Zooming In on Sound Play in the Classroom with Hayes Greenfield
Resources
Hayes’ Instagram
Creative Sound Play Website
Hayes’ Website
Hayes’ Book
Transcript
Melissa Milner 0:09
Welcome to The Teacher As... podcast. I'm your host. Melissa Milner, a teacher who is painfully curious and very easily inspired. This podcast is ever changing, and I hope with each season, you find episodes that speak to you in your work as an educator. This is the sixth season of The Teacher As... and it's exciting to see the growth in how many educators are listening. Episodes are released every other week. If you enjoy The Teacher As... please rate it on Apple podcasts and leave a review. It helps the podcast reach more educators. Thanks for listening.
Hayes Greenfield 0:41
Hi, Melissa. My name is Hayes Greenfield, and it's absolutely a pleasure to be here to speak with you and to share what I do with your audience. The last many years, I'm a musician and a composer and an educator, and for the last 30 years, I've been working with young people in all different kinds of capacities and ages, and found my way into working with pre K, with sound, not music. So for anybody listening out here, believe me when I say, if I my, my product, my, what I do is called Creative Sound play, and that's exactly what it is. It's playing with sounds, being creative with sound, not not music. So for anybody out there who says, oh, sound like the sound of music, the hills are alive, no, this is not about, I've never seen an orchestra in the Alps. So this is really just about sound. So that because I... teachers, you know, pre K, adults, pre K, children, pre K teachers, most don't, or the ones that I've met, and I've met hundreds, you know, don't, some don't play instruments. They sing. We all love music, right? I mean music... music's the closest thing to magic, but this has nothing to do with music.
Melissa Milner 2:06
Why don't you describe what you do, do you go into classrooms? Or do you teach teachers how to do this? Or both?
Hayes Greenfield 2:13
I have spent years in classrooms codifying this method. I spent five years at the Lenox Hill Neighborhood House, early childhood center, which is a Head Start program in New York on the Upper East Side, spectacular program. And the director of the program and the director of the early childhood program both saw what I was doing and said, and I needed, I needed to have access to pre K teachers and pre K students, and I had access. I could go for five years. I worked in the classrooms, and was able to really work with the teachers on their own, and then work with the kids on their own, work with both to codify this method. The reason, I mean, the reason why I wanted to do that as well. Prior to that, I had a live interactive jazz show that I did in schools and all, yeah, assembly programs from pre K to college, and I have a persona in that environment, and it's I didn't I wanted to do. So I wanted to make this material. I wanted to take all of that out my being and really synthesize it down to what the information is, so that anybody, anybody, absolutely everybody, can use this. And here is the secret. The basic elements of sound are three things, pitch, whether it's high, like a bird, or low, like a lion, or can you make the sound of a lion's roar? Yeah,
Melissa Milner 3:50
I am a Leo. I am a Leo.
Hayes Greenfield 3:53
Okay, so happy birthday. Oh, they must have just had your birthday.
Melissa Milner 3:56
No, the 19th.
Hayes Greenfield 3:58
Okay, so that's right, so, um,
Melissa Milner 4:00
so pitch, I'm assuming volume,
can you make a very quiet sound?
Oh.
Hayes Greenfield 4:07
Can you make a very loud sound?
Melissa Milner 4:09
I'm not going to do that to my editor.
Hayes Greenfield 4:14
I did because now can you make a very short sound? And now can you make a very long sound. Okay, so for anybody listening, that was excellent. You did, Melissa, thumbs up. Two thumbs up. And one of the things that I want to point out is that you know on that and you're making your your your your sounds in duration. You made your short sound was high in pitch or higher, and your long sound was lower in pitch.
Melissa Milner 4:47
That's true.
Hayes Greenfield 4:48
Right? So these are things that we can pay attention to and listen to. Okay? Now, what's the one thing that every child this is whether they're verbal, non verbal, neuro diverse. Doesn't matter. What's the one thing that every child absolutely adores doing.
Melissa Milner 5:12
Um, babbling, I don't know.
Hayes Greenfield 5:14
Well, what is babbling?
Melissa Milner 5:15
Talking? Making noise with their mouth.
Hayes Greenfield 5:18
Making sound.
Melissa Milner 5:22
Yeah.
