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.

My life in exile

This summer I attended a band director clinic that I had wanted to go to for years. The clinic was great, but it was a bit of downer exerepiece. The whole time I was there, all I could think about was how I am not a band director anymore, and that I didn't really fit in. Of course, that's a little silly, of course I fit in just fine, I was surrouned by 100 of the biggest band geeks in the state, just like me.

So needless to say I had some anxiety about going back to work this September, particularly not knowing what was waiting for me at my new job.

Now that the year has be going for a month I can almost say I'm glad my last employer let me go. I enjoy the work with the young kids. There are different sorts of things to worry about than the middle school, but overal teaching music is teaching music whether your medium is singing or playing an instrument, its a matter of good pedagogy and knowing your content.

Its more that just what I do, though. The entire culture of HXB elementary is so different from HHOTRMS its shocking. The staff here actually get along and talk to each other. The general feeling of the school is laid back. Sometimes HHOTRMS just felt so up-tight it was shocking.

With the help of a book or two I think I have a pretty good handle on the what to teach now, and I'm enjoying learning along with the kids. Every now and then I have a lesson that bombs and I learn a lesson from it!

By the seat of our collective pants

Have you ever stopped to consider how much different the job of a music teacher is from the job of any other? I'm not trying to say that one job is easier or harder, they are just very different.

Imagine that you were hired to teach 7th grade math. Chances are, you would find in your classroom a nice fat text book that was officially adopted by the district's or state's school board. Open the book to page one, and there is the first lesson. What do you do when you finish lesson one? Turn the page and you move on to lesson two.

Now let's take a look at the music teacher. Unless you are teaching beginning band, chances are there isn't such a curriculum for you to rely on. Yes, there are method books that are used at levels above beginner, but you certainly couldn't rely on such a book as your soul curricular resource.

I'm now off to begin my career as an elementary music teacher, and I realized, that while I had no trouble as a band director with this void of curriculum that I had to make up as I went (a band class can easily be defined by its performances) Music is a very broad subject. My state has some very vague standards that need to be met by certain benchmarks, but leaves all of the intermediate steps up to the educator. For example, the first rhythmic concept found in our standards in at grade 3 in which students are supposed to be able to read patterns of quarter notes, pairs of eighth notes, and quarter rests. It is left to the teacher to figure out when and how these concepts should be introduced so they are mastered by third grade. I am excited to start this new career, but a bit nervous that my job is so vaguely defined.

P.S. I, in no way, mean to imply that the jobs of other class room teachers are easy. Just that they are better defined than the job of the music teacher. Also, I realize that the experienced math teacher (or any other subject teacher) is not likely to just go from page to page blindly following the lesson plans in the book. After all, we are all experts at teacher and our respective subjects and can tell when supplemental instruction, beyond what is found in the book, is needed.

Teacher's Union Ramblings

I wrote a post a while back that ranted and rambled about why I dislike my union, which seems to have gotten a good number of visits from people out there. So I googled "I hate the teacher's union" just to see what else would pop up.

Amongst other things I found this blog post about Steve Jobs (of apple computer fame) criticizing teacher's unions for the woes of our educational system. As you will read if you care to click through, many teachers were afronted that Steven Jobs would criticize the union for these problems, because, afterall, these commenters are members of the union and they care a great deal about education.

The problem that Mr. Jobs was getting at had nothing to do with these teachers who care so much about education they are reading blogs about it on their spare time, it was the politics of the union and union leadership that bothered Mr. Jobs. I used to have the same problem when I'd see a piece criticizing the theachers union on the web or in the newspapper.

It seems to me that the union protects the wrong people. A teacher that is doing poorly and is transfered or put on probation is relentlessly defended by the union, but a teacher such as myself who has moved mountains to get through to his students (and succeeded) is let go with a "gee we're really sorry there's nothing we can do."

One of the commenters defended tenure as a way to preserve "due proccess." And I think they're right. It would hardly be fair to a school board who has little or no formal training or certification in education to let a teacher go on a whim. The problem is that the evaluation system that is in place is so poor, that it is next to impossible to fire a teacher who is performing poorly through due proccess, because that teacher has always been labled "Satisfactory." The bar is set so low, it's hard not to clear that mark!

I've been told that the only way to fire a teacher based on their evaluation is to get them on a technicaillity that has nothing to do with their teacher ability, such as a violation of district policy, or procedure.

2 Days, 2 Job Interviews, 2 Job Offers, 1 Choice

In my 12 years at HHOTRMS I interviewed for three different jobs. The first was a .2 FTE job that I was seeking in addition to my .6 FTE job at HHOTRMS. I interviewed, but no offer came of it. The next was at Mid-County Junior High. I was looking to step up from my middle school job to one that included older and possibly more musically mature students. It was a leave replacement job which I am thankful I didn't get. The former band director who was on leave and was "never coming back" (everyone assured me), came back the next year. The third was at Next County Over High School. They were looking for a new band director, and I had just finished a very frustrating year at HHOTR. I interviewed, but no offer (nor even a rejection phone call) was forthcoming. (They eventually rejected me via a letter that didn't even acknowledge the fact that I had had an interview!).

