Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all of you out there who are celebrating today and tomorrow!

Please enjoy this arrangement of Joy to the World by my clarinet quartet from college! We start performing about 30 sec. in.

Reflective practice and a summary!

So, last night, we had our first band concert: the big annual Christmas program. The 6th Grade Band, 7-8th Grade Band, and High School Band all performed. Overall, things went smoothly. The kids dressed appropriately, the music held together (in spite of losing rehearsals to Monday's snow day), and I even got to accompany the choir on electric bass (a real hoot for me, to be sure!). Today, I passed out Post-Concert Surveys to all three of my bands to gauge their feelings about the concert, the music performed, etc. I really believe in reflective practice. I think it's important for me to hear how the students feel about their performance, the music we play, and my teaching. I did not really expect too much from these surveys, but they provided a very telling portrait of my program that I felt a need to share.

I do not proclaim to be a statistician, and I am not writing a masters thesis or anything, but I do have a fledgling interest in research. Any comments on formatting, variables, etc. are welcome! If you'd like to check out the detailed percentages/survey questions, check out this document: Christmas Concert Survey Statistics. To see the survey I gave to students, look here: HS Survey MS Survey.

So, to spare you the nitty gritty details, I'd like to highlight a few interesting "findings." In all three groups, the majority of groups indicated that the music was too easy. Only four students in sixth grade through high school (98 students) agreed or strongly agreed with the music being too difficult. Twelve students in the program marked this item a "3," indicating appropriate literature. Eighty-two students in the program agreed or strongly agreed that the music was too easy.

I agree that the sixth grade band could use a push. The 7-8th grade band's program as a whole was a bit beyond them, though. I was most frustrated with quality of their performance, and they still insist that the music is too easy. I agree that some of the music the high school performed was not the most technical, but after a season of struggling with a difficult marching band book, I wanted to program something that would be successful in a month and a half of rehearsals. They resented performing "easy" music (at what I would deem to be a modest level).

My sixth graders demonstrated the most mastery of their program, followed by high school, and the seventh and eighth grade showed the least mastery. Interestingly, the sixth graders loved their music in spite of its "easiness." They performed two pieces that I arranged (We Three Kings and 12 Days of Christmas) and Carols in Concert, arr. Kinyon. You may remember my interest in arranging from this post. I hope to upload a video of their performance soon on the blog. They were successful! None of my sixth grade students reported strongly disliking the music. And 22 out of 32 sixth graders strongly agreed that they liked our program. That's awesome! Love that band, we have a blast.

My seventh graders could have been better with a few more rehearsals. I programmed two medleys (Christmas Angels, arr. Edmonsen and 20 Carols in Two Minutes, arr. Williams) plus a very "band" arrangement of Greensleeves (Variant on an Old English Carol., arr. Robert W. Smith). They really needed one simple "slam dunk" piece, and we didn't have one. So, this may have been a programming error on my part. In spite of their performance being less than 100% successful, only four students disliked or strongly disliked the music. Nineteen students neither liked nor disliked the repertoire, and twenty students liked it. Four students even strongly liked the music. In comparing these students to the sixth graders, there appears to be a lot more apathy to the literature, a disconnect. However, I was pleased with this generally positive result. Something about seventh and eighth graders makes me feel like they hate my guts all the time. Must be the start of hormones or something. But I had some nice comments. One student even wrote that Christmas Angels was her favorite piece because "It sounds wonderful to me." What a lovely comment!

The high schoolers are such a downer. Our band has twenty-one students and spotty instrumentation. None of the students "strongly liked" the music. Four students liked it. Eight students were indifferent. Three students disliked the music, and four students strongly disliked it. I thought I had programmed great music: Fanfare for Christmas (Curnow), A Christmas Canon (arr. Green), and Charlie Brown Christmas (arr. Strommen). Open with a fanfare, slow piece in the middle, and a fun medley as our closer .Wham bam, thank you ma'am! Nope, apparently not. They performed the music at a decent level, especially considering that our band completely lacks trombone, euphonium, and tuba. However, it was not stellar. *Cue inner monologue* If this music is so "easy," why doesn't it SOUND better?? Why don't you practice the parts that still sound like butt?? *end monologue* Aaaand from totally loving the music in 6th grade to being positive-meh in 7-8th grade to just not caring... about anything. Is there any quality literature these kids will like? Will they like the music better if it's "harder?" Do they feel like I'm teaching down to them by choosing what I would deem appropriate literature? I think it's pretty important that the kids not hate the music. In a PBIS world of extrinsic motivators everywhere, wouldn't it be nice if liking the music could get kids to put a horn on their faces?

