Posts filed under 'Recruiting & Retention'
We, the teachers, cannot curse in school. We may not swear at students. We cannot curse at the students despite our own frustrations. We may not curse, not even if a student’s poor performance deserves it. There are good reasons for this, including professional propriety, teacherly love and support, setting an example of positive coping strategies, and simple fear of repercussions. No matter what: we may not swear at either poor behavior or poor academic performance.
But what about the student at the other end of the spectrum? Have you ever been tempted to drop a naughty word into a congratulations speech for the purpose of making your students understand just how unnaturally pleased you are with their performance? Have you ever had a student be so extremely modest that a little shakeup might actually boost their self-esteem? Have your students ever earned the “hell yeah” or “damn fine job” or “so fucking proud of you” that didn’t slip past the filter of your professional code of conduct?
December 3rd, 2009
I was recently asked to contribute to the music education portion of the Jemsite blog. Important excerpts are copied below, but I encourage you to read the full post here. You can even purchase guitars and accessories from the site.
I surprised myself a little bit with the honesty with which I answered the last question. Read it through, and see what you think.
Q: You currently teach Beginning Guitar classes in school. What do you teach exactly, especially considering you say you only have a repertoire of about 6 major chords?
A: My guitar repertoire may be larger than six chords, but I am still not a guitarist. Neither was the band director who started that class at that school. But she felt, as I do, that music is not a spectator sport and that every school should provide an inroads into music for every child.
The guitar curriculum for that class requires that by the end of one semester, every student will demonstrate that they can: hold and care for a guitar; tune a guitar; work correct left-hand technique; work both right-hand classical technique and use a pick; read pitches between the low E and high G; read rhythms including whole, half, quarter and eighth notes and rests; read basic tablature; play a melody alone and with a duet partner; play basic major chords alone and accompany a melody; play power chords; compose an original power chord riff; use simple multitrack recording software; and create an arrangement of a song using all of the tools in their toolbox.
Q: What’s the difference between “training” and “education?” Do you think teaching music education is more important than being an actual performer?
A: “Education” differs from “training” in a small but important aspect: process is more important than product. In a training scenario the student learns how to do one thing one way, whereas in an education scenario the student learns the concepts that operate that thing and therefore can apply the knowledge to new situations. A burger flipper in a fast food joint gets trained to toast the buns the same every time, but a chef in a Michelin-rated restaurant should educated in how flour combines with yeast and therefore can create new kinds of breads or adapt to different ovens. In a guitar lesson, a teacher can take one of two strategies: teach the E minor chord and the A minor chord so that the student knows two chords, or teach how minor chords are built so that the student knows every minor chord. Unfortunately, most guitar teachers in the world pander to the lowest common denominator, and teach the student how to play the song (for example, “Today we’re going to play ‘Foxy Lady’. Play this note, then play this note, then play this note…”) rather than teaching the student how to play guitar (for example, “Check out these crazy notes….they are called tri-tones. Here’s how they work, here’s why they sound strange, here’s how to make them yourself. Let’s practice some tri-tones in this song ‘Foxy Lady’.”)
“Music education” isn’t something a guitar teacher would teach. Rather, it is the philosophy with which the guitar teacher approaches the lesson. Surely every guitar student wants to be a performer. The question is, does the student want to perform a limited selection of songs in their bedroom, or does the student want to perform a wide variety of songs, including their own original tunes, on a stage in front of an audience?
Q: You direct the Wind Ensemble, Jazz Ensemble, Concert Band and Rock Band Workshop for an international school in Asia. How are guitar classes currently being integrated into school band/choir programs?
