Beyonce’s Mute Challenge Is Making It’s Way To The Classroom
Teachers often use a call and response technique to help their students calm down and focus. When they say a predetermined word, it signals the kids to give a response and then things quiet down enough for the learning to continue. And now, according to Today, some teachers are using something that Beyonce is doing at her shows to get students to pipe down and the results are impressive.
During Beyonce’s “Renaissance World Tour,” attendees have been participating in the “mute challenge,” which has them competing for the unofficial title of being the quietest crowd when she performs “Energy.” The superstar sings the lyrics, “Look around, everybody on mute” and then she and her performers, as well as the thousands in the crowd, all freeze, to get the stadium silent. After a few seconds, the song resumes.
First grade teacher Amber Drummond was in the audience during the first night of Bey’s Atlanta shows and brought the idea to her classroom. After explaining what the word “mute” means, she tried it with her students and they went silent immediately. She shared a video of just how well it worked.
And she’s not alone!
- But Drummond isn’t the only teacher using the move to quiet her classroom. Aminah Muhammad, who teaches first grade in Lawrenceville, Georgia, says her young students nailed it on the first try.
- Adria Smith, a middle school chorus teacher, says her students are into the challenge because they’re also Beyonce fans. So when she says it to them, they instantly quiet down.
- In addition to using the mute challenge regularly, Jeremiah Kim, a fourth grade teacher in Kansas City, Missouri, also uses another Beyonce-themed call-and-response to her rap in “Heated.” When his students successfully quiet down and focus on him, he’ll let them know by finishing the lyrics with, “Your face card never declines, my God.”
