The Things I've Learned

About 6 or 7 months into my first year of teaching I got a great idea.  (I'd like to think that I perhaps had many other great ideas in those months, but I can't be sure).  My great Idea, came to me a bit too late though.  It occurred to me how many things I had learned in my first year of teaching, and wouldn't it be nice to have a list of them all?

The problem is, by the time I decided how nice it would be to have such a list, there were so many items that should have been on it, that I couldn't possibly make it!

In the years since I am sure that I've learned many many new things.  As an educator, every day is a new learning opportunity.  In almost 20 years of teaching, that adds up to 3,600 learning opportunities.  On many of those days I'm sure I learned more that one thing.  What a list that would be!

Aloha to HXB Elementary

I interviewed for my new old job at HPMS the last day of school of the 2011-2012 school year.  While I was fairly certain that the job was mine, I couldn't say goodbye to my students knowing that there was still a chance that HPMS could offer the position to any of the other 3 candidates that interviewed.

At the end of the year assembly my marimba band performed and they all got a chance to say thank you to me, but they didn't know that were also saying goodbye.  During the assembly, the principal announced the departures of certain staff members due to transfers and retirements (including his own), and although he knew it was likely I was leaving, couldn't say anything to me either.

I wrote a farewell message to the HXB community one evening (before the job offer call) and it felt very cathartic, but I never did publish it in any way (and it is a bit long winded).

Dear HXB Elementary Community,

I came to Hot Cross Buns four years ago after being let go from a full time position as a middle school band teacher at the Hokey Pokey School District in a reduction in force.  At the time, I had little experience teaching elementary school music, but was optimistic that I would rise to the challenge and learn something new.  At the outset I made several goals for myself and my students.  Most important among those goals was to teach students to be musically literate: to be able to read, write, and create their own music. 

My first year at HXB was as much a learning experience for me as it was for my students.  I learned that some techniques that work for middle school students do not work the same way for younger students.  I learned that pacing a lesson or a unit for 6 year olds is much different than pacing a lesson for 13 year olds.  I also learned how important it is to be aware of the “long term” and developing new concepts slowly over the long term.

After the first year was under my belt I hit my stride and had more structure and form to my lessons and to the entire year in general.  Form is an important musical element which some of my students started to pick up on in my lesson planning.  “Maestro, what about today's new song, you're supposed to teach us that right after the warm-up song,” said a third grader to me one day earlier this year.

My first graders are now able to ready rhythms and complete songs within their limited tone set.  Sometimes it is hard to tell whether students are actually reading the notation off the page, or merely recalling a memorized song while looking at the notation.  Recently I put a song up on the projector and asked the first graders to read it first in their head, and then aloud using just the names of the notes (do, mi, so, and la).  The students sang the song correctly, but were unable to recall what song it actually was (we had learned it many months ago and had not sung it since).   These students were clearly singing the notation and not a song from memory.

I remember a conversation I had with Mr. Shortz, our PE teacher before my first year.  I told him how I wanted to teach my students to be more that consumers of music created by others, but creators of their own music. I often have the music room open at lunch for marimba students who want some extra practice.  This year I was very impressed with a number of students who worked hard to compose their own original music in the style of our Shona marimba music.  In the last few months all of the students in the fifth grade classes completed four composition assignments each more complex than the last.  Our year culminated as they performed their compositions for each other.  I am so pleased that I set out to accomplish much of what I set out to do.

In my first year at HXB, particularly amongst the older children, it was not uncommon for students to groan inwardly (if not outwardly) that the day was a music day.  Recently it is far more common to hear students groan that the music lesson is already over, or occasionally when a teacher would accidentally bring her students to music when they were supposed to go to a different specialist.

After four years of part time work at HXB with so much accomplished, it is time for me to say good-bye.  The middle school at which I spent the greater part of my first thirteen years of teaching has recently offered to me and I have accepted a full-time position as band director.  I will return to Hokey Pokey Middle school next fall as a different teacher than I was when I left.  The things I have learned by teaching your children here at HXB these past four years will help me teacher the middle school students of Hokey Pokey in new and creative ways to be performers and creators of music. I know that there are children that will be sad to see me go.  Please know that it is sad for me to say good bye to them as well.  I hope that things they have learned about music from me will serve them well not only in their future studies of music, but other aspects of life as well.

