Finding the Right Carrot

So after five months of fighting and yelling, I think I may have finally made some progress in turning my hellish beginning instruments class around. The advantage of working in a academically college resume' motivated community is that grades become the ultimate motivator. Unfortunately, a lot of students and parents are all too eager to find ways to obtain the results without actually doing the work... but that's another post.

I posted the semester grades for that class, and more than a few kids freaked out. I mean they freaked out over Bs and Cs... lets not even get into the Ds and Fs (of which there were only a few). Parents were e-mailing. A few of them called. My answer was all the same - "Well, getting some extra practice time in would help, but really little Johnny/Suzie needs to be more attentive in class." Fortunately, I covered my ass months ago by e-mailing out notices to students/parents who were falling behind, saying that they needed to arrange some 1-on-1 time with me to get caught up. Not one single kid took me up on that offer.

But here's the thing that seemed to dramatically improve the class-wide behavior on friday: I announced to them that after reviewing the practical final (playing test) from 1st semester - it was apparent that half the class was ready to move on, and half the class needed to go back to the beginning of the method book and start over. The students who seemed to be making progress on their instruments will be given a significant amount of individual practice time (in practice rooms with solo and ensemble books) - meanwhile, the remedial group would stay with me in the main room and review everything from page 1. I will check on the progress of the 'advanced' group regularly - having them perform weekly in front of the class. If they seem to be using their time wisely, I'll allow it to continue. If not - I'll simply reform the advanced players into a separate group that will stay in the main room, and trade off rehearsal time with the remedial group (ie. I'll have to switch back-and-forth between the groups - whoever isn't being worked with will have to sit there and wait.)

I said we'd start as soon as we got back from our week-long President's Break.

I don't know what it was about that announcement, but that day was the first class we ever had where the entire room was focused from the bell to bell. It's way too early to tell whether or not that will hold, but it was promising.