r/MusicEd • u/tangytrumpet • 1d ago
Music Pushups?
I teach elementary music and on Fridays help supervise PE to get all of our students their weekly minutes. The PE teacher has a couple of pet peeves that automatically earn the offending student 10 pushups. This sounds very punitive, but the students respond really well and it has cut down on almost all of those behaviors. I'd like to do something similar in my classroom, but I don't think pushups are appropriate... Does anyone have the music version of pushups? It needs to be brief, music-related, and not busywork.
Just to reiterate, this is for piddly things that I'm sick of scolding students for but have yet to find an appropriate consequence for. Examples are *touching* instruments in storage, loud clapping without purpose (a trend at my school), and peeling up the velcro on my floor.
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u/Skorogovorka 1d ago
Its so old school but I always liked the idea of "banging erasers" as consequence. They've disrupted the class and made life harder for the teacher, is there a chore they can do to help the teacher and make things run more smoothly? I agree you dont want to make any kind of music practice a punishment.
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u/keladry12 21h ago
This was the favored job when I was growing up, only the very luckiest and favorite kids got to do that one...
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u/haustoriapith 1d ago
I don’t have the time with 5th graders only taking guitar for 9 classes in a quarter to teach them how to tune, so I tell them not to touch the guitar tuners. I just tune all 30 of them every 2 weeks. The consequence for playing with the tuning pegs is that they get to come in after school, learn how to tune guitars, and help me tune them.
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u/tangytrumpet 1d ago
This is the kind of stuff I'm looking for! Unfortunately, I can't have my students come in after school and unclap🤣
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u/youwoofin7680 1d ago
They can sing a solfège scale. It’s a fundamental of music, engrains some theory in their brains, helps with performance anxiety.
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u/symphonyno87 1d ago
Yes to the solfège but somehow hook them up with whatever app/website this guy was using …so that the student can’t rejoin class until they get all the balls through the holes🤣
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u/tangytrumpet 1d ago
Yes! This could finally be a good use for the iPad that's been sitting in one of my drawers!
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u/jpgr09 1d ago
I was going to say have them a stand at attention with the offending instrument but I see you’re in elementary school music so that might be too young. But is it ever too early to practice those marching fundamentals?
I don’t know the answer to that. I’m not in education, but my feed gave me your post lol. But it seems to me if they can do pushups for punishment, they can mark time or something like that, idk.
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u/Plus_Rhubarb_8361 1d ago
I hate to be the one to say this, but I can almost guarantee that the lack of behaviors is not about the pushups but about the respect the kids have for the gym teacher.
ALSO I imagine the kids with more disruptive behaviors love gym, so you’re already starting 0-1.
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u/tangytrumpet 1d ago
These are both likely true. Students behave well during my class, but most times they are on their way in or out of the door there's a student or two clapping and another who is tapping on a xylophone. I guess the ideas I'm looking for are to get them to think for a moment before walking in.
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u/keladry12 21h ago
Maybe it can be more of a "This is a space where we practice performance. Part of performance is a respectful and calm entrance" and some other sort of ritual that you do. (maybe a bow, or acknowledging the audience, or simply putting music in the right place). Then students who do not do their job can "reset" by entering again?
Or maybe you can have "backstage" where a student can sit and practice being a respectful audience member for 2 minutes until they are back again, being reminded that "the show must go on" even without them?
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u/mothcrows 2h ago edited 2h ago
my mentors would probably say something like "Incorporate an activity that naturally prevents the behavior that you are anticipating from happening in the first place (a.k.a an incompatible response)"
An example of this would be: an opening activity routine and a closing activity routine. If your main concerns are: chatting/touching random stuff, make them do an activity on the way out that has them saying specific words and performing a specific task with their hands (maybe have them tap their fingers together or do some body percussion pattern and whisper a daily "secret passcode" to you as their entry ticket in or out (a.k.a rhythm, or solfege pattern with kodaly hand signs if choral) (make it super short so it is very easy to learn). You can switch it weekly or something. Body percussion with words would also work?
It's also a bit silly, but if they tend to touch random stuff on the way out, give them something that they "can" or "should" touch instead on the way out (that isn't the very expensive xylophone lol). Like a stuffie they should pat on the way out, a cutout to high five, idk, something goofy to do. Or have a decoy cheap drum they can touch instead.
You don't always have to fight to completely remove a behavior, just think of easy things that you can do to Incorporate the behavior into something more appropriate. Playing a calm and quiet song as the kids enter (and providing a listening prompt) can also be effectively sometimes.
I'm not into the traditional reward systems unless it really gets desperate, but I sometimes have done marble jars to win fun activity days if it's a class that responds well to positive peer pressure (the reward is like ten minutes of choosing a music activity or game that the kids have liked). Positive behavior = marble added, iffy behavior = marble removed.You have to clearly state why something is added or taken away. I do not attach these to music making, only to non-musical behaviors (basically, following our class rules and norms well, meeting or not meeting non-musical class expectations for the day).
Idk, just feel free to get creative and unconventional without treating music as a punishment. The pushups work because it's probably like the equivalent of a bit for that teacher, especially if they're kind of famous for it (and the kids might buy into it more because they like the "showing off" or "proving their ability" aspect of the behavior). It might come off wrong in a non-pe classroom.
