What Do Young Children Really Need? Ask Old MacDonald Abby Connors Early Childhood Music Specialist Connors419@aol.com
T
he other day, while singing “Old MacDonald” with a class of three-year-olds, I found myself wondering how many times I’ve sung this song. Must be in the thousands, I thought. Well, I just did some calculations. Multiply approximately ten times a day, three or four days a week, times say fifty weeks a year, for (excuse me while I gulp some coffee, glug glug) years… okay. Turns out to be 749,000. Wow. That makes me feel as old as… well, you know. But “Old MacDonald” has been around a lot longer than I have. In fact, archaeologists believe that the song actu- w ally predates agriculture. (An early cave painting depicts an old man, a cow, and a tiny figure shouting, “Again!”) So I’m not the first music teacher, or even the first adult, to find herself singing “Old MacDonald” to infinity and beyond. Do I ever get bored with “Old MacDonald”? Oh, I passed “bored” about (glug, glug) years ago. With time, though, I transcended my boredom and achieved what I can only call a meditative state. Instead of wasting valuable time resenting this song’s slow but inexorable destruction of some of my favorite brain cells, I decided to see what I could learn from this experience. I learned that “Old MacDonald” satisfies important emotional and developmental needs for young children. For instance: 1. Young children need lots of repetition. My students will sing “Old MacDonald” over and over, with unceasing enthusiasm, until I stop them so we can move on to another activity, or until “music time” is over and I need to go to
another classroom. If it were up to them, they’d be singing it till the cows come home (heh heh). Oddly enough, although it’s possibly the Number One children’s song of all time, they rarely remember the name. Even when they call out for “Farmer,” “Moo,” or “Old Obama,” though, I know what they mean. Repetition helps children learn, of course, but it also fills deeper needs. It gives them the self-confidence that comes with knowing something, with mastering something. It gives them a feeling of belonging as they repeat the well-worn
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words with their classmates. And it relieves stress – for a few minutes they can relax with a familiar activity which is comforting and undemanding. You could say that “Old MacDonald” is the musical equivalent of a teddy bear. 2. “Old MacDonald” gives lots of children a chance to have a turn. Quicker than you can ask, “What’s another animal on the farm?” a roomful of tiny hands fly up (with a “ME! ME!” here and a “ME! ME!” there). In Early Childhood Land, having a turn is a very big deal. Having a turn means you are personally acknowl-
Bachelor of Arts in Music Bachelor of Arts in Music with a Double Major Bachelor of Music Education Bachelor of Music in Performance For Open House and Audition dates, go to: www.gettysburg.edu/sunderman
www.gettysburg.edu/sunderman
JANUARY 2017
