Student Ownership

A nice article I recommend reading on giving students a little more ownership of the band and giving them an opportunity to help you out more: http://www.keynotesmagazine.com/article/?uid=297

Making Mistakes

"Mistakes are okay, just learn from them!" This has been my number one lesson this past month of school. I have probably made more stupid mistakes in the past week than I did all of student teaching combined. (and I made plenty then, too!) And you know what? I still think I'm doing a pretty good job as a teacher! This has been a great opportunity (ehem, trial and time of suffering) to deal with and overcome my perfectionism. Change happens slowly. Remember that 5th grade class that I wrote about a few weeks ago? It's still a mess. I still spend more time angry at them than smiling at them. I am still too inconsistent in my punishment. I am still afraid to make parent phone calls. I am still learning. That one out of control K class? Still completely out of control! My fault? Partially, partially not. All I can do is continue to reflect and improve, and overall love the kids. Newsflash to the world: I have learned more about how to be a good teacher from the classes that DON'T go well than the ones that do. Here is what i've learned so far this week.

1. About school: It's seriously okay to be mean. It's okay to punish kids. It's okay if they cry. About me: I am afraid of being mean. Somewhere in my messed up brain, I have discovered another one of my many irrational fears. You ready? I am afraid that if I punish kids for talking and not meeting my expectations every single time and for minor offenses in the beginning, instead of leading to a respectful learning environment where the kids feel like they can both learn and express themselves, I will have a stoic, emotionless, and bored class that will completely miss the point of music. Yet, all my experiences and the experiences of teachers who I respect proves the opposite. Next week, I am going to try my hardest to not be afraid to punish kids. (side note of self reflection - I think it is really interesting that I am having this problem because I was that kid that was COMPLETELY afraid of GETTING in trouble as a kid.)

2. Kids need consistency and structure. Teachers fight a losing battle if a student does not have structure and discipline at home. Teachers fight a double losing battle if parents AND other teachers don't provide enough structure and discipline. My mom said to me today "Don't kids just adapt to the expectations of where they are at the time?" Absolutely not. Some will....but most of the time, I don't think they can. Consistency and structure are stabilizing. Boundaries are comforting. It is true.

3. If you believe a child won't succeed, they won't. If you believe that they will, they are more likely to. This is the most powerful fact that a teacher holds in their possession. I hate labeling. low kids, high kids, slow kids, gifted kids... obviously, we need some system of labeling in order to know and help each child succeed. We can't say that all kids learn at the same speed and in the same way. However, expectation plays a huge part in behavior and success. I wish that I could say that I have the same expectation for all my classes, but I am still making mistakes! This is one of my goals for next week, especially with the classes that I struggle with.

There is one particular student that I am trying to "win over to the good side." She is a kindergartener who always seems to be in trouble. Sort of randomly one day after she had made some bad choices, I called her over to me and told her that i believed that she could turn her day in music around. She said she could and she did.... for the next ten minutes... It was a start!! I've decided to really work on this child. Make her believe that she IS good and that she CAN make good choices for behavior. I figure, If I believe in her, maybe she will start to make some good choices and believe in herself. We had a similar talk today about her being a good leader for her class. She made it another ten minutes. I am proud of the start.


Those are my musings for the week. On another note, I survived BOTH middle school and high school without ever getting a detention, just to have detention duty this morning at 7AM... I can no longer say I've never been in detention. It's a little sad.

Jazz Update

Remember that post I made a few weeks ago about the improvisation curriculum we were going to put in place in my jazz band class? Remember how uplifting it was and how I was going to lift my students out of their musical shells and take musical risks and create? We were going to gel as a musical unit and overcome our instrumentation problems and our shyness. Remember how musically and personally rewarding it was going to be?

My kids hated it.

The entire concept was met with incredible resistance, as my kids wanted nothing to do with musical risks, creativity, and self expression. It really is hard for me to describe how much they resisted participation in our improvisation games, in the idea of playing for playing's sake, and in the value of playing this type of music.

Needless to say, this was super frustrating. I was so excited about the prospect of making improvisation the centerpiece of the class (since the instrumentation stinks and they read really poorly anyhow), and I couldn't believe it when I saw it completely fall apart.

So I want to briefly analyze the failure, because I want to put it in my back pocket to try it again later, I think it is incredibly valuable, and I want to see how I can improve as a teacher. I see two main reasons why it didn't work.

1) One of the key components of the failure of the improv curriculum lies in the fact that it was completely different than anything they had done before. People hate change. Kids hate change. It is clear to me that they are very used to a very different system than what I was trying to implement. That system, which is probably practiced by the majority of band directors (which I have resorted to often this year, sad to say) goes like so: 1) Pass out some music, 2) sightread it terribly, 3) kids wait for band director to tell them how to play it, 4) perform at a concert with varying quality.

In this system, the kids learn nothing, don't do any of the work, and the director does all the work. (I've already had to do this with my 6-8 grade band that marches parades, because we had a parade right at the beginning of the year. I see how easy it is to slip into this system).

Well, the kids are very used to this system, and when I presented a different approach to our class, they did not handle it very well. They responded to the improv curriculum with comments like "when are we going to play real music?" "this sounds dumb," etc. (The irony of the first comment is that they can't read a lick, which is one of the reasons I went the improv route in the first place. If I put music in front of them, at this point it's pretty much always a disaster).

So this is one of those things that, as the students get used to me and as I develop a reputation over months and years and I get to start doing things they way I think they ought to be done, this'll change. They won't be so used to it anymore. Our fellow blogger Nick sagely reminded me that "Rome wasn't built in a day."