A: Most schools in the U.S. don’t offer guitar. With easy availability of guitar teachers and private guitar lessons outside of school, most districts feel no pressure to add the faculty or spend money on a class set of instruments. Schools that do offer guitar mostly offer it as a one-semester elective, with no opportunity for student to continue after the final exam. This scenario is better than the old-fashioned Music Appreciation class in which student memorized the birth and death dates of Mozart. Some schools with beginning guitar also have an advanced guitar ensemble class so that students can continue indefinitely, gaining more skill and becoming mentors to younger guitar students. Because most music classes in middle and high schools are Band and Choir classes, student who have studied guitar on their own find opportunities to participate in the school Jazz Band. Often these are students who are also singers or wind instrument players who play or sing classical music in the Band or Choir while taking guitar lessons after school.
Q: Do you believe the guitar is a worthwhile instrument amongst school musical performances? Why?
A: Any instrument, and any style of music, is worthy of school music concerts. The point of teaching music in schools is that music (1) is valuable just because it is music, (2) teaches personal and social skills that are critical to young peoples’ success in real life, (3) builds school spirit and community identity, and (4) is fun. Guitar meets these criteria just as well as clarinet, violin and voice do.
Q: Tell me about your Jazz Ensemble and Rock Band Workshops and how guitar comes into play there.
A: I usually have one or two guitar players plus a bass player every year in the Jazz Ensemble. These are typical numbers for a big band (think Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Gordon Goodwin). In fact, my Beginning Guitar class has been an important recruiting tool for the Jazz Band.
Rock Band Workshop is an open-door program, like open-mic afternoon. We have had between two and twelve guitarists show up to any given session. Anyone can come play, whether alone or with a group. We have had singer-guitarists cover Jack Johnson, and we have had six-piece rock bands play Iron Maiden. We even had a solo bassist perform just the bass part of a Slipknot song because she was new to our school and didn’t know any other musicians. At the Workshop that day, she met a metal band who was performing without a bassist. By the next workshop she was in that band, and by the following school year she was in the Jazz Band and the Wind Orchestra. At Workshop, each person/group plays their song and then gets feedback from the guest experts (our school has a shocking number of faculty with serious gig experience) on everything from how to play in time together to how to get the best sound out of their distortion pedal/amplifier combo.
Q: How important is music education in school in determining how a child does in other areas of learning?
A: Research on this question has been huge but inconclusive. We are sure that students who excel in music also excel in other subjects. However, researchers have not been able to show whether this relationship is a cause-effect situation or merely a coincidence caused by another factor. For every study that shows cause-effect, there is another that shows no cause-effect. However, wouldn’t you rather your own child have it than not?
Q: What is the future of music education?
A: The future of music education is in technology, student compositions, and self-directed learning. Guitar and piano will play an increasing role in school music classes as Web 2.0 tools become more commonplace in the classroom. Within the next 30 years, Band class as I know it will lose precedence in school curricula. Chamber music will be more common. The new music class will be more about students recording their own music (on any instrument—guitar, woodwind, brass or otherwise) and distributing it digitally than about large ensembles. Band, Choir and Orchestra will not be forgotten; their excitement, energy, inclusiveness and community ties (not to mention their relationship to sporting events) will keep them active in schools, but as extra-curricular activities rather than as graded classes. Students’ technical performance skills on their chosen instrument will be increasingly measured by computer, giving music teachers more tools for grading technique objectively and for coaching students to more fully create the emotional effects that make classical music so powerful. And finally, within the next 50 years, music will become mandatory in every year of school for every student as new research in neuroscience and cognitive psychology will convince school administrators and politicians that music makes definite, measurable improvements in students’ ability to solve problems, mature emotionally, relate to others and generally be successful in life.
October 26th, 2009
Every band, orchestra and choir director needs to be a music advocate. Music educators who are not activists within their community will quickly become ignored, marginalized……and possibly jobless.