Hayes Greenfield 5:23
Making sound. So what we do is, and everybody loves to do it, you love to do it, I love to do it. It's part of our DNA. It's part of communication. So what we're, what we're doing here, is providing children something that gives them joy, which is just making sound, and we're asking them to do it in a deliberate and intentional way.
Melissa Milner 5:51
So explain that.
Hayes Greenfield 5:54
Well, let's just look at what did I ask you to do?
Melissa Milner 5:57
You asked me to make noises. Make them soft, make them loud, make duration. You just kind of prompted.
Hayes Greenfield 6:06
Okay, those are intentional sounds made in a deliberate way.
Melissa Milner 6:14
Right?
Hayes Greenfield 6:14
Very easy. I mean, the elegance of this, the simplicity of this, is totally it's profound, because the impact that it has on children. When a child makes a sound, they don't have to, first of all, they don't have to learn anything new, right? They don't have to. They all they have to do is just be their beautiful, lovable selves.
Melissa Milner 6:39
Yep.
Hayes Greenfield 6:40
And as soon as I say to you, Okay, follow me. Okay, zap. DAP.
Melissa Milner 6:45
Oh, you want me to do it?
Hayes Greenfield 6:46
Yeah, you didn't know what you were getting into when you said, Oh, I'd like to work with Hayes on this podcast. Did you Ah, no. Zoo, okay, so right, in this example, what are you doing?
Melissa Milner 7:06
Mimicking?
Hayes Greenfield 7:08
You're mimicking. We're having a call and response. But what do you have to do? You have to be listening, yes, but actively listen. So that means that you can't go on automatic pilot. You have to be in the moment and focused and engaged. Well, that's executive function skills. That's inhibitory control, self regulation, right? Then we made some sounds, and you were listening to it. You were following directions because we were we it was set up that I was leading, and we're doing working memory, plus we're doing it in different ways. So if you were to do it, and if you were to lead, you could draw on, Oh, I heard that sound, that sound, Oh, I like this sound. I want to do it. And we're plugging into cognitive flexibility, right? The third attribute, third major attribute of executive function, skills, inhibitory control, self regulation, working memory and cognitive flexibility. So in this very simple, benign exercise of making an intentional and deliberate sound, and I'm making them, and I'm and I'm leading, you're we're dealing with, we're engaging our executive function skills.
Melissa Milner 8:25
I could see having kids do the leading, which would be awesome.
Hayes Greenfield 8:29
Which happens immediately when the children start to get get a sense of this, which is developing their independence, their agency, their creativity, their creativity, exactly as well as social emotional learning, because they're doing it in a group, right? So all of a sudden, now that we're plugging into something that's very easy for every teacher to do, and all we're doing is making pitch, volume and duration, all we're doing is paying attention, so we're actively listening and we're making sound. This opens up once teachers begin to see this and work with it, it opens up a whole new world for them, because one of the things that Creative Sound Play focuses on very intensely, is what's the, what's the most challenging time of the day for pre K teachers?
Melissa Milner 9:29
I would assume later in the day, partly,
Hayes Greenfield 9:32
it's transition time.
Melissa Milner 9:34
Oh, oh, of course. Of course, yeah, of course. Well, we I thought you meant time of day, day.
Hayes Greenfield 9:39
Right. Well, it is the time of day. They happen.. transition time.
Melissa Milner 9:42
It happens a lot. Yeah.
Hayes Greenfield 9:43
It happens every 40 minutes.
Melissa Milner 9:46
I don't think that's just pre K, but, yeah.
Hayes Greenfield 9:47
Right, exactly it's exactly it's not. And what is but? But I've spoken to many, many, many, many directors, and many directors say to me that what.. what pre K is really about is about it's not about teaching reading skills or math skills, or, you know, all of those things play a part, but it's really about how children navigate transition times, because those times are very difficult. You have these kids a lot of times, for the first time, we're in a class with other people, they're in a new environment, and transitions are challenging for kids, so I focus on making these transition times really fun. I am playful and play based, let's not forget play. Play is essential, available to children when they make sound, and as you said early on, oh, well, they can start to lead. Well, exactly so children can begin to start taking control of doing transition times. But it starts with the teacher, who's the facilitator, and what teachers, what I found is that what they forget, because transitions happen all through the day. Sometimes I feel like they think they have to have a whole trove of of activities, or, you know, stuff to do. It's mind boggling and overwhelming. And if a teacher like, here's a transition time, here's a transition. That works for many transitions. 12341, count with it. 123412341, 4123412341234112,
Okay, so right there you have the kids on the floor, and you got to get them to the tables start counting. They're going to start counting with you, and the quicker they start counting. And then what did I do? I played with volume, right? One of the three basic elements of sound. I'm counting with volume. And I got loud. I started medium volume. I got loud, and then I got soft and very quiet, then I came back. So right there. That's like a 20 second, fifteen, twenty second transition activities and Binky, bop, boopy, boop. Everybody's focused. They're engaged. The transition is done. Let's move to the tables, right? So now 45 minutes goes by. You not have another transition. Do it again.
