The Music of a Community

Excellent teachers are always learning and developing their craft. 

 

Each summer, music teachers from around the country gather at Collegiate School’s campus to learn techniques of music education by studying one of the three levels the Orff methodology, a music education method, named after the German composer Carl Orff, which integrates music with movement, drama, speech and play. 

 

The two-week program, which is offered through a unique collaboration with Virginia Commonwealth University, gives music instructors a broad network of peers, a fundamental understanding of how to fully engage students in music education and lays the foundation for future intellectual growth.   

 

Teachers who complete the third level of training are recognized by the American Orff-Schulwerk Association as certified Orff instructors. Four Collegiate music department faculty members — Sarah Aman, Connie Tuttle, Christine Hoffman and Ryan Blevins — have achieved that distinction.  

 

Mike Boyd, Collegiate’s Director of the Arts, who experienced the Orff program while in graduate school at VCU, says that the technique elevates the classroom curriculum. “If you go into one of Sarah Aman’s classrooms, for example, you’ll see that this way of teaching keeps the students invested and attentive,” Boyd says. “You see that it’s fun, that it’s challenging and that students are learning.” 

 

What the Orff technique trains instructors to understand is that students learn music best when they incorporate their entire bodies into the education. The more present a student can be in a classroom, the more engrossed and active they become. “Orff teaches a more thorough concept of melody — singing, demonstrating, movement and dance,” says Boyd, who serves as Course Director for the Orff program at Collegiate. “Students learn how to sing and then, on top of that, add instruments that require fine motor skills.” 

Collegiate has hosted the program since 2014, which has made an impact on teachers and students across our region and beyond. Following the completion of each Orff level, teachers are asked to incorporate what they’ve learned into their classrooms. “Teachers get so excited and so energised about this program, and they’re building a community,” Boyd says. “There are very few schools around here that do teacher training at the college level at their school, and that’s something to be proud of.”