Hello, Dear Readers - Happy 2012-2013 to all of you professional teacher types. I hope the summer was as good to you as it was to me - I have returned *mostly* rested and *mostly* enthusiastic. I know I wasn't as vigilant about posting as often as I would have liked last year - I confess that I penned many a thought that died a horrible death in draft development hell. Alas.
This year I have an interesting new development - the string coach who has been working for me for the last four years is now officially my student teacher. I am excited to have an extra pair of eyes, ears and hands around. At the same time I'm a little self-conscious about my qualifications as a master teacher. I've always thought that in order to be a master teacher, you have to have your shit down well enough to say "THIS is how you do the job...." Here I am trying to re-invent myself, never having felt like I *ever* had a good grasp of how to do this job.... and to be honest, part of the reason I took her on was to help nudge me along my own path of self-improvement. Anyway, I've decided to share this blog with her as a way of reflecting on the daily experience of being a public school music teacher. So here it goes -
So this last weekend was the first of the new school year. I spent most of it here, in my classroom. My wife very graciously agreed to take the kid over to the in-laws for the weekend, which actually is the normal M.O. on most weekends. But this weekend in particular, I really needed it. Teachers who are married to non-teachers often run into static when they spend personal time at work, or preparing for work (which accounts for a lot of the "off" time during the school year) My wife got used to it after a while - but only after she found out that her teacher sister-in-law drags her brother to the school occasionally to help change the bulletin boards.
This is just the life. To the young teacher, it's going to feel like the job is wrapping around you like a boa constrictor and squeezing the life out of you. To an older teacher, it feels like... well it just feels like your life. It's kind of like the way people tell you that after you have a kid, you'll stop going to the movies and eating out. Then when you finally have your own kid, you're so distracted by the rush of new-parenthood, you forget to notice that you stopped going to the movies and to restaurants. Then one day you stop and try to remember when the last time was that you went out, and you realized you never made a conscious decision not to, it just happened. That's how the teachers life creeps up on you, except it's a little more traumatic at the beginning (at least with parenthood, you get a cute little baby to distract you from how much your life has suddenly changed).
Sometimes I tell people "Yeah... I spent most of the weekend doing school work" as a way of getting sympathy, but the honest truth is I really don't mind being here. Really. It's actually kind of fun. I can crank up my tricked-out wireless audio system, watch a movie while I work... and there's no line for the school copier. But really, the advantage to spending time on the weekend is that it makes the weekday survival smoother. Sometimes, it just makes it *possible* It really depressed me at first - just like the fact that I had also permanently abandoned my days of sleeping in until 10 a.m. (ah, the life of a college student) That was back when I had to get up at 6 a.m. to get to my teaching gig on time - now I wake up an hour earlier, and stay later... all by choice.
So if and when that horrible realization hits you that you will never again be a carefree twenty-something... don't worry... we all had to go through that. Just like we all had to give up diapers at some point (talk to me son about that one... we're still working on it.)
Monday, September 10, 2012
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
The Hard Truths
What if you had to face the fact that the one thing you want to be or do more than anything else is beyond your reach, simply because you suck at it? This is the worst lesson that I have to 'teach' - and a lot of people would argue that I shouldn't teach it at all. Hollywood/Disney tells us that our dreams are infinite, as is our capacity to triumph through will and determination. Reality is a different story.
What I'm getting at is that I have students who have been eagerly applying to my elite groups, who simply do not have the musical skills required for membership. It's not from lack of effort; I'm talking about kids who have tried to meet every requirement that I've put out there. They've taken private lessons. They've come in after school to practice. They've eagerly sought out every opportunity to prove themselves.... and yet....
