Honouring Diversity in High School (Rebecca Allen)
Music is a fantastic way of demonstrating how emotions feel and how one can express themselves. In High School, students are experiencing a lot of new interactions and experiences for the first time and many of them are feeling stressed. Music has always been a large part of teenage culture and there is a great deal of music written by and for this generation based on feelings of depression. Allowing students to connect to not only popular music by classical music as well opens them to the idea that sometimes feeling sad or stressed is okay, and that is okay to talk about it and express themselves. In this lesson we will look at a classical pieces that has a sad feeling about it, and a song from the Top 40 Charts here in Canada that is about depression and asking for help.
To begin this lesson, play the class "Piano Sonata in F# minor" (play just the Aria) by Robert Schumann:
To begin this lesson, play the class "Piano Sonata in F# minor" (play just the Aria) by Robert Schumann:
Talk with the class about how this piece made them feel.
1. What kind of emotion are you feeling when you listen to this piece?
2. Is it happy or sad?
Have students close their eyes and ask them to while keeping eyes closed, place a hand on their head if they have ever felt the way the music makes them feel. Discuss how Depression can make some people feel this way all the time. Open up a discussion about Depression, what students think that it means, what depression looks like, and how it makes people feel. Talk about how expressing yourself through music can be a good way to make yourself feel better, or to let others know how you are feeling. Either by writing your own music or listening to music can be a very powerful thing!
Once the discussion has ended, play this cover of "True Colours by Artists Against" and discuss if students know of any other songs where the artist is expressing sadness or anger. Ask what music they listen to or play when they are feeling sad or upset.
1. What kind of emotion are you feeling when you listen to this piece?
2. Is it happy or sad?
Have students close their eyes and ask them to while keeping eyes closed, place a hand on their head if they have ever felt the way the music makes them feel. Discuss how Depression can make some people feel this way all the time. Open up a discussion about Depression, what students think that it means, what depression looks like, and how it makes people feel. Talk about how expressing yourself through music can be a good way to make yourself feel better, or to let others know how you are feeling. Either by writing your own music or listening to music can be a very powerful thing!
Once the discussion has ended, play this cover of "True Colours by Artists Against" and discuss if students know of any other songs where the artist is expressing sadness or anger. Ask what music they listen to or play when they are feeling sad or upset.