Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Happiness III: Making noise

Third part of several on pursuing happiness:

Kids love to make noise.
Fart, sing, clap, hum, rustle paper, snap gum.

In class, we only let them do it briefly, unless it's music class, when we make them make the right kind of noise.

The look.
"Our Miss Ramey, 1924" via Shorpy

Watch our cousins outdoors--the birds, the squirrels, even the bugs create a cacophony of chirping, chattering, and buzzing

Even a fruit fly hums to his lovers (followed by, well, licking..) And don't get me started on fruit bats. Ahem, back to noise.

Here's my anecdotal observation: kids who make noise in class (other than the one trying to disrupt) are generally the happy ones. Humming, singing, chattering away, despite years of admonishments.

Mammals love to make noise, and humans are pretty good at it. Most humans are pretty happy when they are singing for themselves, and until the last few decades, the only singing a child heard was that of those around them.

Today we "consume" music, and singing in public gets odd looks (unless you're very good at it and doing it for money).

I know--I'm a singing fool.

So to recap so far:
Grow stuff. Eat well. Make music (or even just noise).


Jacqueline Sullivan said...

Amazing really...but not surprising. We consume art,music,sports,literature and we are smug about choosing the "best" with trophies,medals,awards and praise. Competition is endemic in American culture and education. It is amazing to see the number of sport's fans watching obsessively who have forgotten the joy of participation.We don't progress past the joy of crayon on white space. That work is for artists.At best we don't "support" noise making and movement in academic settings. These are very basic human activities. Time to realize that this is just not a zero sum game. Kids can make noise and learn Math. Let them.

doyle said...

Dear Jacqueline,