Musically Yours,

Maestro

Karma

Karma sure can be a bitch.

When I was ousted from Hokey Pokey MS in 2008 there was one person who had the power to prevent it (and I still have the feeling she orchestrated the whole thing).  The problem all along was that there were too many music teachers due to a restructuring of the number of buildings.  This one teacher held a certification that would have allowed her to teach a different subject and allowed me to keep a full time job.  She choose to continue teaching band and thus showed me the door.  

Now four years later, due to her health she was forced to move to that other subject leaving the position open for me to return to my kingdom.  I sure would have been more convenient for me if she'd made the switch four years ago.

The Once and Future King...?

Could it be my long exile is over?  Waiting....

Winging It

In my college days, the importance of lesson planning was hammered home in teaching methods classes. So much so that I recall my first lesson plan was extraordinarily detailed:

Step 1: Walk in door
Step 2: Breathe
Step 3: Say, “Hello, I am Mr. Maestro…”
Step 3: …

Of course, I’m exaggerating here, but the level of detail was a little laughable and made for a pretty lengthy document. Even funnier still is that this overly detailed document only lasted me about 20 minutes through a 30 minute elementary music class!

When I started my first job as a middle school band director, my planning was considerably more brief, but detailed enough to get me through a given rehearsal. It would likely include concepts that I wanted to teach and the specific measure numbers I planned on rehearsing and perhaps a description of some sort of drill activity I had devised.

In over ten years as a middle school band director, my lesson plans became more and more brief. Most of the lesson planning was done when I picked out the literature for the concert we were working on. As I studied scores, I would identify concepts that needed to be taught and, especially if it was a piece I had taught before would know what bars would need to be worked on and what sorts of drills I would need to hammer home some of the key concepts.

By the time I had been at it for a few years, I was “winging-it” at many of my daily rehearsals. My planning was essentially done when I studied the scores. I could post the agenda on the board before we began and I had a picture in my head of what had to happen.

All of the rehearsals and classes of course went much better than the ridiculously over planned lesson from college.

This year I feel in some ways like a first year teacher teaching elementary music for the first time since my college days and my lesson plans are considerably more detailed than in my most recent years as a band director. Although I find that as the year draws to an end my plans are becoming more and more brief. When I was evaluated by the principal recently she asked for a lesson plan. I had about a dozen words scribbled in my plan book for that lesson, and expanded it to a more respectable page and a half to give to the principal, but all of that planning that I gave to the principal had already been in my head when I devised those dozen words in my plan book.

I don’t know if I should ever expect to “wing-it” in my elementary class room the way I was able to as a band director. As I get more familiar with the pedagogy necessary to teach some of the activities that I do and my personal repertoire of songs and activities grows, perhaps I’ll be able to once and I while.

In middle school band I could wing it because I had the big picture planned first. I knew where I was going and what I intended to teach on the way there. As a first year teacher I’m still working on what the big picture looks like. Sure, I know the state standards, but that may be too large of a picture. As I gain experience I expect I’ll be able to see the big picture and what order to teach that huge list of concepts in. For now, can a little extra planning hurt?

The Power of Positive Speaking

It’s a funny thing that I know so many teachers who like to sit around and complain. (Not funny: ha ha). When the staff room door is shut I know many who would sit around and whine about this and that. Would we put up with that from our students? I hope not.

I try very hard to always be positive in my interactions with and I think it is to their benefit (and if a teacher can’t do things that are to the benefit of his students, then what is the point?). Last year my beginning band had a dress rehearsal before our final concert of the year. My colleague and I each taught several different sections of beginning band and we had one shot at getting the whole group together. We had arranged in advance who would conduct which numbers, I let her pick as long as I got to conduct the one I composed.

Beginning bands sometimes have the bad habit of sounding like giant kazoos (although not so much at the end of the year we hope). I usually refrain from telling this to my students. I would prefer I tell them how they can improve than tell them all the things that are wrong. When I took the podium for my numbers at the rehearsal I had the band run through the first number, complimented them on a few spots that were great, and then went on to have them repeat a few select parts which needed improvement.

My colleague then took the podium and conducted her first number. She didn’t get half way through before she stopped the group to yell at them about how awful the transition was. After she told them how NOT to do it, she told them to play it again with somewhat better results. There were several other errors that she encountered with the same fix. When she handed the group back over to me for my second number, the band still had not had a complete run through (good or bad) of the song.