To conclude, I hope to integrate some listening activities into my band classes to provide an aural model and perhaps help them realize that no music is "easy." I really hope that I can find ways to challenge and pique the interest of my high school group. The picture just does not seem pretty right now. On the bright side, I have a lot of hope for my younger students, and I know that we can be excited and face some more challenging music as the year goes on. I would love to hear comments about your experiences with student motivation, literature selection, or anything else!

Beginning Band Whoas

In my last post, I went into great detail about my attempts to come into my first year of teaching with my assessment and accountability guns a-blazing, and the lessons I learned from that. I left you with a cliffhanger of sorts, musing that as hard as things were with my 7th and 8th graders adjusting to my new system, at least I can rest easy and know that I have my 5th grade beginners. I can start them fresh and help them become super independent, internally motivated band geeks, right?

Well, as I'm discovering, that isn't exactly easy either.

The crux of any problem with a student learning something is largely motivation. I'm becoming convinced of that. Some of the problems my students are experiencing are inability to identify notes on a staff, inability to tell one pitch from another, and just no desire to prepare anything for lessons (as I edit this, I think the main issue is just that the students rarely practice to get familiar with the fingerings, and as a result, they aren't ready for lessons and are somewhat clueless when it comes to note reading). It's not that they can't read notes, work on their embouchure in order to get up to those Fs, or take 8 minutes to get familiar with the fingerings for #21, The Whole Thing in Essential Elements 2000. It's just that they don't care to.

So it's my job to inspire them to get them out of their musical doldrums and into the awesomely incredible world of music making. I think that my job as pedagogue is not as important as my job as motivator, and I am definitely still working on developing those skills.

I have tried several different approaches to light a fire underneath these students. Certainly, the most effective and longest-lasting motivation is intrinsic, and my main focus in all this is to give them an intrinsic love of music. Back in October, I burned a CD for everyone of my 5th grade students that had a lot of their instrument's "greatest hits." Trumpets got a trumpet CD, clarinets got a clarinet CD, etc. The purpose of this was mainly just to make them say "woah, that's awesome, I want to do that!" Unfortunately, I think few students actually listened to the CD, and when we discussed it during lessons, I didn't quite get that reaction I was hoping for.

So I have also tried a little bit of external motivation. Just yesterday was our 5/6 Christmas Concert, and many of our 5th graders performed #38, Jingle Bells. Now, we didn't start in the EE 2000 books until late October, and none of the groups were at that point in the book, so I presented our Jingle Bells performance as a sort of extra special challenge. I gave every student the opportunity to practice Jingle Bells on their own, come in during recess, and play it in a group to show that they had prepared it. This strategy did actually yield some results, as some students who had previously been dead-beats got really excited about playing a familiar tune and finally getting to perform. About 80% of the band class totally bought into it, prepared it to at least a decent degree, and had a blast with it.

I'm also going to start something called the 6 Second Audition with some of my groups that are floundering. The basic gist, as I read about in a recent issue of the Instrumentalist, is that you pick 4-8 measures of a song that the students were assigned, and just go down the line, allowing every student to play and compete for the "first chair" position. Hopefully a bit of competition will inspire them to get over the hump. (Don't worry, I will not over do it with this strategy - I'm not really big into competition, so I will be light and friendly with this).

So those are a few of the approaches I'm taking regarding motivation. I'm also super energetic and excited as a teacher, especially with 5th graders, so I'm also just trying to get that to rub off on them. As I analyze this struggle, I think that I am ultimately trying to balance FUN in band and EXCELLENCE in band. Maybe excellence isn't even the right word. Sure, I have high standards for all my students, and I will nudge them all toward the direction of excellence (some harder than others), but more than that I just want every student to at least be a positive contributor, someone who isn't clueless.

I'm ok with some kids not being superstar band geeks. I'm ok with them missing a note every once in a while, or note having a totally mature tone. I am not ok, however, with students being just totally clueless and dependent on me to show them how the song goes. I want for all my kids to at least be able to hash out a part to a decent level of proficiency and read rhythms independently. Band just isn't fun when you have no idea what's going on and you can't come close on any song you are working on. Nothing is fun when you are clueless.