Melissa Milner 12:46
I hope it's not 45 minutes at pre K, they need, they need quicker transition.
Hayes Greenfield 12:50
Well, you know, if it's, if it's 30 minutes, but depends. That depends, because if you're doing, if you're just doing play based act, you know, like.
Melissa Milner 12:57
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm thinking in a fourth grade classroom, transitions, for sure, for sure, because a lot of the issue with transitions at the fourth grade level is that they, when it's time to transition, they want to go over and talk to their friend. They want to, you know, there's because they like to socialize. So I wonder if, if, when it was transition time, if I if we did some kind of sound thing and a kid was leading, it would stop. It would feel like an activity, and they'd stop feeling like it's time to go talk to my friend kind of thing. Well, there's anything wrong with them talking to their friends, but it's just, well, maybe we need to get to lunch people. Let's go right?
Hayes Greenfield 13:41
You know, that's where kind of, like clapping and stomping and creating some kind of mathematical kind of thing, let's say, let's say you're doing some kind of program with your math and or even science, and you're trying to figure out some kind of way to integrate the curriculum or integrate...
Melissa Milner 13:59
So I can see, like, fractions, you know, doing, yeah, that would be interesting.
Hayes Greenfield 14:03
You know, you can also maybe do some nonverbal instead of having them do verbal communicating, like, you know, right? Like, is that zbo knew? Oh no, hmm. And try to have, like, some emotional content where you could say, Okay, we're going to be angry, yeah, and then we're going to go from anger to gentleness. So give them intention, deliberate intention, things to be deliberate about. And how do they move from one to the other so that they're really developing those kind of those, those nuances, the sensitivity to nuance, you know, like, for example, our minds. You know we're our intuition is always so much quicker than our intellect. And if you follow on that, like, for example, when you're talking to somebody on the phone, a loved one, right? They call you, and you don't even have to have you don't even have to hear a word, I am. All you have to do is hear how they're breathing and you know how they're feeling.
Melissa Milner 14:59
Yes. Yeah.
Hayes Greenfield 15:00
So that's like, if we pay attention to that as a musician, as somebody who's musically or musical, and I don't, you haven't told me what you play, just vocal, vocal, so you're a singer. So you've spent time. Are you a jazz singer or rock? No,
Melissa Milner 15:15
I just, I was in choruses and stuff, but you there. But I mean, I grew up, both my parents were music educators. So...
Hayes Greenfield 15:21
Okay, so you're engaged with listening, so your ears are big.
Melissa Milner 15:26
They're proportionate to my face. No, I'm just kidding.
Hayes Greenfield 15:31
That's good. Yeah, that's really good, Melissa. That's pretty funny. And so, so what you're also talking about is that not one type of sound activity fits all.
Melissa Milner 15:44
Right.
Hayes Greenfield 15:45
Okay, so and, and, you know, I have this book, Creative Sound Play for Young Learners: A Teacher's Guide to Enhancing Transition Times, Classroom Communities, SEL and Executive Function Skills that just came out on Routledge on their Ion Education Book Series, which, in the in the book, I have many exercises and and many ways, not many like, you know, there's, there's, there's maybe four basic categories of how you can work with sound. But in that it's so easy, because if you're using the same activity throughout the day, and you just tweak it a little bit, you know? It's like, it's all of a sudden, it's a new, it's a new activity, right? Like, let's say what we you were doing. You know, counting. Can you count and alternate go count from one to 10, and alternate between a low sound and a high sound,
Melissa Milner 16:39
a pitch, yeah, 135679,
Hayes Greenfield 16:49
Okay, now are you showing is this just an audio podcast?
