - @bvsocialstudies #powerofmusic