In some cases there are disabilities involved. One girl in particular is an autistic student who has been enrolled in the vocal program for the entirety of her middle school and high school career thus far. She is fiercely dedicated, and auditions for every solo that becomes available. To her credit, she's really good at memorizing things, and she sings with decent pitch. Sadly, she is severely lacking in range, tone, projection, diction and nuance. It is also highly questionable as to whether or not she will be able to manage complex, independent moving parts - which is another thing entirely than being able to hold a melody. She's auditioned for my advanced choir every year for the last three years running.... and while I heard some improvement over time, she simply gets out-performed by the competition. I think that is likely to happen for the rest of her high school career.
Another student (a drummer) in my band program is eagerly trying to get into our drum line, which is quickly becoming an elite performing group. I've known this student since he was in 5th grade. You won't meet a nicer kid, but he's got concentration and coordination issues, he learns things slowly and he's easily distracted. He's the kind of drummer that can play his parts as long as someone stands next to him and helps him count. The parents have been very supportive and understanding, but I think after this last round - they are starting to get impatient.
So here's my dilemma: I fully understand my responsibility to every single one of my students to help them learn and grow as musicians. To what extent am I responsible for helping them reach the highest level of performance? This is to say - are we as teachers and coaches held accountable for making sure that every student qualifies for a varsity team, a rigorous AP class, or an elite performing group, so long as they have the desire to do so? Is it our fault if the student doesn't make it into Harvard, Julliard or West Point? Should my promise to educate come with a guarantee to produce the desired result? or do we at some point have to acknowledge that not everyone makes the Olympic team?
Part of what makes an elite group or varsity team appealing to students and families is the fact that not everyone who applies gets in. There's no small amount of self affirmation that comes from prevailing through an audition process. To that end, people usually don't want me to remove the selective process - they just want me to select their kid... often times ignoring the criteria I used to accept or reject other students. I've heard pleas to let students just 'sit in the back' or 'take them on and drop them if they don't work out' (which would lead to endless requests to 'give them another chance') It's hard... I mean I'm still a relatively new parent myself, and I don't know how I will react if and when my son doesn't make the baseball team. I'm trying to use these experiences to temper my judgement when I finally get to see rejection from the other side. I hope I have a more grounded perspective that what I'm seeing from some of the parents I work with now.
Sometimes I feel like the reluctant Simon Cowell. I have no desire to crush the dreams of young people. I try to take it with some perspective. I'm not the person telling them that they are hopeless - I'm the person telling them that they haven't earned it yet. What I'm trying not to do, though, is come off as making a promise that they will. There are never any guarantees.
On the brighter side - I did recently see evidence that students and families do 'get it'. At the last vocal concert, one of the graduating seniors gave testament to the audience that the best thing I did for her was to reject her from the advanced choir until she proved herself as a singer (she had major pitch issues when she was younger). She said it made her work harder.... which she did... and it paid off. She finally gained membership in her sophomore year, and continued to work to improve her basic skills. Now she's going off with the intent to be a music performance major in college. She still has some work to do, but I think she'll be fine. She understands now that things aren't just given to people because they have a dream - they have to make that dream a reality.
With that, I'll leave you with a quote from "Ratatouille"
"Not everyone can be great, but greatness can come from anywhere." - Gusteau
What I'm getting at is that I have students who have been eagerly applying to my elite groups, who simply do not have the musical skills required for membership. It's not from lack of effort; I'm talking about kids who have tried to meet every requirement that I've put out there. They've taken private lessons. They've come in after school to practice. They've eagerly sought out every opportunity to prove themselves.... and yet....
In some cases there are disabilities involved. One girl in particular is an autistic student who has been enrolled in the vocal program for the entirety of her middle school and high school career thus far. She is fiercely dedicated, and auditions for every solo that becomes available. To her credit, she's really good at memorizing things, and she sings with decent pitch. Sadly, she is severely lacking in range, tone, projection, diction and nuance. It is also highly questionable as to whether or not she will be able to manage complex, independent moving parts - which is another thing entirely than being able to hold a melody. She's auditioned for my advanced choir every year for the last three years running.... and while I heard some improvement over time, she simply gets out-performed by the competition. I think that is likely to happen for the rest of her high school career.