Part of the advocacy platform for music in our schools includes “extramusical benefits”. In addition to the inherent, intrinsic and indubitable value of music for the sake of music, the personal and social development of the child is an equally weighty justification for spending those increasingly rare education dollars on oboes, cello cases and choir risers. I am fond of telling school parents (and anyone who will listen, really) that classes in math, science and humanities give young people the resume data to enter a career field after school. On the other hand, I preach, it is music class that gives our young people the real-life skills necessary to excel in their chosen field. In fact, there is significant research that suggests a powerful correlation between social/emotional skills and career success, and only a limited correlation between success and IQ or success and educational credentials. It is precisely these intra-personal and inter-personal skills which music ensembles develop in students that make music so valuable in schools - skills such as self-discipline, work ethic, self-confidence, goal-setting, strategic planning, critical analysis, resilience, teamwork, leadership, etc., etc., etc.
Today I found Travis Norman’s interview with Stacey Marmolejo on the blog of the Institute of Production and Recording. Stacey is the proprietor of the Minnesota locations of the Paul Green School of Rock (the original “school of rock” upon which the Jack Black movie was based). In the interview, Stacey talks about the extramusical ways kids grow during music training. Bravo, Stacey, for delivering the message so eloquently!
A: Of course they’ll learn to become amazing musicians on whichever instrument they select but our program goes well beyond that. We teach kids to play in a band. That means they are learning teamwork, leadership, responsibility and accountability. We teach the kids to entertain people. I tell the kids that if people just want to hear great music they’ll listen to their iPod. People go to live concerts to be entertained. This skill set then translates to their academic life by giving them the confidence to stand in front of their class and give a speech. I frequently hear from parents and students that a teacher at their academic school is amazed at the poise and self confidence of a School of Rock student as compared with their classmates. We teach them how to market themselves. This may sound strange for kids but it’s a great skill set for them to learn. Whether they choose to be a professional musician or pursue any other career, they will have to sell themselves in job interviews, asking for a raise or a promotion or booking their own band’s gig. So we expect the kids to market their own concerts. And it is common for our concerts to draw 500-600 people. The icing on the cake is that great friendships are formed at School of Rock Music. Not only among the students but among the families. We have movie nights and open jams and other fun activities at the school which the kids love because it gives them a chance to just hang out with their friends from the school. And we also hear of families and parents getting together outside of school activities as well. We have a great community of families.
And Stacey’s music education venture is built entirely on powerchords….no Baroque counterpoint required, no graduate degree or professional teaching license needed. If just two fingers on a guitar can do this much for a young person, what can we do with ten fingers on a clarinet? What about four dozen fingers on a quintet of saxophones, or four hundred fingers in a symphonic band?
Every band, orchestra and choir director needs to be a music advocate. Music educators who are not activists within their community will quickly become ignored, marginalized……and possibly jobless. What have you done this week to spread the word about music in your community?
October 3rd, 2009
I recently responded to a call for assistance (read: ammunition in rhetoric) from a colleague who was actually asked to justify having any concerts at all. His new campus administrator wanted to take all after-school Band performances off the school calendar.
We do three major formal concerts per year, plus as many small performance opportunities as we can scare up. Concerts are critical because they (1) are required assessments under every major music standards currently published; (2) are the culminating event of any Band season; (3) form both summative assessment as the capstone of the previous curricular unit as well as formative assessment as the launching pad for learner reflection and goalsetting for the subsequent curricular unit; (4) are the reason students sign up for Band; (5) are the reason parents rent the horns, buy the reeds, pay for the lessons and listen to the horrendous first year of at-home practicing; (6) are the music department’s (and the school’s) number one publicity and recruiting strategy; (7) enhance the school’s community nature and warm the school’s atmosphere; (8) are fun. I cannot name a single research study that attempts to explain WHY we do concerts, because every study I have ever read (in music education AND in educational administration journals) begins with the paradigm that concerts are a self-evident part of any music program. We can quibble about how long a concert should last, how much classical vs. pop music should be programmed, or in what grade level students should transition from recorders to orchestral wind instruments, but we cannot really find any support in either research nor anecdotal literature for arguing against concerts as an integral part of the curricular and extracurricular music program.
What else would YOU say to this administrator?
