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Dr. Frank Fischel — Principal, Mountain View Elementary School, Flanders, NJ
Setting and achieving goals, as well as ongoing opportunities for recognition, keeps students energized to sustain accelerated effort over time.
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First In Math Online Math Practice
Since schools closed, students have solved 2,899,979,027 problems.
28,065,249,156 math problems solved — and counting!
"I was truly amazed at the interest and determination First in Math created in my students, motivation was NO problem! Not only did they learn math and improve their ability to focus, they also learned the importance of setting and achieving daily short-term goals to eventually achieve things that in the beginning were only dreams.
"
Joel Stockton — 5th-grade Teacher, Cavazos Elementary, La Joya ISD, TX LEARN MORE
First In Math reaches all K-8 students, from intervention to gifted, and all demographics, making it an invaluable
supplement to any curriculum.
LEARN MORE >>
More than 200 self-paced activities offer immediate feedback to help students master procedural skills—and help
educators assess where intervention is needed.
LEARN MORE >>
"There is such a value in First In Math. It allows kids who need a little extra help a chance to work on their skills and it allows kids who excel to go beyond what is taught in the classroom."
Dr. Frank Fischel — Principal, Mountain View Elementary School, Flanders, NJ
Setting and achieving goals, as well as ongoing opportunities for recognition, keeps students energized to sustain accelerated effort over time.
LEARN MORE >>
First In Math Demo
Teachers, enroll one classroom for free! If you love First In Math and decide to buy, your students can continue without missing a beat.
Math Success Stories
Read informative articles from our library, including educational theory about why First In Math works, case studies, success stories, testimonials, and results.
Watch Video
See the power of First In Math! This four-minute video shows you how engaging FIM games are for both students and educators.
- show password
Login required.
Access your educator account
OR
OR
Why don't you try a lorem ipsum game today?
"I don't want to go to the music school!" Why children drop out of music and how to change it
Studying in a music school, but hates music - this is a fairly common story. Or here's another plot: a child studies music for a couple of years, and then quits and never again approaches an instrument in his life. Why do such activities become a traumatic experience and how to avoid it? Teachers and students of the Yuri Rozum Music Workshop, which is being implemented with the support of the Native Towns social investment program of Gazprom Neft and the Yuri Rozum International Charitable Foundation, are reflecting.
The program is aimed at developing talents and unlocking the potential of musically gifted children.
What's wrong with musicians
Yuri Rozum, pianist, People's Artist of Russia . The first problem of music schools is their material equipment with instruments, musical material. Let's be honest, not all music schools have a budget for new instruments.
But more important, it seems to me, is the lack of teachers who know how to captivate children. It is possible and necessary to demand from a child, but only when you managed to captivate him, gave him love for music. If at a conscious age a young musician can do a lot on his own, he only needs correction, then in childhood, enthusiasm, interest in music and the desire to study at 90% depends on the teacher.
Music is an incredibly interesting, rich and colorful language, but it must be understood and felt, not memorized.
How are we doing? Play louder here, play quieter here - from this approach comes cramming, automatic repetition of notes, from which there is no benefit.
This is comparable to the requirement to read poetry in Chinese without knowing the language: you can memorize it, but you will not understand the meaning. First of all, the teacher must show the child what music is like as a language, and after that you can learn to speak this language.
But in music schools sometimes the opposite is true. Parents complain to me: the child wanted to study, and the teacher sat next to the ruler and hit him on the fingers if he did something wrong. Well, who wants to continue after this?
We must start from the opposite: the administration of music schools should give special encouragement, bonuses to teachers, to whom children are drawn. Teachers who invent new approaches to students are not afraid to experiment with music, they know how to interest. A child certainly needs an attentive, supportive professional adult who will protect from destructive emotions, support and guide.
Coming to master classes in different cities, I often see one picture: a diligent child performs a memorized piece, and when I ask to play only a melody without accompaniment - with only one hand - he gets lost and cannot reproduce it.
And I understand that the drill approach is still very common in music schools.
There should be more freedom in teaching methods. After all, every student is different. Someone needs to explain everything in detail, and someone, on the contrary, should be given as many works as possible for independent work. Music originated from the leaven of love, speaks of love and should also be taught with love.