So how do I motivate these students to get over the hump of helplessness and cluelessness without being so tough on them that they just want to quit?

As you chew on that, I should say that to be fair, many of my 5th graders are rocking. They are counting and clapping with confidence and accuracy, reading well, having a great attitude about preparation, and most importantly, loving music making. But I feel like these kids would be self-motivated no matter what I did or how I taught. And sometimes I feel like no matter what I do or how I teach, I just can't motivate the struggling kids.

But instead of despair and giving in, I'm rolling up my sleeves and working hard to get those lower-achieving kids participating at a high level, reading notes, and performing with confidence, all the while still having fun in band.

Gosh, and that's another thing. I was talking with my fellow blogger Sara, who reminded me that Chip Destefano at McCracken Middle School has said that his main job with 5th graders is to get them into 6th grade. The bridge between 5th and 6th grade can be the point where some kids just decide that it's not fun enough to stay in band, so I better darn well give make sure they are having fun in band.

So, pizza party. Balloons for breathing. General goofiness. Fist bumps. Letting students conduct and lead "My Turn/Your Turns." We Will Rock You. High fives. But even more than all that stuff, I try to show each of my kids that I care about them as people. I seek them out in the hallway, ask them about their favorite music, how class is going, who they hang out with on the weekends, and what kind of things they like to do. I'm working really hard to build a relationship with these 5th graders, hoping that they see that I genuinely care about them, resulting in staying in band and buying into what I'm selling.

Anyway, that's a lot of beginning band reflection. And there's a lot more to come, on specific pedagogy and teaching techniques, but that's for another time. Also, I hope to put up a post sometime that just catalogs a list of positive things that are going on, just so you know it's not all doom and gloom at Don't Smile to Christmas!

Concert Week

So our winter concert is this Sunday. Today during my largest band class we moved all the percussion equipment into the auditorium. It was an adventure that I tried to be prepared for. Overall it went allright, but of course there were wild unpredictable things.

Our band room is on the 3rd floor. Don't ask me who designed that or who approved the idea because if I knew, I would hunt them down. And probably all of their descendants as well. We moved 5 large pieces of keyboard equipment, timpani, chimes, bass drum, and all of the other standard stuff. Many of the students were very helpful and resourceful. As much as I tried to stress that everyone needed to help, there were of course 10 or 12 people who didn't do a thing. Whatever. It all got down there, and I spent my lunch hour setting the stage, and I am pretty satisfied. The whole process gave me more gray hairs though. I'm not sure what a 32'' timpani crashing down concrete steps sounds like, but I don't ever want to find out.

I learned that you can take the individual tubes out of a set of chimes. It was very easy and saved the dangerous hassle of carrying that thing as a whole! And, thanks to my high school co-op, I knew how to take a marimba apart, so I saved that one for my freshman percussion class and did it with them. That was a lot of fun.

At the beginning of each rehearsal that I started in the auditorium, I discovered something else that I forgot to have brought down, so there were invariably all kind of delays, all day long. Along with everyone else, I'm discovering that these kind of logistical events are what can really bite you in the butt as a music teacher, especially the first time around. Yet another lesson in the fact that skills, knowledge, and all around 'chops' aren't much until you have had plenty of experience and practice.

Overall the concert should go well. I am a little worried about some spots with the freshman band holding together. I know I could have taught many things better, but now is the time to simply do the best we can, and simply bank those reflections and implement them next unit. I don't want to come across as one of those directors who seem like they teach everything at the last minute. There are parts that have sounded like mud and the kids have recovered and kept going without dropping a beat, which for my 9th graders is pretty substantial. So hopefully the audience enjoys it. I'm still of course holding that belief that every single thing my students ever do is a direct personal reflection of me and my abilities, which I know I need to shake.

If the top group focuses they should make an excellent presentation, so I am very excited for that. I picked more substantial music than they usually play for this concert, and that seems to have gone over well.

When this concert is over, our semester is effectively over. We will have 6 school days left, during 2 of which I will be at the Midwest Conference. After scale tests, a little bit of sight reading, and a class party, that will wind us down. I cannot wait for Midwest! Let me know if you're planning on being there as well.

Even more than that, I cannot wait to be more than halfway done with the first year of teaching. Of course, that also means I'll have to contend with 2nd semester seniors...