How to Use Your Spidey Sense to Help Your Exceptional Learners Feel Great in Your Music Classroom

Tips for Using Your Spidey Senses:

• Always be watching your students’ expressions. Just because they can’t participate in the same way as your typical students doesn’t mean they are not attentive and enjoying themselves. 
• Know what your students ARE capable of so you know when they’re engaged and can celebrate their achievements. 
• Remember that students may not LOOK engaged or expressive but that doesn’t mean they are not. 
• Always be ready to pivot when you need to. Don’t be afraid to stop in the middle of a lesson and regroup if its not working. 
• It doesn’t matter how many times you have to do it to get it right. 

Episode quotes:

[3:10] Just because they can't express it doesn't mean they [your exceptional learners] aren't listening, thinking, feeling, or understanding it. You should assume that while your exceptional learners may not be as expressive as your typical learners, they can learn, they can see, they can feel, they can think, they can hear and they can understand. And your job is to help them in whatever way they can manage it. 

[9:22] One of the things that I want you to remember is that just because a student doesn't look expressive doesn't mean that they are not feeling and learning and just getting something out of your class. 

[13:29] When you're using your spidey senses of observation, the next step is that you want to be flexible. You want to make sure that you are adjusting your lessons so that everyone is being successful. 

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TRANSCRIPTION:

So we were on the stage, which is my classroom for the school that I teach at with the exceptional learners and the behaviorally challenged students say that one three times fast and the students who are med medically fragile. So we're on the stage and it's a little dark and the sound is kind of muffled because with this particular class we close the curtains so there's less distractions. Footsteps go by every once in a while and there's the smell of pizza heavy in the air because they always have pizza on Thursdays when I'm there. And I am so captivated by this one student, we're gonna call him George. His name is not George, but that's what we're gonna call him. He's on the autism spectrum and he has a lot of trouble regulating. So that's why we close the curtains. And he rarely participates and he gets stressed very easily, has lots of anxiety about changes and that sort of thing.

So as always, I try to keep my lessons very scheduled and very similar, lots of repetition. And he always, when the music comes on, all of a sudden, like he becomes a different person. He listens so carefully. I mean you can see his face just this change comes over his entire body. He goes from being just like whatever to attentive and he's kind of looking up and he's, I mean you can see all over his body that he is listening to the music and he just loves it. And then as soon as music comes on, and it really doesn't matter what music, as soon as music comes on, he loves to move and he will get up. Even if nobody else is getting up, he's going to get up. And he really prefers to move than to sit still when we are having music, especially, or I should say only if the music is playing.

So my quote for the day is, just because they can't express it doesn't mean they aren't listening, thinking, feeling, or understanding it. You should assume that while you're exceptional, learners may not be as expressive as your typical learners. They can learn, they can see, they can feel, they can think, they can hear and they can understand. And your job is to help them in whatever way they can manage it. These students truly understand everything you're saying and doing. They watch, they listen, they know when you're being respectful of them. So today we're gonna take a bit of a deep dive into reading your exceptional learners. So using your spidey senses of observation, you have students who are medically fragile who perhaps don't move at all or move very little. You probably have students who are on the autism spectrum. You probably have students who have other learning challenges, other exceptionalities along with your typical students.

And they're pretty easy to read if you know their tells. So again, you're going to use those spidey senses of observation. You're gonna look at their face, you're gonna look at their eyes, their body language, and any signs of anxiety. Are they covering their ears? Are they turned away? Are they withdrawing from class? Are they having a legit meltdown? And there are things you can do to help them. Are they stemming? If they're stemming, they can't participate and children stem for different reasons. Sometimes they stem because they're just overwhelmed. Sometimes they stem because they're anxious. Sometimes it's because they're excited. So you really don't know, but you can kind of tell what's happening just by looking at their body language. So I have one little boy who does not participate and the reason he doesn't participate is because he is stemming the entire time he's in there.

But I know he's happy and I know he's excited because I can see on his face, I can see in his eyes I can see that just intense listening and the intense joy that he has when he is listening to the other students playing the drums or singing or watching them playing with the scarves. And even though he can't participate, he is still truly enjoying it. I have another little boy who is non-verbal, but when he comes to music he uses syllables and he sings. So I know he's enjoying and you kind of have to listen for that kind of thing because if you're not listening, you may not realize that that's what's happening. But I can hear the melodic tones in his voice and I know that he's singing. He may have a completely deadpan expression, but I know he's singing because I can hear it.