12 years, 3 interviews, 0 offers. Fortunately I didn't really NEED any of those jobs as I already had my job at HHOTRMS.

This go around, I NEED a job. With the pink slip in hand from Dr. Jekyl at Anytown SD, the mortgage isn't getting paid unless I find something to keep myself busy next fall.

I mailed off applications for three different positions. One I knew I wanted, 2 that I wasn't so sure about. I was invited to interviews for one of the "not-so-sure-abouts" at Hot Cross Buns Elementary School as a general music teacher, and at the one I knew I wanted at Amazing Grace Academy as a band and choir director - right up my band-geek alley. The offer from HXB came in first (the very evening of the interview). Right away I started thinking about what I would do if I got both offers. If you'd asked me a week ago, I would have told you that I would take the AGA job, even if it paid less that the HXB job. But the more I started to think about the HXB offer, the less I was sure of AGA.

The AGA was a bit different from other education job interviews I had. Being a religious school, they jumped right into questions about my religious life. I stumbled through those questions, but really felt like I came to life when I started talking about music instead. After all of the religious stumbling, I wasn't sure whether I would be the preferred candidate or not. The head called me that evening with my second job offer in as many days. I was almost hoping that they would not extend an offer to save myself the trouble of making a choice.

After much consideration and soul searching, I ended up choosing the HXB elementary job. Of course, that makes the title of this blog a little strange. If I still call myself "King of the Band Geeks," I will be the king in exile. Will I return to reign again? I don't know. Perhaps the concert I conducted earlier this month really will be my last as a band director. Either way, I am very excited about this new opportunity to teach future band geeks to love music.

The Last Day of School...Ever

Every year on the last day of school at HHOTRMS, the teachers line up next to the bus driveway and wave as the long line of buses drive away.  There are always a dozen or so students who can been seen visibly weeping through the bus windows.  I always thought it was at least a little funny that our students can seem to stand being at school all year long, but on the last day they are so sad to leave.  

As you may imagine, the last day was a little ad for me knowing that I was going to be saying goodbye.  As the final bell drew nearer I felt like I was trudging around the band room more and more morosely.  I shed a few tears when the final bell rang and the students rushed out the door.  I did not want to take part in the obligatory wave-good-bye-to-the-bus for fear of loosing it in front of the students and be like those students weeping behind the bus windows.  In the end my fellow music teachers dragged me from the music office to see the kids off.  I did manage to hold it together.

The rest of the day was a bit surreal.  I packed up the last of the little things that had been hiding in the nooks and crannies of my desk drawers.  I deleted those voice mail messages that had been sitting around for months.  I cleared out my e-mail in box, contacts, outlook calendar and task-list.  I even deleted every last document from my directory on the file server (after backing them all up on my laptop).  While I was doing all these things, the custodian was moving in file-cabinets that belong to the band director that is taking over my job.  While she holds other certification and could save my job by teaching in her other area, she's taking my job instead.  Perhaps because she feels a tad guilty: she didn't show up in person to move into the office.  I probably would have told her to get out anyway.

On the way out, I pried the plaque with name on it off the wall outside my classroom door, left the building, and watched as door slowly closed behind me.

Why I Hate My Union

First of all, while people always talk about the teachers' "Union" we are actually a "professional association" NOT a labor union. And although you'd never know it by the way some teacher's gripe about it, we are professionals and, if we expect to be treated that way, should ACT that way.

That being said:

In my first job as an amusement park ride operator and later as a "lead" ride operator I received performance reviews at least once a season. Although my job only consisted of pressing buttons on a roller coaster control panel, and later as lead, giving employees their lunch breaks at the correct time, my performance evaluation had a grading scale like this: Exemplary, Superior, Good, Fair, Satisfactory, Poor. I always received exemplary job reviews. Later one I moved to a different position at a desk in the same park and continued to receive exemplary performance reviews.

When I took my first teaching job, I was crushed when I got my first evaluation. My shock was not because I did not perform well enough, but because so little seemed to be expected of me. If a guy who doesn't even need a high school diploma can get "exemplary" for pushing a button when the light flashes, shouldn't a professional who has a college degree and a teaching certificate be expected to be evaluated as critically? My first evaluation came back with a "Satisfactory" rating checked at the top. "But you were extremely satisfactory," said my assistant principal. As I am sure is the case in many places the only options on the top of the form were "Satisfactory" and "Unsatisfactory." In my amusement part days, a satisfactory job review wouldn't have been very good at all, in my professional life its as good as it gets.