2) The second point of failure in the improv curriculum is a classroom management one. This lies on me and the teacher before me. It was clear from day one that my kids are used to talking whenever they want, getting up whenever they want, and pretty much controlling the class. Obviously, that's something I wanted to change, and I'm working hard at it. My mentor teacher said that it's going to be December before I make a lasting dent, but I'm working hard at it, and we're getting better, but man, it is exhausting.

The 8th graders in particular are tough to deal with. They think they know it all, are super cool, and they are used to having zero structure and zero consequences. So they didn't immediately see the value of the improv lessons, and they just went buck wild. They didn't do what I requested of them, sometimes flat out refusing to do so, and they just wouldn't focus or work toward any goal. They're content with sub-mediocrity and goofing off.

And I guess this comes back to a problem that's even larger than the failure of the improvisation lessons. I hate being the bad guy. I have this concept of a good classroom manager in my head as someone who just doesn't have to punish students because of their mystical, esoteric ability to inspire respect, motivation, and a healthy amount of fear in their students. And man, I am so not there. If I were totally consistent with my rules, I would hand out 20 demerits a day, and that just seems ridiculous to me. I am striving for consistency and firmness, and it's easier in jazz band with just 12 kids, but in band with 45, it is just out of my reach right now. It's overwhelming.

So I guess the nexus of the problem really lies in motivation. If I can sell to my kids the value of my educational vision for them, then they'll focus, do what I ask of them, and put in the work. If I don't, then I'll be fighting my kids, dragging them along forever.

Wow, this reflection was helpful. And now I'm pumped! I have a renewed zeal to just impart my passion for music and music making in my students. I know it's not gonna stick for all my kids, especially some of these hardened 8th graders, but 5th grade beginning band is just around the corner.

Firsts, etc.

If you don't want to be humbled, don't be a first year teacher. Every day, situations come up that I've never faced before, so I can't fall back on prior knowledge and experience. Sometimes I feel like I handle the situations like a pro, and other times I totally blow it. This post will address some of these issues where I've felt bewildered in a sort of scatter-gun fashion.

-My students are incredibly far behind in terms of their ability to read (music, that is). I found out on day one of band camp that the students were just largely unable to read even basic quarter note/half note rhythms. To give you a picture of it, when we read out of Essential Elements 2000, it sounds more like Atmospheres by Ligeti and less like When the Saints Go Marching In. And after about two bars of musical nothingness, the students give up, quit playing, and just look at me.

What do I do? The junior high band is composed of 6th-8th graders, about 45 all together. The jazz band, about 12 kids, faces the same problems (which reminds me, I'll update my post about improvisation in jazz band class in a later post). I am currently in the first stage of David Newell's teaching rhythm with both groups. The sequence begins with performing rhythms in a call and response format, which even proves difficult right now. Next, I will use rhythm flashcards to show them what they are playing translates to in terms of notation. But even this system only teaches one "type" of rhythm at a time. For example, right now, we're only doing call and response with quarter notes, eighths, and half notes. But we have to start there, right? We can't just jump into sixteenth note rhythms, syncopations, and hemiolas?

The problem is that the kids are getting restless. All this work on fundamentals and not enough fun playing is tuckering them out. The ironic thing is that what they want is what we have been taught NOT to do. They want me to put a piece of music in front of them and just tell them how it goes. They want to memorize their parts and play just a few tunes all year using this format. They don't want to learn. They want to be completely dependent on me. I'm trying to convince them that our fundamental work will pay off to the tune of playing way more music and student independence. Right now, they aren't buying it. but it's only been 2 weeks in.

What I must do, however, is make sure that I pound rhythm reading into my beginning band kids' heads like crazy. Which leads me to another thing.

-Beginning band is bonkers. There are so many logistical pitfalls. I had about 35 kids interested in starting band this year, which is great! The problem is many students come from pretty poor families, and they are just unable to rent instruments. Some were turned away from our provider because of bad credit. I've loaned out almost all of our school instruments. What's going to happen for next year?

-Classroom management is a tough art. Thank God for Harry Wong, as his work has helped me tons. My band kids are used to coming into the band room and raising hell, so we've spent two weeks reforming bad habits. Like everything else, we're making improvements, but we have a lot of room for improvement. I've had to resort to handing out demerits, which is a school-wide penalty system. It stinks being the bad guy, but I believe in the concept of sticking to your guns and being firm, 'cause Harry Wong says that kids will respect you and your system more because of it. Hopefully that proves to be true.

-Other bewildering things include purchase orders, transportation requests, Teachers Retirement System, insurance, all sorts of bills. Growing up is tough.

-Among all these things that are frustrating and mind-buzzing, I am loving it all. It's probably still the honeymoon stage, but I am relishing the role of teacher. I love being able to talk with students who need a strong male presence in their levels. I love getting the chance to teach music. Today we had our first parade (yeah, middle schoolers marching....) and it went as well as I think it could have. The busses showed up, I didn't lose any kids, and we played pretty well! These kind of events build so much team spirit and pride. They're awesome. It was so rewarding being on the other side of that this time and facilitating that for my students.

Quick funny story: In between our parade songs, the drumline was playing a simple cadence, which predominantly features the quads at the beginning of it. During one of the cadences, the quad player dropped out unexpectedly, and I was originally irked with him. He got back on, and later I asked him what happened. The poor kid told me his pants became unbuttoned. Haha. He had to get readjusted, then just kept on marching like a trooper!

So the first parade is down, we have a little bit of time to spend on fundamentals, and I'm super excited. There are many pearls to take away from the first few weeks, even amongst the rampant confusion.