Melissa Milner 16:53
Yes.
Hayes Greenfield 16:54
Because I just want to tell the listeners...
Melissa Milner 16:56
My head was going up and down, right?
Hayes Greenfield 16:57
Well, not only that, but as soon as you did it, you started smiling.
Melissa Milner 17:01
Oh, yeah.
Hayes Greenfield 17:02
Right. And smiling, you know it's use much less muscles in your face to smile. I think it's one muscle to frown. You have to use like, 20 different muscles, yeah, right. So all of a sudden, just watching you, it was wonderful. It's beautiful. You were like, just like, okay, so you have to line up the kids all the time, right, right. There is a perfect activity. And once they start doing it, they're going to start doing and listening and jump in. And if the kid in front of them does it high, they're going to go low the next one, and they can switch it up. So just changing who you know, from high to low is enough to make the activity completely fresh and new. Yeah. And what this does for teachers, and for all you teachers out there, if you try this and you, you, you do it because I know I've, I've been in and given conferences of conference at early child conferences. And looked at had hundreds of teachers out there Look at me, and I say, can you imagine looking forward to doing transitions? And they look at me with this blank face on the blank face, going, like, this guy is like, what? What am I doing here? This is this guy, you know, he doesn't know what he's talking about, right? And then 15 minutes goes by, and you start to see like a glimmer in their eyes, and all of a sudden the light goes on, and they're like, Wow, I can't wait, because it will enable you. It's a game changer.
Melissa Milner 18:37
It's like continuing the play even though you're transitioning to something else.
Hayes Greenfield 18:41
Yes. It's exactly and it's what's so beautiful about sound, and this is what people forget, is that it works with any curriculum. It was. We just did something where we just made arbitrary sounds at the very beginning, and then we did a counting exercise, right? That's math. You can count backwards, you can count forwards, you can count one note long, one long, one note short. You know, I mean, I have teachers. I have teachers who say, like, you know, they're, they're kids with you want a little story? Should I tell you a little story?
Melissa Milner 19:15
Sure.
Hayes Greenfield 19:16
Okay, so I, you know, I teach on the head start. The National Head Start Association has a online teaching portal called the academy, and they just started it in 2022 and my course was one of the first courses that they put up there, and it was based on teaching coaches and Educational Consultants, because there's not enough time for teachers to get outside of the classroom, because there's such a teacher shortage. And so I taught this coach, and she at the end, you know, she came, it was a four week course, and do like four in person. Coaching sessions, Zoom coaching sessions. And she came back and she says, Well, I have this I have this teacher that really is loving this material and uses it all the time, and was doing this thing with the calendar. And so usually at the end of the month, everybody's really bored, wants to move on. And instead of this thing the end of the month, the kids wanted to do the calendar in another way. And because the teacher's really inspired now, so she's like, she's beautifully working with it. So the kids are out, there's a there's a little, there's a little cup on the playground that there's one of them, the kids spin it spinning. And another kid was standing there counting, so that, you know, like, so they could, so they could switch. So the little boys, who's counting is probably going one in 2009 10. I would do that. You would probably do that. You want to get in the cup. You know, so little guys in the cup says, whoa, whoa, that's too fast. So now there's like a problem. So the teacher comes over and says, Listen, is there is you might think that there might be another way that you can count. The little boy thinks for a minute. He says, working memory. It's cognitive flexibility. All that stuff is jamming now. And he goes, Yeah, it goes, 1234, so little boy is in the cup spinning. He's got more time. Little boy's been creative doing this. And he's cool. They switch. And then, and the little boy who comes out of the cup says, I'm not going to count that way. I'm going to come up with my own way. So all of a sudden, after that, the other kids see this, there's a line of six kids now counting and trying to come up with their own way to count, being creative, challenging each other, social, emotional learning, and at that point, I don't even think they're thinking about the cup.
I was just going to say that it's, it's its own thing. Yeah, it's its own thing,
Right? Exactly. And they're doing math, so they're doing everything we want them to do, and it's just based on utilizing how we're dealing with pitch, volume and duration of one subject matter, which was in the classroom, and do moving it out to the to the playground. And you know, one of the things that I have teachers do, and it's very, very, very, very important, is to just create mindful moments, mindful moments in your day with your students, just stop and listen, and actively listen to the sounds that are around you, and then discuss them. And then like because one might be, one might be very quiet, like the air might be. Then all of a sudden, there's a big horn outside, whatever, and it kind of like a startling and then it goes and leaves space. And what's really beautiful then is that is to first, that is giving children license to stop and listen.
