Iltextalks - Episode 2 - Brooke bradley on music and math

Do- Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Ti-Do Do-Ti-La-Sol-Fa-Mi-Re-Do So if "Do" is your 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 And then if you can memorize what pitch goes with that number, Do-Mi-Re-Do 1, 3, 2, 1, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 5, 1, 8, 1, 8, 1, 2, 3, 2, 1, 5, 1, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 1 1, 8, 1, 1, 8, 7, 8, 1, 1, 5, 1, 1, 5, 1, 1, 1 So then you can associate all the numbers with pitches, and then you're doing all the Solfège according to a number, so you can look at a piece of music and be able to sing it all the way through because you've associated numbers, and you can tell how those numbers are moving based on their space apart from one another, and you can sing an entire piece based on a number system. My name is Brooke Bradley. I graduated from Oklahoma City University and I got a degree in music, and my specific study of interest was opera and musical theatre, but I went to a liberal arts school which means you received all those core classes as well, so my life wasn't strictly singing all the time. You know, I had friends who I'd call who went to college that were like, "How's all your dancing going? How's your singing in the practice rooms all day?" And, it wasn't quite like that, and I think that's hard for people to understand. My Grandmother once asked me, "How do you expect to make a living singing?" And I told her, I do a lot more than sing. I think performers do not lack intellect; they need intellect in order to create, and that's kind of what my college taught me, so on top of your regular College Algebra class, US History, English I, English II, Creative Writing, on top of all of those classes, I focused in on one creative art form, and really I used all those other classes, all those core classes, to enrich my art. Art isn't a lack of knowledge, art is expanding beyond knowledge, art takes knowing something, and then creating something off of that. When I graduated college, the idea was to move to New York and to make a job singing opera, and I was in my first full scale professional level opera as a junior in college, and I played the role of Jackie Kennedy, in the opera Jackie O, and it was intense. Her story is intense, which made it difficult, but it's also an intense lifestyle. They don't call them "starving artists" for nothing. They give a lot of themselves, performers give a lot emotionally, and they dedicate a lot of time to something that does not pay very much, and they do it for the love of art, and for the desire to story tell, and I loved it, and it was a phenomenal experience, but it was not life fulfilling, and I decided that there had to be something more that I could be doing to make an impact, and singing wasn't enough. And not everyone feels that way, but I sure did. And so, when I was done with that show, I started examining some other career opportunities and while I was in the process of doing that I got kind of a temporary job here at this school as a receptionist, and loved it, and I connected with the kids, one because I'm not too much older than them, which helps because I do relate to their generational problems, because I'm not too many generations behind, so those things that people older than me roll their eyes at, I truly understand, I get the Twitter thing, and the Snapchat thing, not extremely well, but I do get it. I found that a lot of students feel disconnected from their teachers, like their teachers and them are worlds apart, and their teachers are jus there to teach them, but I do not think we should only foster education, I think that we should foster, you know, love and peace and patience and goodness. And those were some of the things that I felt like I could bring to a classroom. I found that I related to the students, not only because I was close to them in age, but because I am a storyteller, and I teach like I am telling a story, and it reminds students that what they're learning is not just facts, we're not just trying to shove information down their throats, we're actually trying to explain to them how that information is going to pertain to the world out there, and better prepare them for what is to come, college and a job. I started tutoring students after school that weren't understanding math – math is one of those hidden talents I've had for years, I've just never struggled with math, so it always came really easy to me, now I never thought I'd make a career out of it, I always thought my thing is singing, I'm a singer, and as I started helping the students with math, grades started improving, and it was noticed, and I was offered a position as a math teacher. And I was shocked. What a turn my life took. So I started teaching Algebra II, and then the band director reached out to me, and was like, "We hear you're a singer." And I was like, yes I am, I don't know what kind of singer you've heard I am, but I'm an opera singer, so it's a little different than something I think the students would relate to, and he's like, well why don't you come in and try teaching a choir class. And I was like, sure! And I stepped in the first day and I haven't stopped teaching choir since. So now I find myself as a full time choir teacher and Algebra II teacher, and then on the side I still perform. I finally found that thing that was missing for me, I didn't want to be up on a stage for the rest of my life, I wanted my stage to be on a more personal level, and so instead of being in the spotlight, I wanted to be the person that put other people in the spotlight, and I find myself in that position as a teacher. I'm not just their performer in those moments that I am there teaching, I am their friend, I am their mentor, and that was the part of my life that was missing when I was strictly performing. Performing gets confused as something that is "other." You know, we call our performing classes our "electives," they're what our kids do on the side of our core classes. But as someone who teaches Algebra II and Music, there is a correlation between art and intellect that makes a fully rounded human. I think music is a form of creativity that builds on intellect. I think it should be one, there should be a melding of our intellectual classes and our artistic classes, and as a teacher that teaches both I can see many correlations between them. Teachers that can't find ways to apply art to their class maybe aren't researching enough, because the world is amazingly full of resources. Our browsers and internet searches can pull up so much useful information. I get most of my extra activities that I do in class strictly from other people who have posted about it , or blogged about it. It's worth it to use the other things that people have succeeded in doing and to implement them into your class. Creating a fun class does not have to be totally created by self. Pull off of your peers and the global community. I think a large way that I find ways to incorporate art into my classroom is just by looking online and typing in, 'how to make Algebra II fun' and 'groupwork for logarithms', or I take a basic concept such as, graffiti. So, graffiti is often known as a form of vandalism, but our children graffiti on everything. Their notes have graffiti all over them, their Chromebooks have graffiti all over them, they make everything they own a piece of personal of art. So, we take a math concept such as, adding polynomials, and they graffiti that math topic. And all that is, is me taking one form of art and applying it to a broad math topic, and letting them explore that topic through their art of choice. Now that can be done with music, create a rap about exponential equations. There's ways to apply I think almost every artistic endeavor into a Math, or a Science, or a Social Studies, or an English topic, it's just not looking at it strictly as being artistic and broadening that term "artistic" and letting it apply to the intellectual as well. But I think just taking what you know as art and exploring all the ways it could apply to your class, because I think you can almost make anything, anything apply.