The Bending Tree

"My English teacher doesn't teach" the student says "She gives us the handout and expects us to figure it out on our own."

It's a complaint I've heard in passing before.  A few times a year.  Sometimes from some of my most academically capable students.  I used to take it at face value, especially when said complaint applied to a teacher that I was not too familiar with.  I never added to those conversations (I was usually eavesdropping to be honest) but I would store those conversations away.

This year I'm teaching AP Music Theory for the first time in several years - an actual sit-down-open-your-book-and-do-the-problems-on-page-twenty kind of class.  Whatever I may have thought or said about said colleagues as a result of those statements... I take it back.  I know why you all refuse to 'teach'  Well, it's not that you refuse to teach... it's that you know damn well that even the brightest adolescents would rather the tree bend down and deliver the fruits of wisdom, rather than having to climb the branches and retrieve it themselves.  It's because you know that if you lecture on what's in the book, they won't read the book.  At all.  They'll continue to rely on you for every scrap of knowledge that goes into their head.  They won't work for it.  At all.  Oh they'll do what you tell them, but you have to tell them *everything*. I have a 7 year old at home who sometimes folds his arms at the dinner table and expects to be spoon-fed.  This feels exactly the same.

It's like teaching a cooking class and trying to teach them how to poach eggs, but first you have to specifically tell them to go to the refrigerator, pull the handle, locate the eggs within, retrieve them....  If you are lucky in twenty minutes you'll get to the boiling water.

Sigh.

I don't know why I'm taking this as some kind of revelation - band kids will forget how to read music if you don't demand that they sight read for you now and then.  They won't learn any of their parts unless someone sings it for them first,  or they'll listen to the kid next to them.  It's the same process  in a different format.


But you know this.  Everyone knows this.  This is why we're hearing the word 'rigor' thrown around.  Here's the funny thing though - I actually do have some hard working, dedicated kids who will read ahead in the book, take notes and all that.  And for being a 'high performance' school, it seems to me that the percentage of genuinely motivated students that we have is... probably about the same as other places.  I don't know that we have a culture of excellence.  We certainly have a culture of expectations of results... call it entitlement if you will.  You can see plenty of 'high achieving kids' who know how to work the system and get the grades they want without having to commit to the kind of self-reliance that they're supposed to be developing.  They also get accepted to schools that they are not prepared to succeed in.  And they'll blame us because we threw up our hands and did exactly what they wanted us to.

This year I was suckered into being the bending tree... next year.  I don't know, I certainly don't want to be 'the teacher who doesn't teach' - but I have to make sure they get their asses up into the branches.

The Uncomfortable Stretch

I don't get many 'firsts' these days.  A couple days ago I had one - an actual professional gig playing my instrument.  At first I didn't think anything of it, but a day or two before the event I got my hands on the music and went into a panic.  The truth is  that I don't quite have professional chops - more like really strong community band of chops.  I'm not a complete hack - I've got top notch tone and phrasing, which makes me a good conductor to boot.  But complex rhythms and high register stuff knock me around, and this gig had plenty of both.  The other thing about this gig was that I was playing alto sax, which means that not only were my parts more complex, they tended to be exposed.  As in solo. 
The guy that recruited me was a mentor/friend, and I've done work for him before.  Even some paid stuff.  But it was far more relaxed - playing with other teachers and students.  Nothing like the heavyweight crowd that I found myself sitting next to a couple nights ago.  It turns out that I knew a lot of the people in the orchestra - some of them *very* good friends.  I'm not sure if their presence eased embarrassment over my skills better or made it worse.  I was also worried that if I had made any major flubs, I would end up causing trouble for the contractor.  That's how the business goes.
How did I do?  I survived. I didn't do as well as I would have liked, but not as bad as the worst case scenario. All my solo stuff  came off fine (thank God)  The funny thing is that the first performance went well enough that I was almost too relaxed for the second, and ended up making a few more mistakes.  Nothing catastrophic though.  I was very aware, however, that there were two people in the room who I was certain heard every flub I made: the conductor, and the veteran pit player sitting next to me.  They were nice, neither said anything, although I wouldn't expect to be getting any calls from either of them.
The victory of the night, however, was that I made it through - and like the well worn educational euphemism says:  You gain nothing by staying in your comfort zone.  And while I am still a bit embarrassed at the mistakes I made, I came away motivated to practice and play more.  That and I made $300.

I also have a list of observations to take back to my students regarding this gig:

* NO ONE showed up late - not even the student performers.

* NO ONE showed up with only a partially complete concert outfit.

* We had ONE rehearsal.  Half the stuff I was playing, I was sight-reading.  Some of the stuff didn't get rehearsed at all.  I was one of the few people that the conductor had to stop and work with, and I was the ONLY one that he had to explain a rhythm to. (Not necessary, actually, but I was nervous)

* I can't say that there were no personal electronics, however it was drastically minimized in comparison with what you would get in a high school setting. No more than five people in a group of 30 had their phones out at any time.

* There was NO noodling (showing off) among the players on stage.  The brass warmed up off stage in the dressing room.  The strings and woodwinds tuned quietly.  The first real noise we heard was the tuning note - and then off we went on the charts.