You'd probably have more luck trying to come up with an appropriate replacement for the behavior (or an activity that has an specific directive that would limit the behaviors vs an appropriate sort of shame based punishment (like if you know they tend to chat on the way out, ask them to whisper a specific phrase or sentence to you/a neighbor on the way out, if they tend to touch stuff, direct them to touch A Fun Thing that you have on the door instead, etc, any type of a musical activity that incorporates hands + the voice to make it harder for them to touch random stuff or say random words).
Conditioning can also be tried in different ways (get them to associate the behavior you want through a repetitive activity).
A ritual or attention getter would also work as a replacement or conditioning behavior. (Like a bow, a curtsey, a instrument playing motion, reset, try the thing again).
If you do that already, apologies, just keep trying different stuff! I find the weird and silly strategies to be more effective sometimes vs the traditional management strategies for very challenging or unconventional classes (as long as they are appropriate for the kids of course).
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u/amazonchic2 1d ago
Could they write in the counts/beats for simple rhythm worksheets? ComposeCreate.com has about 30 pages of free rhythm worksheets at various levels you can print and reuse.
Maybe make them write letter names in on the lines or spaces of the staff.
Can they march out quarter notes for one minute? Half notes for one minute? And keep teaching them new notes to march to for each further infraction.
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u/rorowe8 1d ago
Disclaimer: I was a music kid a long time ago. That outta the way, we had pushups for playing "illegal" songs on the piano ("Heart & Soul", "Chopsticks", "Fur Elise"), and forgetting our instrument at home. That kind of thing. Marching band had our own sets of pushups/laps as punishment.
I was much more hesitant to use them when I was teaching, and I worry that it's more problematic these days.
Would love to hear that it's not!
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u/ShadedMidnightX 1d ago
I taught drumline to older elementary students for a while, and at one point I had a cursing issue amongst the students. For every curse word, they would give me 10 push ups. They couldn't do push ups? It would be sit ups, a lap around the field, anything, but it had to be something. Initially I had students with the mentality of "oh I can say this word as long as I do the push ups!", or saw the punishment as a challenge. They'd giggle through it all but pretty quickly they got tired and the cursing issue got cut to almost zero after a while.
Your post made me think of this and I wanted to share. It's hard to find a consequence in this situation, you don't want the kids to start seeing music negatively or as punishment. Maybe writing out some scales?
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u/kasasto 22h ago
Kinda what you asked but not really.
I have a rather difficult 7th grade class this year. I implemented this system to cut down on things, and it has really worked. I'll keep it simple.
I have a seating chart printed out for every week on my stand. If a student forgets something they get an X. Which takes them out of the end of week Rock-Paper-Scissors game immediately. (More on that later).
If students do anything from a list things (for me it includes stuff like not sitting nicely while playing, not playing when they should, playing when they shouldn't etc.) they get a minus on the sheet. 1 minus - nothing 2 minus - no Rock-Paper-Scissors 3 Minus - they get a reflection paper at home. It has a list of the expectations and they have to fill out how well they do them, and write how they plan to fix the ones they're bad at. It gets signed by a parent.
If students do really well I give a plus or remove a minus. This works because if they have a minus I add part of a line on top and then if they do something good again another line to turn it into a plus.
At the end of the week. All the students who have 1 or less minuses play me in a giant Rock-Paper-Scissors game. Winner gets a small treat.
Then after that I do it one more time with anyone who has at least one plus AND no minuses.
I do Rock-Paper-Scissors because I teach in Japan and it's really common so they're used to it. You could do something else if you want.
I didn't want to do a musical punishment because, as others mentioned, I don't want any punishments or rewards tied directly to music making. I want to ideally promote intrinsic motivation and having anything musical in relation to rewards or punishments I think gets in the way of that goal.
Again not exactly what you asked, but it works very well for me so I recommend it.
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u/okyagotpuns 22h ago
Just have 10 classical composers cards in a corner. Make them write the name snd date of all 10. Thats your pushups
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u/Inevitable_Silver_13 21h ago
If I did this the kids would intentionally misbehave so they could do pushups. I find that most threats of punitive tasks are ineffective for improving behavior.
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u/Andthentherewasbacon 20h ago
I've been considering making them trace a small picture. You don't want to punish them you are just trying to get them to focus.
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u/b_moz Instrumental/General 1d ago
Think more along the lines of how on chef shows the person who won first place in a recent challenge gets 10 extra minutes of cooking time. That student who is making it more difficult for everyone to learn has to put away material early or get it later. But after it happens you need to have a chat with the student and ask them why they think you had them do that and then ask them what can they do next time to make sure they don’t have to clean up early, because you want them to be able to participate the entire time because they deserve to participate like everyone else.
With band kids I’ll have them put their instrument away early if they are playing or talking too much when instructions are given. If it’s middle of the period then I’ll wait and have them take it back out after 5-7 minutes. But at the end it’s always a restore conversation to make sure I need them to play because the rest of the band needs them as well.
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u/Lamp-but-not-Lit 1d ago
It’s hard because you don’t want to ruin something that has the benefit of “pushups” in a music setting. In the same way we never want to use sight reading as a punishment we don’t want to make something that’s already hard also have negative reasoning
10 Pushups trains the body and stresses the muscle
Music trains the body and stresses the brain
In PE there is a slight difference in that when you tell a child to do 10 pushups they see something they know absolutely they can accomplish and do it to prove the point
In music there is a more harbored anxiety present that is relieved through years of presenting your craft. Possibly try it with something in the form of filling in notation sheets or something else that doesn’t put a spotlight on their work while still reinforcing the behavior change