From Arguing to Asking for a Photo

Some of Fredrik Søreide's students didn't fit anywhere else in the school day. "I've recently started working with boys that have a hard time fitting in the classroom because cliques create an unstable class environment," Søreide said. These were the pupils other teachers saw at their worst: the ones who argued, who got their phones confiscated, who came back to class still angry about it.

Norway invests heavily in arts education, but a standard classroom period still wasn't built for a student who needed more than a lecture and a seat. Søreide's principal asked him to try something different: pull a small group out for half an hour a week and do something creative with them. No curriculum existed for that yet.

Søreide, who has taught music since 2010 and holds a Master's degree in Music Pedagogics, turned that half hour into a standing band practice, built around Soundtrap. Small groups of students who struggled in mainstream classrooms worked with him on guitar, songwriting, and recording, not as a reward for good behavior and not as a punishment withheld for bad behavior. "We never say, if you don't behave on Wednesday, you won't be able to go to band practice on Thursday," Søreide said. "It should be implied that is something they get to do."

He built specific exercises around what Soundtrap made possible. In one, called "mess of music," students edited pre-made loops into a finished song without adding a single original sound, an exercise designed to teach how much space and pauses matter in a mix. In another, "Become a Producer!", students built their own hip-hop tracks from the ground up. Both ran on the same premise: give students something concrete to shape, and get out of the way.

The tool traveled past music class too. Søreide started using Soundtrap with students who struggled to read aloud in front of the class, giving them a way to record and revise their voice in private instead of performing it live.

A rivalry that became trust. One student challenged Søreide constantly. "We've had quite a bit of fights," Søreide said. "Every time I've called his parents, they're always on my side, but when he comes to school the day after, he's angry with me because his parents have taken away his phone." Over months of band practice, the same student started practicing guitar at home on his own. Then one day, told to put his phone away in class, he asked Søreide for a photo to send his girlfriend instead of arguing.

Ownership, then teaching. Once students had worked with Søreide for a while, he handed them the next student. "We give them the opportunity to teach other pupils what they have learned themselves," Søreide said. "So the motivation will be greater and their social connections with other pupils get more meaningful. Also, they get this sense of mastery over something that is their own."

A private way to be heard. For students who go quiet in front of a class, Søreide found Soundtrap did something a live performance couldn't: it let them record, listen back, and revise before anyone else heard a word. Reading aloud stopped being a single, exposed moment.

Søreide sees these students differently than the rest of the building does. Not the ones who caused problems. The ones who showed up for something they were proud of. Best.