{"id":95,"date":"2012-07-31T18:29:52","date_gmt":"2012-07-31T18:29:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-gilder\/?p=95"},"modified":"2012-07-31T18:29:52","modified_gmt":"2012-07-31T18:29:52","slug":"music-as-a-way-to-inform-students-about-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/civilwar\/2012\/07\/31\/music-as-a-way-to-inform-students-about-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Music as a way to inform students about history"},"content":{"rendered":"

Music is a crucial component of many of our youths’ lives.\u00a0 It is a means of understanding the culture of today as well as a means of escape from the realities of our not so perfect world. It may be that such a statement might be disagreeable to many, but needless to say most would agree that if not completely true, it is partially true at best.\u00a0 If\u00a0the youth of today\u00a0use music to\u00a0comprehend the realities of today and identify themselves in some sort of cultural mold within a\u00a0genre of music that fits within the perimeters of their world, it makes sense to teach music of the past to help them identify or make comparisons with the past.\u00a0 By no means am I an expert at teaching history through music, more or less I just dabble in the tool as a way to promote understanding and increase knowledge of the past to our youth.\u00a0 Music, or lyrics,\u00a0can be\u00a0just one more means to teach content.<\/p>\n

The first time I was introduced to music as a criteria to teaching history was in kindergarten.\u00a0 It is with great clarity that I can recall singing “America the Beautiful” amongst my peers every morning after reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. The song has stayed with me for nearly thirty-eight years, and yet kindergarten was the only class I would ever hear that song as a means to teach our history to students. It is a significant observation, and one that has left an impression.\u00a0\u00a0 I use music as a means\u00a0to\u00a0engage students along with other primary sources and images of our past.<\/p>\n

There are numerous sources available through the Internet for almost any topic discussed in the American History class.\u00a0It is a wonderful time to be a teacher as knowledge is at our fingertips.\u00a0 For example, if you are creating a lesson plan about John Brown simply type in “John Brown Song (or lyrics)” and you will\u00a0find an array of resources about the song and its history through the course of the years after John Brown’s death.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Some sources to check out:<\/p>\n

www.mcgath.com\/freesongs.html<\/a><\/p>\n

www.contemplator.com\/america<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/folkmusic.about.com\/od\/folksongs\/American_Folk_Songs.htm<\/a><\/p>\n

“Too Late to Apologize: A Declaration”<\/p>\n

[youtube_sc url=”http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/uZfRaWAtBVg”]<\/p>\n

You can also find the video on schooltube.com, vimeo.com\/12954087 and other sites<\/p>\n

Another great video about the Declaration of Independence is the History Reimagined video (not really related to my blog, but definitely a video to show the kids if you teach about the Declaration of Independence):<\/p>\n

[youtube_sc url=”http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xw_1I1oYApw”]<\/p>\n

If you teach world history you should check our the “history teachers” series on youtube.\u00a0 My wold history students love the videos and often tell me they can remember facts about the topic\u00a0being studied more from the videos than other assignments related to the topic.\u00a0 Even if you do not teach world history you may want to share the videos with your friends who do. Here is a link to one:<\/p>\n

[youtube_sc url=”http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/wXsZbkt0yqo”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Music is a crucial component of many of our youths’ lives.\u00a0 It is a means of understanding the culture of today as well as a means of escape from the realities of our not so perfect world. It may be that such a statement might be disagreeable to many, but needless to say most would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11236,65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discussion","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/civilwar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/civilwar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/civilwar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/civilwar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/civilwar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/civilwar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/civilwar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/civilwar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/civilwar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}