Melissa Milner 23:04
Have you ever seen the book The Sound of Silence?
Hayes Greenfield 23:06
You know I have that's thank you for. No, I have not.
Melissa Milner 23:09
Yeah, it's a beautiful book. It's like his grandmother, he's in a loud city, and the grandmother, like, teaches him how to,
Hayes Greenfield 23:17
oh, man, I have got to get this book. Wow.
Melissa Milner 23:20
Yeah... The Sound of Silence, and it is by, it's by Katrina Goldsaito.
Hayes Greenfield 23:29
Wow.
Melissa Milner 23:31
Yeah, I know it's a gorgeous book.
Hayes Greenfield 23:33
That is beautiful.
Melissa Milner 23:34
Yeah, it's a, it's, it's a beautiful book. And when you were just saying, like, stopping and listening, we do that after we read the book, and they're amazed. You know how you can just kind of zone out and block out sounds
Hayes Greenfield 23:50
We're also sound asleep.
Melissa Milner 23:51
Yeah. But like the the low humming right of the heater, or
Hayes Greenfield 23:58
The refrigerator, right?
Melissa Milner 24:00
Yeah, it's amazing. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you.
No, no, no, no. That's, I love it. This is, like, wonderful to have a conversation about this, because it's, this is what's so important. You know, it's your experience in doing this is also, like, it's where the tire meets the road. You're, I assume your pre K teacher.
No.
Hayes Greenfield 24:18
What do you? What do you? What do you? What do you
Melissa Milner 24:21
I'm a third, fourth, fifth grade gal. That's my wheelhouse. I teach fourth right now, yeah, wow. But, I mean, I have listeners, I have you know, administrators. I have you know, K through whatever, listening. So... I should say pre K through whatever.
Hayes Greenfield 24:38
Well, you know, I should preface this. I mean teachers, and especially pre K and neuro neuro diverse teachers and nurses are my heroes.
Melissa Milner 24:52
Yes
Hayes Greenfield 24:53
Because none of us, none of you guys, do this for the money. You do it for the you do it for the calling you.
Melissa Milner 25:00
Yeah, I don't, I don't totally agree with that. I think that that's, that's how teachers end up doing way too much work for way too little pay. But, yeah, I mean, it felt like, it felt like a calling, but I also get a paycheck, and...
Hayes Greenfield 25:14
No, I understand, but, but there's, but, there is a in pre K, which is the which is usually the lowest paid,
Melissa Milner 25:22
Yes.
Hayes Greenfield 25:23
On the rung. Who are the people that I'm really dealing with? They primarily do it because they really want to...
Melissa Milner 25:30
They love it, yeah.
Hayes Greenfield 25:31
Well, they love it, but they want to... they want to give something to children, you know? They want to, and they want to do something that's so they're, they're, they're pretty, pretty amazing, yes, but anyway, so where were we?
Melissa Milner 25:48
So you've given a couple examples. Like, from what I'm hearing, this could be done in elementary period, like, I mean trans..., you know, to help with transitions. I think a lot of teachers already do some of do some of this stuff, the clapping, you know, the clapping and things like that. But I guess what I'm wondering is, I mean, we're talking outside of the music classroom. We're talking about in the gen, ed or whatever...
Completely outside of music.
Hayes Greenfield 26:20
So, but do you recommend using simple percussion instruments or simple to to have sound?
Melissa Milner 26:30
Okay? So here is, so you just, you just, you just turn plugged into the whole other level. Okay, so here's, here's the concept for Creative Sound play. Okay, it starts with transition times, which are the most challenging times for teachers, and that's what I focus focused on, and that's the first three months or four months of the school year. And that's, you know, just using them in transition times. And then what happens is, in January, we start to integrate and introduce a whole series of various hand percussion instruments. And there's, there's, there's, I'm going to come back to this in a second. I just want to, I just want to say one thing, whether or not somebody makes the sound correctly doesn't matter, right? Okay, it's the what. It's what they're trying to do in their mind that makes the difference. Okay, so...
It's fire. It's firing up the brain, even if it doesn't come out, right.