June 19th, 2009
Here’s a can of worms:
The day after the big concert…..to party or not to party? Call it a bribe, call it unhealthy, call it what you will. Opponents insist that giving the students candy or other treats is not good educational practice. Supporters hold that goodies are a reward for a job well done when presented after a job and under the condition that the job was done well. Where do you stand on the treats debate?
For my part, I used to be a stick in the mud, following the principal’s/superintendent’s instruction that “every minute of class time must count towards meeting standards”. This seemed right to me, as I planned and focused on how to conduct, sectional, instruct and cajole my students to sweepstakes ratings. The day after the concert, even while critiquing last night’s performance, was the first day of rehearsal for the next show. I used to be much less smooth on the day after the concert: beating kids over the head with the critique process and then passing out the first piece of the next set of repertoire. However, as I grow into this profession, I find myself much more interested in whether the students feel good about being in Band. It can’t always “be fun”, but if I can just keep them in there long enough to feel the glory of the audience applause, then I know they will stick with it longer. I have come to see the benefit of letting the Band members feel as if they are not focused, as if learning has been paused for one period. Therefore, after the long, uphill fight to concert readiness, I now take a whole day “off”: watch movies, eat candy, have a party in class.
Except that even while we blow off learning for the day, the movies are of their own performance and then of professional ensembles, and the party is themed around excellence in music. And the sweets are diabetic-friendly. Party on, Wayne!
May 13th, 2009
First, read this post on Edutopia about recent gains in Arts Education funding.
On one hand, I can recognize what a Herculean feat it must be to give every student on every campus in a large district (with a large portion of “inner-city” campuses) forty-five minutes of music and art per week. To have been a leader in this transformation, to look back on the amount of politicking and consensus building and fundraising and budgeting and politicking, must induce a healthy sense of pride of accomplishment. Congratulations to the leaders who took on that task, and hooray for a step in the right direction.
On the other hand, what does it say about our broken system that 45 minutes per week of music and art (or, to be exact, 45 minutes of “Musicandart”) is considered a victory? Forty-five minutes once per week is not enough to build vocabulary in any subject, much less usable performance skills. What if we gave students 45 minutes of exposure to reading once per week? What kind of reading skills, much less love of books and reading for pleasure, could we expect from them? If we gave students 45 minutes of math per week, would we ever have another engineer or architect graduate from our schools? What’s more, to think that “Musicandart” gives either half of that time to music per week and half that time to visual art per week or, worse, one music class every other week is simply laughable. Research in music education, skills acquisition, expertise theory, etc. all points to the fact that frequency of practice is an immutable component in the acquisition of new skills.
Kudos to Dallas ISD, Big Thought, and the Wallace Foundation for winning an important game. Now let’s focus on our strategy for the rest of the games of the season.
March 1st, 2009
Dear Mr. Stewart,
My name is Mrs. Mother, I am the mother of William and Billy. We have recently moved from our home country in the Western world and have just now received our shipment, including our piano. I was wondering whether you would know of a good piano teacher for the boys, or whether you would be able to give them lessons. They are quite talented and I would very much like both of them to maintain their level.
We met a Mr. Piano last night but I am not sure how good a teacher he is. I believe that a certain Mr. Keyboard also teaches a number of students at your school. I would appreciate any recommendation or comment you might have.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Mother
Dear Ms. Mother,
Welcome to Abu Dhabi, and to ACS!
It would be quite difficult to set you up with a “good” piano teacher, as everyone’s personalities, expectations, and prior experiences are different. It really depends on what your priorities are. Is it most important to you that the boys “have fun”; or that they acquire “an appreciation for music”; or that they play a wide variety of music including classical, jazz and pop; or that they complete the eight levels of Cambridge music examinations? Do you want them to compete in young artist competitions, or do you want them to be able to play songs with their friends? If you can help me understand your expectations about the boys’ music experience, I might be able to give you more helpful feedback.
I can tell you that many ACS students are satisfied customers of both Mr. Piano and Mr. Keyboard. You will want to be sure to call the International Music Institute. I have also attached my list of music teachers in Abu Dhabi for your benefit.