I have a little girl who loves the drum so much that she will literally stare at them from the entire time, like from the minute we get into class until the minute we're leaving. And even if we're not playing them that day, she will sit there and stare at them. It is like the coolest thing. She just loves the drums so much. There's a big boy in one of my classes, probably a high schooler who is in a wheelchair and he does have functionality, but he doesn't do a lot of participating. Periodically he'll pick up an instrument and do a little something with it cuz he does have functionality in his hands. But I know he's enjoying it because he looks at me when I'm talking to him and he looks at me when I'm reading stories and he smiles. And so I know that he is listening and learning.

Long ago there was a little girl in my class who was on the autism spectrum and we used a visual schedule for her and we also used stories for her. And stories are a really good way to get things across to students on the autism spectrum. And so she really didn't participate much and I really was not sure like did she like my class? And at this point I was not a very experienced teacher, especially with exceptional learners. But I wasn't a very experienced teacher at all. So I didn't know the tells, I didn't know how to read them, I didn't know what to do to, to really get whether or not she was liking what was happening. So the following year she goes to my friend's school down the street and I see my friend at some function, some elementary music teacher function. And she comes up to me and she's like, oh my gosh, you are not gonna believe this little girl.

And she was a very different looking woman for me. She was shorter than me and um, she had dark hair and she was kind of a very casual dresser. And I, I'm kind of more of a, you know, I wear dresses and I wear skirts and I, I tend to be more of a dress up kind of gal. So we were talking and she said this little girl came in and they told her she was gonna come to music. It was on her visual schedule and they had told her a story about music and she walks in and she looks around and she's like totally it. And she starts like yelling in the middle of the music classroom and she's like, this is not a music teacher. Music teachers have yellow hair and they wear lipstick and they wear dresses and they have a pretty smile and she just goes on and on about this is not what a music teacher looks like.

So absolutely she was loving my class and she was loving our interaction. She just didn't know how to express it to me. So one of the things that I want you to remember is that just because a student doesn't look expressive doesn't mean that they are not feeling and learning and just getting something out of your class. They're watching the other students, they're listening to what's going on. If they can't participate in Steady Bead, they're hearing the steady bead. So that is really a cool thing to keep in mind. Now I have another student who I always use a visual schedule and what I do is I put the poster up on my board and then I've got, and if you don't know what a visual schedule is, ask your Esse specialist or your special ed teacher because they can help you with that. And the special ed paraprofessionals at my school carry these cards and the cards are visual and then they have words on top of them.

So they might say quiet hands, um, they might say, uh, play music or whatever they say, and this is a great way for your students who are on the autism spectrum to see what's going on in your classroom and to be able to expect what's happening. So I had this one little boy and he was very verbal and he was on the very high end of the spectrum. He participated, he did a lot of, um, what we were doing, but he was apparently very scheduled. And I did not realize how scheduled until one day we were, uh, I accidentally changed the order and we had been on my visual schedule. It said we were going to play instruments. And so we went to another area cuz this was my ginormous classroom in Florida. And so we were in, I don't know where we were, maybe in the story area or the teaching and learning area.

And next we started singing. And on my schedule it said we were going to play instruments. So he went and sat down on the floor in the instrument play circle and I was like, what are you doing? And he said, I'm playing instruments. So like he was totally of the opinion that we should have been playing instruments. So I thought that was just the coolest thing. So you definitely wanna use your spidey senses of observation and you want to observe what's happening with your students who are exceptional learners. While you're using your senses of observation, you wanna make sure and pivot when you need to. So if you see that someone's getting particularly anxious, or maybe the whole class is kind of building and getting anxious, like I have a group of seventh and eighth graders that they start to get very anxious, um, about halfway through our lesson.

So what I do is I kind of watch what's happening and then I've got some strategies in place, like I'll put on some relaxing music and we'll just do some slow moving, some mirror mu moving. Um, I've also got some strategies where we'll just take some bubble breathing as I call it. And they're very used to that because that's something that they do in their classroom anyway. So I try to talk them down a little bit and I don't say to them, okay, we're gonna take a step back. I just stop and I start doing whatever it is I'm doing because it's not really necessary. And especially if you have older kiddos, it's better to sort of sneak that regulation in and not let them know that it's happening. Now you may have students that are okay with that, but I try not to mention it because I, I just don't want them to feel like they're being called out for it because this particular group of students also is very, very sensitive to what the teacher's saying and what the teacher's doing.