Another student (a drummer) in my band program is eagerly trying to get into our drum line, which is quickly becoming an elite performing group. I've known this student since he was in 5th grade. You won't meet a nicer kid, but he's got concentration and coordination issues, he learns things slowly and he's easily distracted. He's the kind of drummer that can play his parts as long as someone stands next to him and helps him count. The parents have been very supportive and understanding, but I think after this last round - they are starting to get impatient.
So here's my dilemma: I fully understand my responsibility to every single one of my students to help them learn and grow as musicians. To what extent am I responsible for helping them reach the highest level of performance? This is to say - are we as teachers and coaches held accountable for making sure that every student qualifies for a varsity team, a rigorous AP class, or an elite performing group, so long as they have the desire to do so? Is it our fault if the student doesn't make it into Harvard, Julliard or West Point? Should my promise to educate come with a guarantee to produce the desired result? or do we at some point have to acknowledge that not everyone makes the Olympic team?
Part of what makes an elite group or varsity team appealing to students and families is the fact that not everyone who applies gets in. There's no small amount of self affirmation that comes from prevailing through an audition process. To that end, people usually don't want me to remove the selective process - they just want me to select their kid... often times ignoring the criteria I used to accept or reject other students. I've heard pleas to let students just 'sit in the back' or 'take them on and drop them if they don't work out' (which would lead to endless requests to 'give them another chance') It's hard... I mean I'm still a relatively new parent myself, and I don't know how I will react if and when my son doesn't make the baseball team. I'm trying to use these experiences to temper my judgement when I finally get to see rejection from the other side. I hope I have a more grounded perspective that what I'm seeing from some of the parents I work with now.
Sometimes I feel like the reluctant Simon Cowell. I have no desire to crush the dreams of young people. I try to take it with some perspective. I'm not the person telling them that they are hopeless - I'm the person telling them that they haven't earned it yet. What I'm trying not to do, though, is come off as making a promise that they will. There are never any guarantees.
On the brighter side - I did recently see evidence that students and families do 'get it'. At the last vocal concert, one of the graduating seniors gave testament to the audience that the best thing I did for her was to reject her from the advanced choir until she proved herself as a singer (she had major pitch issues when she was younger). She said it made her work harder.... which she did... and it paid off. She finally gained membership in her sophomore year, and continued to work to improve her basic skills. Now she's going off with the intent to be a music performance major in college. She still has some work to do, but I think she'll be fine. She understands now that things aren't just given to people because they have a dream - they have to make that dream a reality.
With that, I'll leave you with a quote from "Ratatouille"
"Not everyone can be great, but greatness can come from anywhere." - Gusteau
Monday, May 21, 2012
Yes, I am alive....
Dear readers, once again I apologize for such a long absence. I wish I had an excuse - truth be told, it wasn't so much that nothing interesting has happened to me in the last four months, it's just that I haven't taken the time to sit down and write about it. My dirty confession is that I've taken to commenting on message boards for various news sites, mostly having to do with education. A lot of it was arguing against some severely misinformed anti-teacher union sentiments out there... which was kind of weird because I'm not so sure I'm a big fan of unions in the first place. I'll spare you the details. Suffice to say, I finally stuck my head out to see what was happening in the teaching world acRoss the nation, and I think I'd like to pull it back in again.
Anyway... tonight, I am suffering from a particularly potent round of insomnia. So, rather than staying in bed, where I'm likely to keep turning over in a futile attempt to find a position that will induce drowsiness, I thought I'd sneak down to my office and give some love to my long-neglected blog. I'm not sure why I can't sleep - although I do feel a certain kind of anxiousness. I would not call it a fearful state, more one of anticipation, as if for the first time in some weeks I am actually eager to go to work. The strange part is that I don't have anything in particular that I'm looking forward to... but if I were to take a guess, I would say that it's more because of a lack of stress. I just completed a very labor-intensive project, one that requires a considerable amount of planning and gathering of resources, both human and financial. Each day of the last two months was a slow march towards the execution date - filled with worries about uncertain outcomes and aggravations that stemmed from trying to manage too many people in too many directions.
