music, therapy, and me

Here is today's random number post - #1209 from June 12, 2016 . Over the years that I have been writing on this blog, I have changed the focus of the Sunday posts many times. During 2016, I was using my Sundays to show how to use some of the visual aids that I have generated over the years. Today's glimpse into the past shows a bit of how I teach my clients something about rhythm notation. Now, you may be thinking, "Mary Jane, you are not a music educator, so why are you teaching about rhythm notation?" My answer is pretty simple. Most of my clients have not had good experiences in general music classes. Most of my clients will be returning to music education rather than music therapy services when they leave our facility. Since their futures will not be music therapy, I try to give them some knowledge about music education so they have an idea of what is going on in music education - a VERY abstract part of education when you think about it. So, I try to teach them s...

My brain is reaching post-COVID stage, and I am starting to think logically again (at least, I feel like I am being logical...), so I am thinking about things that are not entirely important but that make a difference in my life. Yesterday's post on systems was about classroom systems that my sister (Hi, KB!) uses in her second grade class, and included some talk about centers. Now, centers are one of my favorite ways to check for independence and generalization of skills for my clients, but they are hard to run in my music therapy room - mainly because of constant staff turnover and the need to constantly train staff members on how to interact and how to stay out of what clients are doing! **We all want to help, but we don't all realize that helping too much hinders people rather than actually helping them.** I want my students to explore and figure out answers without interference from well-meaning staff members who just don't get how we all learn. Anyway... Lately, I hav...

My sister (who now reads my blog, apparently) is my favorite second grade teacher. Just wanted to say that up front. I am totally biased about who is Teacher of the Year, every year, because she is my sister and I've known her all her life. There you go. Now, today's post is inspired by my sister and by the countless numbers of classroom teachers who are currently working on making their classrooms into engaging and comfortable places for students. Some classrooms include complex themes, lots of different elements to go together, and countless dollars of teacher money spent on things that teachers feel are needed in order to promote a sense of love and comfort and engagement. There is lots of controversy in the teacher world between the decorators and the non-decorators about whether this type of environment is necessary, but I know many who just feel better in a coordinated environment. My sister is one of the thematic teachers. She has an overarching theme for her classroom e...

Extended School Year (Week Two) Last week was a week full of humiliating circumstances that I had to go through - people changing things from how they were supposed to be to what they thought they should be without checking with the people who were directly affected (e.g., ME!) I looked wrong in all those circumstances (something I REALLY hate!), but I wasn't. I am hoping that this week will be a bit more settled. I declare, here and now, that I am going to make this Monday count. I'm not entirely sure how I am going to do this, but I am going to, by golly! This week is Centers week. I feel woefully unprepared for everything these days, so I'm not exactly sure what we are going to be doing. I'm thinking that the Orff instruments will play a role. We are working on the theme of "Helping Others." We could use the Orff instruments to play familiar songs with one client helping another to find the correct notes. We can use the boomwhackers and drums to mak...

This week is Center week in my music therapy clinic. I have been trying to implement something a bit different from what I usually do in music therapy - just to see if it will work and to increase my treatment options. Some setting information: I work in a residential and day school program for children and adolescents ages 5-22 who have developmental and psychiatric diagnoses. I have 112 students who come to music therapy for 60 minutes per week. All services are educational enrichment and psychiatric treatment services - nothing is listed on the Individualized Education Plans of my clients. This is both a good thing and a bad thing for my treatment service plan. The reason I started with Centers: I was finding that my group sessions were becoming less about relationships with clients and more about filling time. I really didn't feel that I knew my clients very well because my focus was on song, song, song. I wanted a way to get to know my clients a bit better, but that is...

Today is one of those days where I don't have my database handy, so I'm going to offer something a bit different from what I usually share here. Instead of a therapeutic music experience (TME), I'm going to spend some time with my newest venture - centers - and how I'm finding my way into making things, helping my students reach independence, and making things new within a habit. Please keep in mind that I've only been doing this formally for a month now, and things are still works in progress, but here goes. I spent quite a bit of time thinking about how and why I wanted to change some of my music therapy time from what I've "always done" to something different. There are several reasons - some of them practical, others a bit more selfish - but reasons nonetheless. I needed something to challenge me and the center idea seemed to be that something. First of all, my caseload has exploded, leading to bigger group sizes and no corresponding increase...

So, if you've been following this blog lately, you know that I am currently trying something new for me - I am starting to use centers as part of my music therapy sessions. This came about because I have large groups of students placed in classrooms that have very little therapeutic rhyme or reason. Clients are constantly changing - kids leave and brand new ones arrive pretty much all the time. We never find a time where we stabilize.  I am trying something different. Two times per month, I am setting up centers for my clients to complete as part of their music therapy treatment. I have three centers - Explore, Listen, and Learn. These titles simply give me a way to indicate where I want clients to go during the session. I also have two different task indicators for my centers - Must Do and May Do tasks. I completed one full round of centers for half of the school last week - the other half will do centers this upcoming week. This is due to the snow day and day off that I too...

Well, Day One of centers is over. Day Two is not going to happen as I am taking a day off today, but Day One went very well. Some of the students that don't usually engage easily completed all of the "Must Do" tasks and most of the "May Do" tasks with good levels of independence. The complainers complained. As one of our centers, we played WAR with the cards I made this weekend. I made two more decks (color-coded, of course) when I got to work, and I plan on using them for the rest of the week (once I get back to work tomorrow). Anyway, here's what we did. One of my groups learned how to play WAR and then went into the centers. Another one of my groups just learned how to play WAR. That group will do the centers on Wednesday. Here's the therapeutic music experience plan for our WAR game. Therapeutic Music Experience Center - WAR Music Notation Review Game Mary Jane Landaker, MME, MT-BC   Purpose : To increase recognition of music not...