Hayes Greenfield 27:30
Right. And sometimes some of those sounds are the best sounds, yeah, the mistakes or the or the ones that weren't were unintended jewels, right, right? And what's very important is also it's important that a teacher be able to acknowledge that and be in the moment and really listening to what's going on. And that's, you know, that comes back down to, you know, what the role of the teacher is as the teacher and the leader and the facilitator, but also, you know, the realization they're giving license to children an opportunity. Yeah, so once kids start playing with the instruments and they and there's and I have, the second phase is integrating more more sound activities. So we're dealing with texture, because there's different kinds of textures of sounds. There's different ways to pass the sounds around. There's non verbal communication, you know, communicating just sounds. And there's even, there's even something that I have in there that's about reading very basic, wonderfully easy, rhythmic literacy. And then that's so that's about three months. And then the last part of the year, the last three months, is making sound sculptures, which are become beautiful, culminating, culminating events that can be performed for families and peers and everybody else, and that those things are really anything however you want to organize sound like, for example, there's a program, there's a there's a sound activity called Art sound, and that's where children can make a picture, can paint a painting, or create an art object, and have that be used as a road map intentionally. They can make it with how they want to make this as a roadmap, then they use it's like inspiration, yes, but have their fellow students play that sound. And if they're thinking, if somebody's doing, you know, you know, colors, they might say, Okay, well, pink is for a rattle and a big you know, Doc is for, you know, blue.is for, for a drum, you know, so it's so they're, they, they can be manipulating their textures and think about so they're so they're now using their creativity in their brain and everything else in all different kinds of ways. That's assembling this stuff, and it's all play so, and it could. Or it could be narration. Somebody could say, well, I want to do a story. I love that story, the train, the little train that could, or I, or whatever it is I want to do, and put sound to that, and decide what the sound is, and the class can work together. So it becomes a completely project based environment, and it's all play based, yeah, so this is really, this is Melissa, thank you for allowing me to expand on this. But this is really the and it's all in the book. It's the concept, and it's and it's the book is framed for teachers in a way that's micro, macro and granular. So you can see it from the big picture, you know, then you can zoom in. And then there's even a granular one on how to learn these activities, if you want to, you know, learn them on a daily basis. Yeah. So it's very, it's, it's very complete.
Melissa Milner 30:54
Very cool. So your typical month or week? Are you mostly traveling to different pre K, K programs and teaching? Are you in the classroom with the kids and teach like, what's like in general? I know you mentioned it's all of it, but...
Hayes Greenfield 31:15
Well, in general, it is all of it. But right now, what I'm trying to do most, I think that my expertise and more people could get access to this if I were really just concentrating on teaching teachers.
Melissa Milner 31:28
Yes.
Hayes Greenfield 31:29
And I'm I'm beginning to do this more and more, and I'm in the process of doing everything I can to get out there to be doing this. So...
Melissa Milner 31:39
Yeah, well, I recommend because you are right up the alley. Do you know who Peter Reynolds is?
Hayes Greenfield 31:45
No...
Melissa Milner 31:46
So Peter Reynolds wrote Ish and Sky Color and The Dot and those books, and you would be a great faculty member for their Reynolds TLC center. It's basically teaching teachers. It's like a PD kind of a thing.
Hayes Greenfield 32:07
You know, and I can, and I also have, I can do it for my website. I have zoom, I have and I have a learning management system that has my quick start guide. So I've even, I've broken it down to a quick start guide, which is, you know.
Melissa Milner 32:20
That's great. Where are you located?
Hayes Greenfield 32:22
I'm in Brooklyn, New York. Oh, okay, New York.
Melissa Milner 32:25
So you're not that far. You're not that far?
Hayes Greenfield 32:26
Where are you?
Melissa Milner 32:27
Massachusetts?
Hayes Greenfield 32:28
Oh.
Melissa Milner 32:28
Yeah. And the learning centers in Mass.
Hayes Greenfield 32:31
Well, I would love to, because this is, this is kind of...
Melissa Milner 32:34
I'll email, I'll get someone to email you.
Hayes Greenfield 32:37
That would be great. Yeah. And, you know, I'm 67 years old. And I'm, I don't, I have, like, another this is, this has been years of work and a whole lot of stuff. And it's, I have, like, you know, 10 to 13, really good years left of maybe this kind of energy, you know. I mean, realistically, you know...
