All interns at SOR have learned music from someone before, right? Right!
That means you already have experience teaching or seeing how someone else has done it. Use your experience to explain big ideas, small details, or long-term goals to campers.
It's also important to understand the difference between teaching and instructing. Let's explore that now!
Learning from Great Teachers:
Think about the best teachers and motivators in your life, whether it was as School of Rock or elsewhere. These could be coaches, family members, older siblings, school teachers, or anyone else who helped you succeed and grow. Although it's a School Of Rock camp, it’s not just about music when it comes to teaching. You should incorporate lessons from other areas of your life and interests into camp.
Questions to Consider:
Why did those people connect with you so well?
What made working with them fun?
What approaches might work with this camper or group?
What could I experiment with to find what works best for each situation/camper?
Teaching vs. Instructing:
Teaching and instructing might seem similar, but they’re actually quite different.
Teaching is about inspiring and guiding, helping campers understand and grow over time. It’s about making learning fun and engaging. In contrast, instructing is just giving out steps or information without deeper connection or understanding.
While sometimes necessary, instructing alone isn't as effective or enjoyable over long periods of time. Embrace teaching to create a meaningful and lasting impact on your campers, making their experience more rewarding and fun!
A mental model is like a way of seeing and understanding the world to help you process things. It helps us think and act in certain ways that we need to so we can do good work and have a good attitude.
At School of Rock summer camps, having a positive mental model can be super helpful. Imagine if you believed in the potential of every camper and saw them as capable of growing and improving. Don't you think it would make you more patient, encouraging, and supportive, or help create a fun and motivating learning environment? You bet! A good mental model also lets you be creative and try new things as you teach. You can explore different music styles and ideas, and make the camp way more exciting and enjoyable.
Don't forget about teamwork! A mental model that values collaboration and respecting other people's skills helps everyone feel included and supported. Additionally, a good mental model helps structure teaching lessons effectively by:
Setting clear goals
Teaching concepts in a logical order
Adapting to individual needs
Using engaging activities (like games etc.)
Providing feedback & encouraging reflection
Building a positive mindset that embraces growth & learning
As SOR interns, you'll be using a mental model called "C-P-R" for most of your teaching during camps. Don't worry, it's not the same as the CPR technique used by paramedics or lifeguards. However, it does breathe life into your lessons and keeps everything on track!
This mental model helps us structure lessons and manage our daily/weekly schedules as well. This model is used by teachers and Show Directors in the Performance Program, JV, House Band, and regular lessons too.
Concept (What's the big idea here? What is our goal?)
Practice (How are we going to get there? Let's try it out and run some experiments!)
Reiterate (Show me what you remember! Teach it back to me!)
It helps you by thinking of a beginning, middle, and end to whatever process you're doing. Especially when you're teaching.
Sometimes there's a lot to keep track of and we forget where we are or where we should be during the timeline of our lesson or everyone's learning. Using this can help you remember where you are or where you SHOULD be during a process or point in time.
Concept: "I'm going to show you the proper technique in holding the guitar & plucking the strings. Watch me first, and then I want you to try. It might be frustrating at first, but I promise you'll get it!"
Practice: "Hey, you're almost getting it but we need to make a few adjustments. Try curling your fingers and using your fingertips more. Our goal is to get a nice clean sound. Try doing that about 4 times in a row real quick OK?"
Reiterate: "Ok awesome job! Before we move on, tell me what you noticed. What was the hardest for you? Tell me why it's important to use the right part of your fingers while playing. How will this make your songs sound better? Any ideas?"
Concept: "We're going to learn what's called the basic beat. This is so you can play along to thousands of songs, even if you don't know every detail or part. At least you'll be able to hold it down and keep the band together!"
Practice: "Let's do 2 positions and try it out. Position 1 is your right hand and right foot together (hi-hat and kick). Try it! Ok, now let's try Position 2-- which is just both of your hands hitting at the same time (hi-hit and snare). Great! Start slowly, and go back and forth. 1, 2, 1, 2... alright! You're getting there!"
Reiterate: "Ok, tell me how you would teach me what you just learned. I want you to be able to show all your camper friends later so let's hear how YOU would explain the basic beat. Great job by the way!"
Concept: "I'm going to show you what's called a scale. It's a bit weird, so let me know when you get confused OK?"
Practice: "Put your index finger here, then your ring finger there, and just go between those notes while you pull gently on the string with your right hand. Feels weird, right? You hear that buzzing sound? That's because we need to press a liiittle bit harder. Great! Now, the notes you played are part of the MAJOR scale. If we know all the notes in the scale, then we know all the notes in the song. Pretty cool!"
Reiterate: "So tell me how scales can help you show everyone in the band what notes they need to play. How would you describe a scale to someone else? Try teaching me a scale real quick before we go. Rad!"
Concept: "Let's learn about chords. Chords are when we play 3 notes or more together and makes the music sound really full and nice."
Practice: "First, put your thumb here and your middle finger here, and then stretch your pinky to this one. Now push down on all of them at the same time. Hear that? That's called a C chord! Let me show you a few other chords and how they jump around and then you make some up by yourself. Sound good?"
Reiterate: "So why do we like chords? What can they do to help this song we're learning today? Do you think this will make all our songs easier and sound better?"
Concept: "Alright, so we're going to learn about matching the pitch and a little about our breathing. This is important so that we can sing the right notes but also not run out of breath during a song. Sound good?"
Practice: "Ok first, I need to hear you try and sing this note *plays C on the keyboard* cool? Ok great! You were so close but you were a little flat. That means we were a tad bit lower than we needed to be. I want you to imagine that you're yelling at your sister for stealing your cookie and then just say HEY really loud. Do you feel your breath and where that came from? It's the same kind of technique we need to hit this note. Let's do that some more, but if it hurts or feels weird I want you to tell me ok?"
Reiterate: "Great job! So tell me what we can do to practice our technique wherever we go? How could you explain what I taught you to other singers if they aren't quite reaching the pitch? Should we do it nicely or should we be encouraging? Right! Encouraging, you got it! You did really well!"