And now.... *POOF*.... all of that is gone.
So I guess what I'm looking forward to is a day of not being stressed at work. That isn't to say that I don't have a lot of work.... I have tons. But it's all in the realm of control. And, fellow teachers, you and I both know that there is no more valuable a commodity in teaching than control. That thought occurred to me last week when I was doing mundane paperwork as a way of distracting myself from working on the *big project* that was stressing me out - oh how I used to hate the boring paperwork that went with teaching. Most of it seemed rather pointless, and I wasn't very good at getting it in on time. These days, I'm much better at crossing my "t"s and dotting my "i"s - simply because out of all the tasks I have lined up for me on any given day - it's the paperwork that has the most reliable outcome. Fill it out, copy it, file it, turn it in.... and you're done. But the teaching... well, don't get me wrong... I love teaching... but the uncertainty wears on you after a while. Plans that you thought were iron-clad can get torpedoed. Students that you had come to trust and rely on would suddenly let you down. The daily grind can be like the emergency room in the wee hours of the night - you never know what will come through the door.
I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining. I had a feeling the job would be thus when I took it, and I have every intention of seeing it through. But sometimes I have this weird state of mind where I prefer my rooms when they are empty and silent... silent of all things... The chairs neatly arranged or stacked in the corner... Instruments tucked away on shelves against the wall. I may even douse the lights and lock the door, leaving my work space illuminated by the lonely oasis of light that is my $20 desk lamp from Target. Then I dive blissfully and monotonously into the pile of papers in my inbox.
Total.
Control.
It all sounds anti-social, I know, but given the number of people I know who occasionally hide themselves away in their classrooms... not just working... but meditating.... well, I know some of you understand.
Anyway, I promise a few more posts before the end of the year. Got some stuff brewing I'll probably need to vent about...
...so much for control....
Anyway... tonight, I am suffering from a particularly potent round of insomnia. So, rather than staying in bed, where I'm likely to keep turning over in a futile attempt to find a position that will induce drowsiness, I thought I'd sneak down to my office and give some love to my long-neglected blog. I'm not sure why I can't sleep - although I do feel a certain kind of anxiousness. I would not call it a fearful state, more one of anticipation, as if for the first time in some weeks I am actually eager to go to work. The strange part is that I don't have anything in particular that I'm looking forward to... but if I were to take a guess, I would say that it's more because of a lack of stress. I just completed a very labor-intensive project, one that requires a considerable amount of planning and gathering of resources, both human and financial. Each day of the last two months was a slow march towards the execution date - filled with worries about uncertain outcomes and aggravations that stemmed from trying to manage too many people in too many directions.
And now.... *POOF*.... all of that is gone.
So I guess what I'm looking forward to is a day of not being stressed at work. That isn't to say that I don't have a lot of work.... I have tons. But it's all in the realm of control. And, fellow teachers, you and I both know that there is no more valuable a commodity in teaching than control. That thought occurred to me last week when I was doing mundane paperwork as a way of distracting myself from working on the *big project* that was stressing me out - oh how I used to hate the boring paperwork that went with teaching. Most of it seemed rather pointless, and I wasn't very good at getting it in on time. These days, I'm much better at crossing my "t"s and dotting my "i"s - simply because out of all the tasks I have lined up for me on any given day - it's the paperwork that has the most reliable outcome. Fill it out, copy it, file it, turn it in.... and you're done. But the teaching... well, don't get me wrong... I love teaching... but the uncertainty wears on you after a while. Plans that you thought were iron-clad can get torpedoed. Students that you had come to trust and rely on would suddenly let you down. The daily grind can be like the emergency room in the wee hours of the night - you never know what will come through the door.