Cary Stewart
Director of Bands
November 25th, 2008
Greg Sandow has been asking lately whether formal attire is still valid for classical music concerts in this modern age. The same question has been asked for a while now regarding attire for student concerts. Well-funded suburban schools tend to have spiffy uniforms for their ensembles–even full-on tuxes for their top wind and string orchestras–while in less affluent or organized (or other factor) schools the Concert Band wears their marching uniforms for their spring concert. School bands farther in or out of town may well have trouble achieving that much, for reasons which may include funding, parental support, local culture, or “other”.
We all know that the first impression speaks the loudest. When a group walks on stage with focus and raise their instruments in one motion, the audience (most of whom are musically uneducated anyway) is compelled to quiet down and listen. Many of us have been disappointed to discover that the spring concert was judged more by the choice of Santana’s “Smooth” as a closer (which your kids cleaned in an afternoon) than by the execution of the running passages in, say, Mvt 3 of Norman Dello Joio’s Satriric Dances (which your students slaved over for weeks). I would posit that the same is true for their attire; when the ensemble members look sharp, then parents, siblings and friends are more likely to take them seriously, give them the benefit of the doubt, etc.
On the other hand, coming back to Greg Sandow’s point, is formal attire a good idea for young people? Do your students hate it? It could turn in to a recruiting and retention sticking point. More to my point, however, is that we should be teaching our students a wider repertoire of music and teaching it to them in culturally authentic contexts. That symphonic work was composed at a certain time, for a certain audience. Shouldn’t your students (and audience) experience it as similarly as possible to how it was intended?
The caveat is that the opposite would be true (but for the same reason) for your group playing a concert of rock/pop music. Marching ensembles have been on the leading edge in this regard, with color guards in themed costumes for field shows and entire indoor drumline shows in theme-specific garb. I have a yearning to do an entire evening of 50’s era cool and blue jazz with my jazz ensemble split up into combos, and make it really a cafe, with coffee and dessert being served and the sound of clinking glasses. It’s not a new idea; schools have done this before as a fund raiser for the jazz band trip or for service hours. But I want to actually transform the space by bringing in couches, green shag carpets and cafe tables, everything but the cigarette smoke….and I want to enlist the theater department to costume my jazz students in narrow-cut suits and skinny ties. Better yet, I want to rent out a real jazz club in town on a Tuesday night for the spectacle. Afterwards, for the rest of their lives, I want my students to look at the pictures on their own copies of Kind of Blue and see the dark cafe, smell the coffee, feel the suit. A real multisensory experience. Another idea I am working up the guts to stage is a full-out rock concert with my wind ensemble: leather pants, big hair, mics clipped to the bells of clarinets, wah-wah pedal on the trombone and lots of distortion on the oboe solo. Again, trying to create a personal, emotional connection to musicians from a certain time and place. Until I work up the cojones stage one of these stunts, my concerts will contain a wide variety of music, but leaning towards symphonic. That leaves me dressing my students for the sit-down formality of shirts and ties.
Do you think that (semi-) formal attire improves the student concert experience? I do. I want to build the community expectations at my current school over the next three to five years to include formal attire for my top ensembles. My stated objective in this regard is for students to feel like their performance is just as serious and important as that of the best professional symphony in the world. I want my students to watch professional performances and feel a personal, emotional connection. When my students go on stage, I want them to feel like they are the center of the universe for one hour.
September 18th, 2008
As a postscript to yesterday’s entry, I would like to share a little bit of silliness that I engage in. Call it a game with myself. The first pic is of the back wall of the rehearsal hall, where I can see it during rehearsal. It is a motto for myself-a little reminder during class time to focus on the “play vs. talk” balance. The second pic is of a banner that hangs over the inside of my office door. My students probably don’t know it exists; it is the last thing I see before I walk from my office into the rehearsal room. What thought do you want on the tip of your tongue as you greet your young proteges?