I made sure I took an even more positive tack with my next number. I want my students to take the stage feeling like they are on going to have a successful performance. Again the full run-through was followed by more praise and more positive fixes to problem parts.
What message did the students take from my colleague’s treatment of her rehearsal time? By then end of those tunes did they feel well prepared to play those tunes in front of an audience? I think that with the short time I have to talk to a group before a concert my time (and that of my students) is better spent talking about the things we should do, rather than the things we shouldn’t do.

I have found that this can be even more important in elementary school. I remember taking a philosophy class in college in which the professor told the class, “‘Ought’ implies ‘can.’” I thought about this for a while and decided that if “ought” implies “can” then “Ought not” implies “can” too! For why would anyone tell you NOT to do something unless it was possible TO do it.

This is illustrated by my especially by my younger students when I make the mistake of phrasing an instruction or request in the negative. “Sally, DON’T use that silly voice,” will invariably result in 5 other students using a silly voice. “Bobby, DON’T peel the Velcro off the floor,”results in several other students also tugging at the Velcro strips I use to mark seating arrangements on the floor. When I catch myself making these mistakes I have to remind myself that the students need to know what TO do and not what NOT to do. “Sally, use your best singing voice.” OR “Joey (who is sitting near Sally) I like that you are using such a nice voice.” “Bobby, keep your hands in your lap” or “Sarah, I like how you are keeping your hands in your lap.”

I could say to my former colleague at HHOTRMS “DON’T BE SO NEGATIVE.” Or perhaps I could set an example by telling her in a more positive way.

You can't take the "Band" out of the "Band Geek" but you can take the German and French out of Zimbabwe

I've found a way to continue shepherding along the next generation of band geeks. I should mention here that it was now my own idea, nor is it particularly unique as I know there are many elementary schools that do this. My school has a marimba band (I guess that makes me the marimba band director!). I inherited the ensemble from my predecessor who inherited it from her predecessor, but I am just now starting up our regular rehearsal for the year. Now that I'm into it, next year we'll probably start sooner!

The trouble with the label "marimba band" is that most of the instruments we play are technically xylophones. Orff xylophones to be exact. Stranger yet, our Orff (who was German) xylophones are actually made in France! We play music that is in the style of Zimbabwean marimba music. It gets more twisted, all of our "Zimbabwean" music is written by a guy from Seattle. That's right: we play Zimbabwean music by a guy from Seattle on German instruments made in France. How's that for a "multi-cultural" lesson plan?

Our school is actually lucky enough to own one home-made marimba that was made by last year's HXB elementary students with the help of a local dude who does that sort of thing. It is indeed the nicest sounding instrument in the room. I say, "Great idea! what could be more band-geeky that building your own instrument?" I think back to my college days while the double reed players (and lets face-it, they are some of the geekiest in the band, are they not?) spent hours in and out of rehearsal hunched over their mandrills, plaques, hollow ground reed knifes and the like making reeds for every situation that they might encounter in a performance. My students instead will be hunched over chunks of African hardwood with safety glasses, mallets, and chisels to tune the marimba bars.

I made a small marimba at home for practice a couple of weeks ago. It actually looks an awful lot like an Orff soprano xylophone, but has a bit of a rounder tone with longer sustain (I presume it is because the bars on this instrument are much longer than the bars on my classroom xylophones that produce a similar pitch. My students were impressed, although some seemed more impressed with the marimba's resonator box which was made of scrap plywood I had sitting around the basement rather than the fact that it took a fair amount of patience to tune the 13 bars to the correct pitches!



The next step is to build the real deal with the students help. About half of my current students were in the group last year and assisted in the first build. I'm going to be a bit more ambitious than my predecessor as I am doing it all without the help of her expert (I'll save a load of $$ that way) AND my plan is to build 2 instruments instead of just one. If I can build a couple of instruments each year it will only take me a a couple of years until we can all play on our hand made marimbas and save the Orff instruments for class (which is good, because they take a bit of a beating with the enthusiastic playing of the marimba band).

We'll still be playing Zimbabwean style music from Seattle on instruments made locally, but at least the design is authentic and the wood if from Africa.