Melissa Milner 32:58
Don't underestimate yourself, but yeah.
Hayes Greenfield 32:59
No. But it's, you know, 75, 80 you know, 77 you know, it's not that it's and it's this material. You know, thing that's so incredible is that sound knows no language barrier.
Melissa Milner 33:11
Right.
Hayes Greenfield 33:12
Right. So anybody can, anybody can use it. I mean, I didn't even talk about how it helps kids with who are having language delays, you know. I mean, I have a teacher who talked about the fact that her kids would come in and they would because they're having such difficulty with being heard or making themselves clear, or having the opportunity to share what they're doing, those kids are grabbing and hitting to be heard, yeah, And once she gave them license and opportunity. This is what you know, the license enough to make funny sounds and play based sounds. All of a sudden, those kids who have such language delays are abusing their creativity and their working memory and their inhibitory control and their mindfulness to now speak to each other, not without words, and getting their attention and are having it, and there's no aggressive energy.
Melissa Milner 34:09
That's awesome.
Hayes Greenfield 34:09
It is. So it's kind of like, you know, wow, it's true. It's so simple and infinite in its in its in its potential.
Melissa Milner 34:18
So my next question is, it sounds like your book is mostly geared toward the pre K, K, do you? Do you have in the book ways that you know, mid to upper elementary could also be using these things? You
Hayes Greenfield 34:38
know, yes, it is geared towards that. But yes, it's T It's really depends on the creativity of the teacher.
Melissa Milner 34:44
So I could read this book, even though it's really kind of PreK, K, and I could say, oh, I could do it this way with these kids for this subject.
Hayes Greenfield 34:52
Yes, once you understand the concept and it's really based, it's like, what I'm trying to do is provide the tools for you who is going to look at the book and go, Oh, wow, yeah. And I want to hear what you come up with. I want to hear what you take this information, because that's what it's that's where the tire meets the road. It's about you, right? You know, as I had insight into like, wow. Sound how do we and we're all so sound asleep, like we like you were talking, we grow up, we tune it out so easily, yeah, because we're exhausted and we're bombarded by so much. Yep, if you just tune in in kind of specific ways, it's I would, I would love to see this. You know this? This also could be used for corporate executives to learn how to speak to each other bit and really listen. And I'm talking to a lot of them these days learning about this, because this is, like, the next level. Yeah, it is, because it's and you're, you're obvious, you're a creative teacher,
Melissa Milner 35:54
you're kind. And I have, I have a music background, but I from what you're describing, you don't have to have a music background to do this.
Hayes Greenfield 36:00
Not at all. That's the whole point. No, no, forget about it. Has nothing and...
Melissa Milner 36:04
It's sound, not it's music.
Hayes Greenfield 36:07
Completely.
Melissa Milner 36:07
Right? But then I can see at the upper grades, the students wanting to make it music and turn it into music, which is great, because they'll come want to combine the sounds, and they'll want to, you know?
Hayes Greenfield 36:19
Right. And isn't that like kind of storytelling, isn't that? Isn't that really about how you want to organize sounds exactly to tell a story, and sounds tell stories. When you're at the beach and you hear the the waves waving, that's telling a story, you're going, Oh man, I'm so relaxed now I can hear the waves. But when you hear when you're at home and you're the guy's outside next door with a leaf blower, and it's irritating you and your blood pressure is going up, you're going, Oh God, I wish you just turn the damn thing off.
Melissa Milner 36:47
You know, it's so funny when you were talking about the duration and the volume and the pitch, it reminds me we have a morning meeting, and there's an activity where you do a thunderstorm. Have you seen this before?
Hayes Greenfield 36:59
No.
Melissa Milner 36:59
Oh my gosh, this is totally what you're talking about. So the kids sit like cross legged, and they go like this, real slow, oh, and light. And then it builds, and they go harder and faster and harder, faster. And then you bring it back down again. So it's like the thunder and the rain and the...
Hayes Greenfield 37:17
and, you know, just so that, you know, I mean, I've done this stuff with sixth graders, yeah? And they, they love it, yeah. But the challenge is, for the teachers, who, who, you know, you really got to be thinking out of the box, because these guys are so sophisticated, they write what they get, something that, you know, the younger kids take a while to get. So it's, they get it like immediately, but that's really then about saying, putting it on them and saying, Okay, come up. What do you got, right? And it's all play based. Yeah, comes back to being wonderfully played based.