Why do children give up music lessons
Yaroslav Timofeev, musicologist and musician, teacher at the Musical Workshop art laboratory . Almost all negative memories of a music school are usually associated with the personality of a teacher who did not find the right key to a student or was emotionally unstable himself. It is because of this that we then hear from adults phrases like: “Yes, I won’t go to the piano for a kilometer, because I studied at a music school.”
Therefore, the main advice to parents is to carefully monitor what is happening with the child and the teacher
It is not bad to go to classes at least a few times, talk with the teacher, because a lot depends on his personality.
If the teacher is authoritarian or even aggressive (unfortunately, this happens), you need to pick up the child without fear of scandals and transfer to another teacher.
And the second advice is to consider the ultimate goals of music education and the desire of the child.
If you feel that your child can become an amazing musician, and professionals tell you that he has incredible hearing and abilities, then at a certain age - up to 12-13 years old - you can and should force him to study. Gently, without forceful methods, but regularly remind, put classes on a schedule. This wonderfully develops industriousness, without which it is impossible to build a musical career.
If you send your child to a music school solely for the sake of general development, as a hobby, then, on the contrary, music lessons should be turned into joy, not forced, but in a playful way to help in these classes.
In the "Music Workshop" children from the regions learn to write their first music - of their own free will.
Teachers from the Music Workshop team come to various cities (from Omsk to Noyabrsk), where they hold master classes and creative evenings for students and teachers of local music schools.
What should teachers do
Yaroslav Timofeev. I start from two premises. Firstly, you can infect with something good (the same love for music) only if you are passionate and in love yourself. Therefore, I tell children about music only what excites me, this usually resonates with students.
Yury Rozum's Musical WorkshopSecondly, it is necessary to tell what is interesting to the children themselves, the teacher must imagine how his students live. Let me give you a specific example: today's children who live in average families, and not in the families of musicians, listen mainly to pop music (in taxis, cafes, on the radio, from telephones) - this is their sound world, and not the quartets of Schubert and Ravel.
Advice 1. Turn to contemporary music
Sometimes I invite children to analyze from the point of view of musical theory the songs they know and love - for example, rappers or other artists who are fashionable among teenagers.
When you explain to children how this music works, what laws work there, they are interested: as if they were explained how an iPhone or a rocket flying into space works. And then, slowly, you can switch to classical music and find that the basic laws are the same. Whatever music is - simple or complex - it still remains music.
Tip 2. Invent games
Children are always interested in games: there are a lot of them in the world of music, and no one bothers to invent your own. Bach, for example, was a great master of polyphony - this is the art of composing music, when different voices of the work live their own lives. This is actually sound mathematics. The genre in which Bach often wrote polyphonic music is called fugue.
And I came up with a fugue battle: two children stand up with flags, I start an audio recording, and they try to guess when the main theme sounds - at this time they need to raise the correct flag.
This can be quite difficult, because Bach sometimes writes false themes, when it seems to start, but immediately stops.
Thus, study turns into a rather exciting quest. Musical exercises, if possible, should always be playful, because children up to 12-13 years old are not very interested in other forms.
Tip 3. Refuse grades
Anna Zummer, director and teacher. Another important technique, which, unfortunately, will not be able to take root in classical music schools, is the lack of grades. You don't give your child negative feedback.
In our classes, the child is not afraid to express himself both verbally and creatively. The feeling of freedom helps to involve the child in the process of creating music. Children understand that no matter what they do, no one will evaluate them, no one will tell them that it is bad.
You can also use the method of art mediation - this is a communication method that helps to more actively include the viewer in the analysis of the work (whether it is studying paintings in a museum or music at school).
Art mediation helps a teenager to relax and start writing his own music, as there is a zone of total acceptance.
It works like this for us: teenagers fill out a questionnaire in which they indicate a place in the city that is dear to them. An important event could happen there (the first kiss, a declaration of love), or this is a place for solitude. And then we with a group of guys move around such places and conduct practices there. Remembering the stories and emotions associated with a particular place, the child receives an impulse, which forms the basis of his future musical work.