So when you're using your spidey senses of observation, the next step is that you want to be flexible. You want to make sure that you are adjusting your lessons so that everyone is being successful. So if you've got a group of totally exceptional learners, it's easier to do that flexibility and pivoting than if you have typical learners. But it's still possible because what happens is if your exceptional learner is starting to get anxious or excited, then you've got a couple of choices you can call them out, which I don't recommend because just like any other student, they don't wanna be called out. They want to be just like everyone else. Even if they don't express that to you, that is absolutely what is happening in their head. So that would be your first choice is call them out and have one of the paraprofessionals help.

But what I like to do is I'll just take a few moments. If I think this is going to work for this student and I know my students pretty well by this point in the year, if I think it's going to work, I'll take a moment and we'll just the whole class, we'll just do some bubble breathing or we'll do some balloon breathing. I can call it balloon breathing too. And what that looks like is basically you say, okay, you've got a balloon in your stomach and I want you to breathe into the balloon and you count to like four or five or six. Now I want you to hold that air in the balloon and now I want you to let it all out. And that is really cool because they have fun with it too. Or you can do bubble breathing. So that was balloon breathing. Bubble breathing is where you take your pretend bubble one and you breathe in and then you blow out

And you blow a big bubble. So that is another thing to do. The third thing is I put on some relaxing music and I'll do the mirror game. So they have to mirror me and I make small movements with different parts of my body, with my exceptional learners or really even with my typical learners, I make very slow movements and I don't move more than maybe one body part, possibly two body parts at a time. And I give them maybe 30 seconds to a minute of the mirror game. And I call it the mirror game even though it's really not a game. And I'll say to them, now, if you don't mirror me, you're gonna get out. Now if you've got students who can't mirror you because they have challenges with physical challenges, then that may not be your best option, but a lot of my students can still move their heads.

So we can do something like that as well. So that is one way that you can pivot and change up your lesson plan a little bit. Now if you notice that your students are starting to get overexcited and maybe you're doing some movement, then it's okay to stop the movement and sit down and maybe do a story instead. I usually always have a story in my back pocket. I'm gonna tell you that nine times outta 10. I do a story book with my exceptional learners anyway and with my very young students, my pre-K, my kinder, my first, my second graders, we do a storybook almost every week and it's designed to teach music skills. So I may do something where we're talking about dynamics or I may do something where we're talking about alternating hands versus hands together or you know, something like that. But a storybook is a great way when you first read the story to just kind of get your students calmed back down.

So it's always okay to stop in the middle and regroup. Another thing that you can do is let's say that you noticed that your students are getting fidgety and this is your typical students as well as your students with exceptional learning challenges. So you can pivot that way as well. So if you're noticing they're starting to get fidgety, then not a bad idea to just have some music in your back pocket, especially if you know they're that class or it's a class with their, a couple of exceptional learners in it. And just start with some music and stand up and you can just do steady beat. So steady beat to your shoulders, steady beat, tap our toes, steady beat, bend our knees, steady, beat, wiggle our hips and just do 30 seconds or a minute of movement and then have them sit back down. Now pro tip, when they're standing up and sitting down, I always say silently stand.

And when they stand silently, that's awesome. If they don't silently stand, I say, uhoh, sit back down. Why are we sitting back down? Because we were talking, okay, silently stand. And then the same silently sit. And even if it takes like three or four or five times, they know you mean business. So in my bigger school, we have students that are walking down the hall, all 700 students are leaving the building in three different groups. And they had gotten into a really bad habit. We have between the green and the gray and in line and silent in our hallway. And they had gotten into a bad habit of not being silent and not being in line. So about a week and a half, two weeks ago, I started just taking kiddos out of line. And as I was taking 'em out of line, I would say this is a silent hallway.

This is a hallway where we walk in a straight line. And I will tell you the first couple days I did that, I probably had 15 students standing with me in the middle of the hallway and I was sure to say to them, you're not gonna miss your bus. I will let you go. You're just not gonna be first anymore. So this week, today I had three kids. It was amazing. And for the longest time I only had one. So what I'm saying to you is when you are structured and you show your students you mean business. They are going to listen and they are going to do what you say. And you don't have to do anything but say, oh, I'm sorry, let's try that again. So that is just a little pro tip there. So let us go back and do a quick review.

You're going to use your spidey senses of observation to observe your students. You're gonna observe how they look. You're gonna observe their body language, what their eyes look like, what their face looks like, what they are doing. Are they turned around facing the other direction? Are they covering their ears or do they look joyful? Second, you are going to be flexible with your students. And third, you are going to pivot when you need to. Finally, that bonus tip, it doesn't matter how many times they have to do it again until they get it right. Well, that's all I have for you today. But before I go, let me remind you, keep learning, keep growing, and keep being fabulous. You.