SECE during COVID-19

Jodie St Clair & Christine E Goodner

As we navigate through this unprecedented time, it’s natural that we want to connect with our SECE families. Families with young children often feel isolated in normal circumstances, and we want to find ways to connect with them when everyone is experiencing isolation. We understand that many of you have found success in offering video SECE lessons. That is great! If you, like us, have some reservations about it and are looking for alternate ideas, we hope this article gives you some food for thought and actionable ideas.

The important thing is to find what works well for your studio, and hopefully, through that, you continue to connect with your families and find meaningful relationships through music.

After teaching online in our own programs for a few weeks, we have both decided not to offer SECE classes through the video format on an ongoing basis. While parents want to have something to do with their child to give a sense of routine and to feel less isolated, we think there are other ways to better offer them that opportunity than trying to provide the full class online. We want to both support parents and help them continue musical activities and the connections and bonding with their child that this class is so great at providing. We want to provide support and connection but not lose the sense that this is a calm, focused class when we meet in person again in the future. 

Here’s what made us pause and re-evaluate our own teaching plans: 

Careful reflection after teaching our lessons online and observing parents participate from home made us think hard about keeping the principles of SECE that we hold so dearly. 

Parents are struggling because the environment is not as conducive to class. 

Children are either trying to escape or are glued to their screens in a state of observation. 

Parents are under even more pressure to try to create an environment of rich learning on their own, with very little support from the teacher.

Additionally, we find it hard to see the small steps of learning that happen in class and cannot be observed through a screen.   

With all that being said, we think there are several ways that we can continue to connect with our families and encourage them with activities they can do at home, over this period of social distancing. 

We spoke this week to SECE teacher trainer and co-founder Sharon Jones who shared that her emphasis at this time is very much focused on how she can support the parents in her program. She is especially encouraging them to pick one song or activity a day to repeat with their child many times over the course of the day. She adds, “I see this as an opportunity to listen to the SECE recording as well as other beautiful music daily.” 

In addition to that great suggestion, we’d like to suggest the following:  

Listen to the SECE recording.

Under the most ordinary circumstances, parents tell us how their child finds listening to the SECE recording comforting and how it prompts them to sing, dance, and even put on their own mini-class for stuffed animals at home. Now is a great time to keep the listening going! 

Facilitate a video Parent Night to check-in and stay connected

We suggest taking a poll of families – would they like to meet and check-in and connect through a zoom call? Perhaps you can share some of the home activities we are talking about here, or check in with each other and connect socially. 

Dance to Music 

Offer ideas beyond the SECE recording as well for home dance parties! We have put together this Spotify playlist with a mix of slow and fast pieces that you are more than welcome to share. It may prompt you to create your own, and we’d love to have you share them with our community! Here is the link to ours: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/27ZS26DO6CMxII8PzNahKB

Offer a live Storytime to families with a short format 

By offering a shorter storytime in a video format, it takes the pressure off of families if things are not working at that moment. Find ways that parents can contribute if they are tuning in live. Other parents can come to the storytime when it is convenient for them. 

Compose falling 3rds songs and send a video to your teacher 

Encourage families to come up with new falling thirds compositions and to send them to you in your preferred format. 

Tupperware Drums

Suggest ideas for household items parents can use to conduct this activity with their child at home. Practicing dynamics and our drumming activities from class together at home is an easy activity for parents and their children to do together. 

Do a Studio Wide Listening Challenge

Even households with young children can choose one piece to focus on listening to at a time. This can be part of dancing together or its own activity. Families can use a tracker and you can help them pick out a piece! 

Whatever model feels like the right fit for your program and the families you work with, we hope you’ll join us in thinking carefully about how we support the connection to music and between parent and child that SECE so wonderfully helps to foster. May we all continue to focus on Suzuki’s vision for how music can nurture growth and beauty even in the most challenging of times.