During art mediation, a teenager discovers a completely new world, where he and his music are valued, perceived as a serious musician. It motivates you to do something more.
Do you want to hear the result of art mediation? Listen to music written by children from Omsk and Noyabrsk, inspired during art mediations at Yuri Rozum's Music Workshop.
Why music?
Kristina Lysova, student of Yuri Rozum's Music Workshop, 12 years old . Playing the piano is an opportunity to be away from the hustle and bustle, alone with yourself.
When I play a piece, I experience all the emotions that the composer seems to have put into it.
I often fail to play, I want to finish everything faster. But I scroll the phrase “Everything requires training and time” in my head, calm down, tune in, and everything works out! Mom supports me when I think that everything is bad, and rejoices when I'm doing great at playing - this gives me strength and confidence. And it is no less pleasant to realize that there is a person nearby who will always help, give advice - my kind teacher Alla Leonidovna.
Matvey Mankevich, student of Yuriy Rozum's Music Workshop, 12 years old . I enjoy studying music history and writing music myself. At first glance, the writing process looks simple, but if you look closely, it is difficult, because you need to emotionally invest in work.
If I were allowed to play my favorite works at a music school, I would study with even greater dedication. After all, my ultimate goal is to create a game about schoolchildren in a parallel dimension with a friend, and it is for this game that I want to write music.
Yuri Rozum's Musical Workshop is supported by Gazprom Neft's Native Towns social investment program in conjunction with Yuri Rozum's International Charitable Foundation. There are two main directions in the Music Workshop program. For example, there is an art mediation laboratory here, where students of music schools learn composing skills and create their first musical works. The Musical Workshop also holds master classes and creative meetings with teachers from the team of the Yuri Rozum Foundation for students and teachers of regional art schools, organizes concerts of young performers together with eminent masters.
Cover photo: Dejan Dundjerski / Shutterstock / Fotodom
Advertising. Advertiser Native Towns Social Initiatives Support Fund. LjN8JudhK
. Grumps from the Old Grouch.
Dear readers! You may be perplexed, and even outraged! What is it that Old Grump has given us here? These are Jokes, not Grumps! And, in part, you will be right.
And perhaps more than partly. But the episodes that you will come across below for some reason attracted my attention, and I wanted to give them in an expanded form, and not in the form of an Anecdote. If you did not like this experiment, then please write to me about it. A dozen negative reviews will be enough to stop me from treating stories that are more suitable for another mailing list. I arranged the plots in chronological order, without showing my preference for any of them.
Griboedov piano
The famous Russian diplomat and poet Alexander Sergeevich Griboyedov, according to his contemporaries, played the piano well. They all knew something. They must have been raised that way. And he had a piano in his house. The manufacturer is unknown to us, but the piano was most likely an old one, since one of its legs was broken. Well, not the leg, but the wheel at the leg was broken off. The solution was found in the form of a small wooden block, which was placed under the broken leg so that the piano would not sway when it was played.
Once A.S.Griboedov wanted to play music. Either after dinner, or, on the contrary, he had to wait a long time, in a word, he sat down at the piano, but he could not really play due to the fact that the piano swayed very strongly. But it's not a ship! A piano shouldn't swing like that. Born in the soul of A.S. Griboyedov vague suspicions. He looked, but the bar was not in place. Calling A.S. Griboyedov his servant Gribov and begins the following conversation with him.
A.S. Griboyedov: "Did you play the piano again without me?"
Gribov replies familiarly: "I played a little."
A.S. Griboyedov: "Well, it is! And where did the bar go?"
Gribov: "I don't know."
A.S. Griboedov: "What did you play?"
Gribov: "Lady..."
A.S. Griboyedov: "Come on, play!"
The servant sits cheekily at the piano and, like that, plays a well-known song with one finger (it seems to be the Lady). A.S. Griboedov listened to him for half a minute and said to him:
"Oh, you, such rubbish! And you have no idea how to play, but you are spoiling my piano! Get out! Better play pile or money!"
Alexander Sergeevich Griboedov was a terribly stern person when it came to damaging furniture or musical instruments.
