Why Music Can Do the Talking for You

Have you ever been in the grocery store, where they are playing music and all of a sudden a song from the top 40 station when you were in middle school comes on … and even though you haven’t heard this song in years, you find yourself moving and singing along to every word? Me, too.
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There is something about music that sticks with us. It can transport us to another time and place, a memory of who were were or what we were doing when we heard that song.

Spanish Tip

Being intentional when playing music is a great way to foster relationships with both students and families. By simply playing music dear to your students and/or their parents and caregivers, you can completely transform their experience in the moment. In some cases, it may even spark conversation – even if not immediately, then later.
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Imagine a scenario where a parent hears you playing one of their favorite family songs; they may not approach you in the moment, but it is pretty likely they will peg you in their mind as someone they can approach next time they need to talk to someone at school.

The Story

Every time I hear Mariposa traiconera by Maná, I immediately flash back to the many bus rides I took back and forth on the Panamerican highway through the mountains of Costa Rica when I was working for a non-profit during the summer of 2006. The radio station played that song what seemed like once out of every five songs, and forever more, that song marks that time, place, and feeling for me. It was a great summer! So even though I'm not a huge fan of the song, it brings up the feelings of friendship, adventure, and independence from that summer.

When a person finds themselves permanently living in a place completely different from the one where we grew up, how powerful might music be in bringing up those comforting memories?

One year, when I was interviewing parents about their experience at our schools, one mom shared that her daughter no longer wanted to listen to Mexican music. She was only interested in hip-hop. Our schools would often play R&B and hip-hop during arrival to start the day with joy and energy in a way that was familiar to 98% of our student population. But there were some students who were getting left out. This mom asked if we could sometimes play Mexican music at school; she thought it might help her daughter come to invite it back into her life.

I texted all my multicultural parents and asked them for two songs that were family favorites and kid-appropriate. I then created a youtube and Spotify playlist and shared it with all our campuses and asked them to pull songs from it for any time they were building a music playlist, whether for arrival or a school event. Some of them did, including the campus where that particular student went to school. One year later, her mom reported back that her daughter was again enjoying Mexican music at home with her mom.
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I loved that. I have no idea if the school including Mexican songs in its playlists made the difference, but I can’t imagine it didn’t make a difference -- to her and others. It is something we should have been doing all along.

Call to Action

Put together a playlist of school-appropriate Spanish language songs tailored to your age group and play it at some appropriate time. Maybe you create a calm one for a calm part of the day or an upbeat one when you want to bring the energy up.

• For elementary school, the Coco and Encanto soundtracks are great options to pull from. You can also play old classics from parents’ home countries. They may not be on the current pop list, but they are likely to be classics that the students have heard at home.
• For secondary school, it gets tricker to make a list that you know is clean when you don’t understand the words being said (though more older students may love those Coco and Encanto songs than might let on). You can get help from a friend, co-worker, or crowd-source your list from parents. You can also ask ChatGPT something like, “Give me a list of ten songs written and sung in Spanish that were popular in Central America in the last two decades. Make sure the songs don’t include any explicit language. They need to be appropriate for a school setting.”
• One last tip: keep in mind that the songs that parents will love will be different than the ones their kids love after a certain age. Think about your event and who your audience is when making this playlist.​

Faster Together

If you would like to rapidly improve your Spanish so that you can make families feel welcome and wanted, foster trust and build a personal relationship with them, I have a virtual Spanish for Relationship-Building course coming up! The course is perfect for beginners or those who took Spanish back in high school but don't feel capable of conversational Spanish. Just stay tuned to these emails to know when it is open for enrollment!