September 16th, 2008
Kids. Oi, kids. Can you believe that you used to be one? Just as smelly, immature, hasty, disorganized, smelly and immature as the kids you teach? It boggles my mind to think what I would say to myself if I had me in my 7th grade band. I would probably beat me with a stick and lose my teaching license.
My inspiration today comes from Doug Butchy. Check out his recent theme of recruiting and retention in his bands for a little backstory. I think most of us have felt his sting and asked his questions at some point in our careers.
Why do upper elementary/ middle school kids join Band? Lots of folks have had pretty good answers, none of which include “love Classical music” or “want to practice scales” or “want to practice every night for seven years so that the Band can win State contest when I’m seventeen years old”. I have an answer, and it may be a little different. I say that kids in the Twenty-First Century join band because…
they want to feel like rock stars.
Most adolescents haven’t heard enough Classical music to connect with it. Few adolescents have heard music performed live more than once or twice. It is a rare child who comes from a home where family and friends gather around a piano or whip out the guitars and sing together on a Saturday night. For the vast majority of our students, their connection with music in real life (kudos and apologies to the elementary general music teachers) is MTV. Real life, that is, in a way that is cultural and personal. Many general and vocal music teachers have discovered that their students sing without inhibition if they can hold a “mic” prop, a la American Idol; even a whiteboard marker will do. This is because students have never witnessed singing without seeing bright lights and big amplifiers.
We also know from brain research that during adolescence the brain develops in leaps and bounds in the regions that control emotions, such as the medulla oblongata (have you ever seen Adam Sandler’s Waterboy?) Brain scans show that barely any blood circulates in the logic center–the neocortex–during the Beginning Band years. You already know from personal experience that middle school students operate seemingly without logic, and value only their budding social lives…so apply that to your Band classes!
Ergo, if students are to take an interest in Band, put forth the effort to work through the squeaks and squawks of the first two months of Band, sustain daily practice through middle school, and sweat through their first year of marching, then it is because we take their modern cultural background into account and because we go straight to the emotional connection. If the quickest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, then the quickest way to a beginning clarinetist’s heart is through MTV-type associations. Rock star, here we come.
I don’t have all the answers in this vein, but I can make a few concrete suggestions.
1. Don’t shy away from the rock/hip hop tunes, even as you sneak in the art music.
2. Consider colored stage lights and amplified guitar, bass and piano in the middle school concert band. Don’t be afraid of the occasional gimmick at the middle school concerts.
3. Have the Beginning Band play a performance for their parents and invited friends within the first ten weeks, no matter how informal.
4. Find and exploit every possible performance opportunity for your students, no matter how small. Make a simple arrangement of Happy Birthday, obtain a list of teacher birthdays on your campus, and send the kids on hit-and-run guerilla birthday commando missions to hunt down and serenade teachers on their birthdays. If you are lucky enough to have a shared campus, invite elementary classes for a five- or ten-minute concert any time you have anything ready to play. Elementary students clap and cheer and ooh and ahh over anything, and your middle schoolers will feel like a million bucks.
5. Any time you have a performance of any sort, whether formal or informal, announce all pieces or introduce all students as if your students were the (insert sports team here) running down the tunnel and onto the court/field of (insert sports facility here). Better yet, get the announcer for the high school football team to do it just like a pep rally.
6. In class, make time for music of “no artistic value” that the kids enjoy. Write the riffs out yourself if you have to. They will love you for it, and you might be surprised how many musical concepts you can cover if you can just keep your ears open for what they are listening to this week. Even Britney Spears’ “Oops I Did it Again” is a great song for showing off triads/arpeggios.
Many of these suggestions involve shallow changes. That’s the beauty of it! Adolescents typically only see the surface of things, allowing you to engage them on a basic, emotional level without changing your philosophy regarding counting systems or use of the tuner. Make kids feel like rock stars, and they’ll do your recruiting for you.
Be a rock star!
September 15th, 2008
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