In planning lessons for the months of January and February, teachers often think of Dr. Martin Luther King and the U.S. Presidents. With all the necessary standards in different subject areas needing to be covered, what can a teacher do to make sure they recognize these great individuals in American history? As a 23-year veteran teacher, I found that singing about them can help the students learn valuable information. To make sure that happened, I created my own songs to honor these men: Dr. Martin Luther King and We Salute the Presidents.
I wanted children to feel part of history, so for example, words expressed by Dr. Martin Luther King in his “I Have a Dream” speech are right in the song: people’s “hands joined” all around, and his repeated passionate plea to “Let freedom ring…” became “Freedom song, for all people it does ring.” In the “We Salute the Presidents” song, the children learn that George Washington was the first President and helped us win the Revolution. Abraham Lincoln was our sixteenth President and kept our country united through the Civil War. My hope was that this melodic means to learning would not only be fact-filled, but would make the whole learning process easy, memorable, and fun for the students.
These songs are just two of twelve songs on one of my CDs called Learning About Patriotic Holidays and Symbols by Song, designed so that a teacher could honor and recognize all our important national holidays and patriotic symbols throughout the year with this novel approach. To reinforce the students’ learning, I added an accompanying workbook with enlarged song sheets, activity pages, scored melodies, line drawings for coloring, and instrumental song tracks that could be used for performance purposes.
In the shrinking teaching day that seems to be increasing every year, it is so important as educators that we not neglect our American heritage. We can (and must) carve out a few minutes of the school day and participate in patriotic rituals (like singing) to show our great love and pride for the United States of America, remembering our many blessings.