VIEWS FROM THE CLASSROOM: Ryan Costello (RU Elementary Education)

                Friday we had drumming lessons with the standard 7 teacher, Innocent. He is a wonderful teacher in his classroom, and was no different during our drumming lesson. He presented the lesson and the objective before we began the lesson. We had to first learn the song we are going to sing to the teachers on Tuesday. At first we had trouble pronouncing the words in Chichewa, but with the help of Innocent by the end we were able to do it. He broke up the song into sections and had us practice singing that part over and over until we got it right. Then we did the second part of song until we got it right, and then combined them together and sang the whole thing. It was a lot of repetition, but it got us to memorize the song. He then taught us on the drums. He explained the process of the drums before we even started. The different songs consist of “Do” and “ke.” There are also father and mother sounds. After he was done describing all the logistics we began to play. The step by step process that Innocent laid out for us really made it easy for us to catch on. It was set up as a listen, play, repeat method. This made me wonder if this is a method he brought from his classroom teaching, or if this was how he was taught to play the drums. It is a great method and worked really well. This experience will help me to be a better teacher because I saw and experienced how well this method works when teaching. I will facilitate it in my classroom when teaching to ensure that my students are learning the material.