Episode #167: A Chat with Tom Michalek

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Main Theme: A Chat with Tom Michalek

In this episode, Carrie and Tanya have a chat with Tom Michalek, music educator and current president of the Organization of American Kodály Educators. We talk about the Kodály philosophy, the benefits of joining OAKE, and about the upcoming OAKE National Conference that will be in Chicago from March 6-9, 2024.

Tom Michalek has been teaching elementary general music for a while now, currently with the Hastings Public Schools in Hastings, Nebraska at Watson Elementary School. Tom is currently the President of the Organization of American Kodály Educators. He teaches Kodály pedagogy in the summer Kodály training programs at Wichita State University and the Kodály Institute at Capital University. He is a frequent staff development presenter for many organizations and school districts throughout the United States. His areas of professional development specialization include Kodály-inspired curriculum planning in the elementary general music classroom, music room organization, singing games and folk dances, and using ukulele as an instructional tool. He’s a husband to Amy and a dad to Grace.

Things we mention in this episode:

Know Better, Do Better

Tom talks about singing greeting to students, and how he has been rethinking the responses he encourages his students to sing. Rather than asking students to always sing back something like "very fine, thank you" when asked how are you today, he just has them sing "hello" back to him and reminds them that he hopes they are having a good day, but it's ok if they aren't.

Work Smarter, Not Harder

Tom shares a Google Chrome tip all about grouping slideshows and other tabs by grade level "group" so he can just open each grade's group tab when that class walks in the door. Here is a tutorial about how to do this.

Coda

Tom is enjoying watching Somebody, Somewhere on Hulu and listening to Simply Christmas by Leslie Odom Jr.

Tanya is enjoying reading Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty

Carrie is enjoying the time limit feature on her phone that limits her time on social media and then using that time to play the game Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

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