Melissa Milner 37:51
It's fun. I'm gonna, I'm gonna get that book. Because I don't, I don't even have the book yet. Is it? Can I get it on Amazon?
Hayes Greenfield 37:58
Get it. You can get it from your brother. If you go to my website, just go right about the Rutledge,
Melissa Milner 38:03
And I'll put all that info on the episode page for people.
Hayes Greenfield 38:06
That'd be beautiful.
Melissa Milner 38:07
Yeah.
Hayes Greenfield 38:08
I should say one thing that I should say, it should be in the in the in the thing somewhere, is that I'm dyslexic.
Melissa Milner 38:16
Okay.
Hayes Greenfield 38:17
And that's a whole other level of and I'm just, I'm just learning about this because it's the first time, like, I could set up 67 in the last year, year and a half is the first time I've been talking to other Dyslexics, yeah. And that's a whole world. It's like, you know, I've always been a Rogue Warrior out here, you know, like, and it's like, all of a sudden, the things that I think are like that I don't fit in, or my inability to read, and the the trauma that united in the 60s when nobody knew anything about it, and the trauma that's, you know, like I, I chose a completely different path. I don't have any degrees. Quit high after high school. I went to this really intense high school, and I just I couldn't put myself in that pressure cooker. But what I sought out was in terms of jazz musicians, masters, who people I really loved, and and and took private lessons with them, or even neurodevelopmental neuroscientists, developmental neuroscience, Clancy Blair, so Belle Raver, Helen, Galinsky, Adele Diamond, you know, Kathy Hirsch Passey, four of the, I mean, these are, like some giants in this, in the field, that's that have mentored me and did it just because of understanding what I was doing was important.
Melissa Milner 39:39
Right. And how your brain works, you know.
Hayes Greenfield 39:41
Right.
Melissa Milner 39:41
The supposed weakness of dyslexia, that means that there are other parts of your brain that are, like, ready to, you know, and yours was musical,
Hayes Greenfield 39:50
Right? Well, it was that both, and it was, and it's also trying to fire, like, you know, sound, yeah, but it's really, it's very interesting.
Melissa Milner 39:58
So you don't, you don't do the traveling to schools.
Hayes Greenfield 40:01
Oh, I would love to do... no...
Melissa Milner 40:03
With the jazz you said you used to do, like, performances, yeah, yeah.
Hayes Greenfield 40:07
I used to assembly programs. I did, you know, actually, I'm resurrecting it. I'm playing on Sunday. I'm doing a the Inwood Jazz Festival. They asked me to do a jazz and Taz gig, and I'm, like, really excited about it.
Melissa Milner 40:19
Wait, is that the one that's on Governor's Island that I saw the poster?
Hayes Greenfield 40:22
No
Melissa Milner 40:22
Oh okay.
Hayes Greenfield 40:23
But it's really I love the fact that this festival is very engaged with doing something with kids and family, and I do a very lively, interactive show where I get them all up scatting, and I get people doing things that they would never normally do.
Melissa Milner 40:38
That's awesome. Oh, have fun. I'm glad you're doing that too, because obviously you were good at it. Yeah.
Hayes Greenfield 40:43
Well, I'm back doing it. I hope that, you know, the the business terrain of it is still very, very frustrating. It's like, you know, it's hard, it's but I used to, you know, I did a thing in, I did a bunch in Massachusetts in the early 2000s up there.
Melissa Milner 41:01
Yeah. Well, this was amazing. And first of all, is there anything else you want to talk about?
Hayes Greenfield 41:06
No, and I just want to thank you.
Melissa Milner 41:08
You're welcome.
Hayes Greenfield 41:09
I want to thank you for this wonderful opportunity to speak with you, Melissa, you're really great, and to share with what I do with your audience.
Melissa Milner 41:18
Well, it was great having you. Thank you so much.
Hayes Greenfield 41:21
Thank you.
Melissa Milner 41:22
For my blog, transcripts of this episode, and links to any resources mentioned visit my website at www.theteacheras.com You can reach me on Twitter and Instagram @melissabmilner, and I hope you check out The Teacher As... Facebook page for episode updates. Thanks for listening, and that's a wrap.