Portrait of Mallarmé
One of the best portraits of the famous French poet Mallarme was created by the American artist James Whistler. The portrait was created for the frontispiece of the volume "Poems and Prose". The history of the creation of this portrait is as follows. One winter in 1894, Whistler invited Mallarmé to his studio. It was winter, the fireplace was burning bright and hot, and Whistler asked Mallarmé for permission to paint his portrait. Mallarme readily agreed. Whistler placed it in front of the fireplace and began to work. There was intense heat from the fireplace, and Mallarme wanted to move back a little, as he felt his legs were starting to get fried, but Whistler gestured him to stay where he was. The artist drew very quickly, but all the sketches seemed to him very weak, he tore them up and started all over again.
The session dragged on, and Mallarme almost lost hope of its successful completion.
His legs burned more and more, the pain became almost unbearable, but all his attempts to move away from the fireplace were stopped by Whistler's formidable gestures. Finally, Whistler succeeded in the last improvisation, in which all preliminary observations were concentrated. Mallarme was allowed to go home, where he found rather severe burns on his calves. Later, he told Whistler about this, and they laughed together at this session. Striking was the dissimilarity of their voices: Whistler burst into devilish satanic laughter, which contrasted sharply with the soft and gentle voice of the poet. Mallarme often told this story to his friends with a laugh. And contemporaries considered Whistler's portrait of Mallarme to be the best image of the poet.
Saving the Mendeleev Library
The famous artist Yuri Annenkov lived on the St. Petersburg side since his gymnasium years. But in 1919, transport in the city no longer operated (devastation, however), and he began to make inquiries about apartments in the center.
Lyubov Dmitrievna Blok, the daughter of the famous Russian chemist Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev, having learned about this, and also fearing the confiscation of the apartment by the Bolsheviks, invited Annenkov to settle in Mendeleev's apartment on Sergievskaya Street. The main entrance at that time was already boarded up, and one had to enter the apartment from the side of Zakharyevskaya Street through the kitchen. A long windowless corridor led from the kitchen to the living rooms.
The walls of the corridor, hall and office of Mendeleev were covered with bookshelves. At first, Annenkov was very happy about this book wealth, but quickly realized that the library would be of little use to him. This multitude of books in different languages consisted of works on mathematics, with which Annenkov had a difficult relationship since childhood, physics and chemistry, with which relations were not much better. There were many encyclopedic dictionaries, several scattered volumes of fiction and the gospel.
There was a pile of battered sheet music on the piano in the hall. Their condition indicated that they often played music in this house. In the wall between the bookshelves stood some kind of sketch by Repin (so, a trifle at that time in their circle). In the office hung a huge canvas in a gilded frame: D.I. Life-size Mendeleev at the laboratory table - and there was a Voltaire chair. The mantelpiece was lined with various figurines and photographs. Heavy curtains hung over the windows and doors. Here at 1919, the remnants of the lordly comfort of the nineties were still preserved.
Annenkov, not without timidity, agreed to live in this apartment, but so far there were no other options to be closer to the city center. Alexander Blok and Mikhail Kuzmin visited this apartment with Annenkov.
But then the harsh winter of 1919/20 came, and then there were very big problems with fuel in Petrograd. I had to sleep in a sheepskin coat, felt boots and a hat, covering myself with all the blankets and carpets.
The spectacle for the artist was quite picturesque, but then Annenkov thought little about it. The water pipes froze and burst, so washing became a rarity. Annenkov had to deal with the usual thing at that time: burning the furnishings of the apartment (the unfortunate Peter experienced the same misfortune during the Blockade; it was like a rehearsal, but its participants did not know about it).
First, he burned the door separating Mendeleev's office from the hallway, then the door from the office to the kitchen. Then came the turn of the parquet: he started from the hallway. A little more and I would have had to burn the library shelves, or even, oh, horror, the books themselves! This is how Yuri Annenkov later recalled this. But one morning, on the advice of one of his friends, he found another version of the dwelling, not yet touched by devastation, and moved nearby, on Kirochnaya Street, to the abandoned apartment of some "retinue" general who had fled abroad. So Mendeleev's library was saved.