I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining. I had a feeling the job would be thus when I took it, and I have every intention of seeing it through. But sometimes I have this weird state of mind where I prefer my rooms when they are empty and silent... silent of all things... The chairs neatly arranged or stacked in the corner... Instruments tucked away on shelves against the wall. I may even douse the lights and lock the door, leaving my work space illuminated by the lonely oasis of light that is my $20 desk lamp from Target. Then I dive blissfully and monotonously into the pile of papers in my inbox.
Total.
Control.
It all sounds anti-social, I know, but given the number of people I know who occasionally hide themselves away in their classrooms... not just working... but meditating.... well, I know some of you understand.
Anyway, I promise a few more posts before the end of the year. Got some stuff brewing I'll probably need to vent about...
...so much for control....
Friday, February 3, 2012
The Devil In The Details
**WARNING**
This one has a lot of music jargon in it! You might not want to read unless you can spell a Neopolitan 6th chord in F Major!
As has been stated before.... several times.... I'm pretty good at berating myself for my shortcoming. Rest assured, I'm not about to go there. But it did occur to me today that while I've been carrying the cross of trying to get my "great reform" implemented since last year (and torturing myself for missing deadlines, etc) I haven't really sat down and analyzed what my biggest obstacle is. I always thought it was laziness and procrastination - mostly because I have a way of feeling guilty when I fail to get in work after hours, on the weekend or during vacations. It just occurred to me how much that would sound like insanity in any other profession besides teaching. I also had a flashback to something my college saxophone mentor once said to me: "Your problem isn't laziness. You get easily distracted."
Well, here I am at the end of semester finals - and I'm proud to report that I can't really complain about how I spent the extra hours I was blessed with this week. Given that I only gave out one written final, I threw myself at the task of preparing all of the materials that I've been promising to amass for the great reform. This mostly consists of individualized instrument packets that (will) contain:
I spent two full days designing the scale sheets. The material for each key takes up two pages - basic scale construction, articulation drills, related modes (yeah.... those modes) diatonic chords, scales in thirds, intervals from the tonic... I got kind of meticulous. Then I started making versions written in different octaves to accommodate the playing ranges of different instruments.... I took a break from that by designing scale sheets for percussionists with a self-designed keyboard chart to help them find the notes on the mallet instruments.
Probably any music teacher who reads this will tell me that there are thousands of materials out there to choose from - a lot of them for free on the internet. What I'm effectively doing is kind of beyond reinventing the wheel. But do you know how it is when you want your teaching materials to look and flow the way you want it to? It's for that reason that I spent half of last Saturday making little jpegs of individual notes - every pitch chromatically from about four ledger lines below to four above in treble and bass clef staves (and some sick part of my mind wanted to make a set in alto clef too.... just for the violas)
So, I think you can see what my problem really is. I'm not lazy. And if I procrastinate, I think it's because I know that once I get started, I get crazy obsessed with details, and what was supposed to be a short 40-minute project will turn into an ongoing endeavor that involves six different kinds of software and hundreds if not thousands of individual files.
It's almost 5 p.m. now... I have to pack up and leave my office. I have to go pick up my son from daycare. I promise on Rameau's grave that I will not work on anything while we're at home together... but I can assure you that my one written final still sits in a stack, ungraded - while I'm itching to get back to finishing off the rest of the scale sheets.
Distracted, not lazy.... distracted.
This one has a lot of music jargon in it! You might not want to read unless you can spell a Neopolitan 6th chord in F Major!
As has been stated before.... several times.... I'm pretty good at berating myself for my shortcoming. Rest assured, I'm not about to go there. But it did occur to me today that while I've been carrying the cross of trying to get my "great reform" implemented since last year (and torturing myself for missing deadlines, etc) I haven't really sat down and analyzed what my biggest obstacle is. I always thought it was laziness and procrastination - mostly because I have a way of feeling guilty when I fail to get in work after hours, on the weekend or during vacations. It just occurred to me how much that would sound like insanity in any other profession besides teaching. I also had a flashback to something my college saxophone mentor once said to me: "Your problem isn't laziness. You get easily distracted."
Well, here I am at the end of semester finals - and I'm proud to report that I can't really complain about how I spent the extra hours I was blessed with this week. Given that I only gave out one written final, I threw myself at the task of preparing all of the materials that I've been promising to amass for the great reform. This mostly consists of individualized instrument packets that (will) contain:
- A chart of the circle of fifths and transpositions for instruments in Eb, Bb and F
- A fingering chart
- Written out scales and exercises in all major and minor keys
- Chorale warm-ups
- Corresponding percussion etudes that coincide with the wind player's scale exercises
- Drum rudiments and rhythm exercises for percussionists
- Full-group rhythmic drills
- Rhythm subdivision worksheets
- Repertoire inventory sheets - used by each student to identify the important characteristics of each piece of music we read and perform.
- .... and whatever sickness I decide to come up with.
I spent two full days designing the scale sheets. The material for each key takes up two pages - basic scale construction, articulation drills, related modes (yeah.... those modes) diatonic chords, scales in thirds, intervals from the tonic... I got kind of meticulous. Then I started making versions written in different octaves to accommodate the playing ranges of different instruments.... I took a break from that by designing scale sheets for percussionists with a self-designed keyboard chart to help them find the notes on the mallet instruments.
Probably any music teacher who reads this will tell me that there are thousands of materials out there to choose from - a lot of them for free on the internet. What I'm effectively doing is kind of beyond reinventing the wheel. But do you know how it is when you want your teaching materials to look and flow the way you want it to? It's for that reason that I spent half of last Saturday making little jpegs of individual notes - every pitch chromatically from about four ledger lines below to four above in treble and bass clef staves (and some sick part of my mind wanted to make a set in alto clef too.... just for the violas)
So, I think you can see what my problem really is. I'm not lazy. And if I procrastinate, I think it's because I know that once I get started, I get crazy obsessed with details, and what was supposed to be a short 40-minute project will turn into an ongoing endeavor that involves six different kinds of software and hundreds if not thousands of individual files.
It's almost 5 p.m. now... I have to pack up and leave my office. I have to go pick up my son from daycare. I promise on Rameau's grave that I will not work on anything while we're at home together... but I can assure you that my one written final still sits in a stack, ungraded - while I'm itching to get back to finishing off the rest of the scale sheets.
Distracted, not lazy.... distracted.
Friday, January 6, 2012
No Way In F***ing Hell!
Hello loyal fans (both of you)
Once again, I apologize for neglecting you. I actually started writing several posts, but abandoned them. Probably for the best - I was ranting about educational reform (in particular, the recent antics of Michelle Rhee and the Corporate Reform-troopers). You know me... I get kinda tedious when I get wordy....
Anyway, I did want to at least check in, and share a little from my life at NRHS. I hope that you all had a good Holiday Season, and that the 2012 brings many new and wonderful things.
oh... and about the post title.....
... well, um... one of my choir kids lobbied to have the class sing a medley of Justin Bieber songs. She even showed me where I could find the sheet music on the internet.
Once again, I apologize for neglecting you. I actually started writing several posts, but abandoned them. Probably for the best - I was ranting about educational reform (in particular, the recent antics of Michelle Rhee and the Corporate Reform-troopers). You know me... I get kinda tedious when I get wordy....
Anyway, I did want to at least check in, and share a little from my life at NRHS. I hope that you all had a good Holiday Season, and that the 2012 brings many new and wonderful things.
oh... and about the post title.....
... well, um... one of my choir kids lobbied to have the class sing a medley of Justin Bieber songs. She even showed me where I could find the sheet music on the internet.
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