Why do we as professional expect so little of ourselves? Why do we aim for mediocrity and so often manage to hit the mark?

Because our union demands it! If we had "real" job reviews that differentiated the truly outstanding educator from the merely satisfactory educator my current situation might not exist. Perhaps they would see that my colleague, band director number 2, while she does have the appropriate certification to do my job, and she does have more years on the job than I do, just doesn't do the job as well as I do.

I student of mine sent me an e-mail recently after he heard that I was being let go. He wrote, "I hope you get a job close by and do so well that you make Anytown School District look stupid for letting you go!" I hope so too.

Publicity is ALWAYS a Good Thing

Shortly after I was told by my principal that the pink slip was imminent, a story ran in the paper about Anytown School District's budget woes that mentioned "one band director at HHOTRMS has already been let go." I sent an e-mail to the reporter asking why I hadn't been identified by name, after all there are only 2 band directors at our school (I guess 2 is a lot). His reply was that he wasn't sure if I would want my name in the paper identifying that I had lost my job, especially since he hadn't had an opportunity to talk to me yet.

"A lot of people at the meeting said some very nice things about you, I think there might be a story in this." the reporter replied in his e-mail. A few weeks later we sat down and had an interview in my living room about the whole situation and the story ran shortly thereafter.

Two days after the story ran, I ran into a friend of mine who had seen the story in the paper. "It wasn't very nice of them to print something like that in the paper," he said. "I sure wouldn't want the whole world to know about it if I had lost my job."

"I wanted it in the paper!" was my reply. I have over 1500 graduates of my middle school band program that now know about the situation and can join the parents of my current 200 kids to let Dr. Jekyl know what a horrible mistake she made by letter me go.

Since the story ran I have received job leads (one of which is very promising) from 3 different sources, none of which would have known about me if the story hadn't run.

In the mean time I'll keep chugging along looking for openings that fit what I do. If I can find another group of band geeks that will let me be their king, then great. Maybe life will take me elsewhere.

My mom always told me life wasn't fair...

As you can surmise by my previous post, my reign as king of the band geeks (at least as the monarch of the band geeks at my current school) has come to an unexpected end.

I've been the director here for 12 years (actually 11.6 if you count that the first year I was only part time. In the end it doesn't matter that I did a fabulous job, that I imparted musical wisdom, that I fostered a love of music making, or that I built the program in a matter of 2 years from a part time job to overflowing. When the bean-counters at the district office looked at declining enrollment at the high school in my district, they decided we had 1 too many music teachers and had to RIF the junior guy. Even after 11.6 years, that would be me.

I saw trouble brewing 2 or 3 years ago when our district passed a bond that would result in expanding my school while closing another building. I realized then that we would have 1 too many band directors in the district. I asked the union president (who was the other band director) about impending doom and she told me "don't worry about it." So I didn't.

To complicate matters more, there are other music teachers who have certification outside of music. Those people could either step aside and teach those other subjects full time, or part-time in addition to part-time music, or the district could involuntarily transfer them to those positions and save my job, but for some reason no one is willing to do that.

It seems that unions will fight to the death to save an incompetent teacher who is about to be let go. There was one such teacher at my spouses school. The administration tried for years until he finally resigned on his own. Why then, when (and I don't mean to toot my own horn too much here) they have a competent, popular, successful band director all the union can do is step aside and say "well, it looks like the district followed procedure."

Honestly, it's frustrating enough to make me consider whether I should stay in education at all. But then, my mother always told me "life's not fair."

Detrhoned!

Anytown School District
B. Jekyll, PhD, Superintendent
Anytown, USA

Dear Maestro:

As you are aware, the Anytown School District is implementing a Reduction-in-Force. As part of this reduction, you are hereby given notice that probable cause exists that your contract for the 2008-2009 school year should not be renewed. This determination as based on the declining secondary music enrollment.

In addition, the District is anticipating an approximately $1.3 million shortfall for the 2008-2009 school year. As a result, there are insufficient funds available to support additional electives in the music program.

The Board of Directors has reviewed the recommendation of the Superintendent and determined the necessity for this reduction. Please understand that you general competency in your position was not a factor in determining probable cause.

In the event of a future vacancy, you will be considered for it under the terms of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement with the Anytown Education Association. Please be sure to provide the Personnel Office with the address to which communications may be sent.
You have the right to request a hearing to determine whether there is sufficient cause for non-renewal of your contract by filing a request for hearing in writing with the President of Secretary of the Board of Directors within ten (10) calendar days after receiving this notice. (The District Superintendent is the Secretary of the Board.) A copy of State Law 28A.405.310, which outlines your hearing rights, is enclosed for your information. You also have a right to a direct judicial appeal pursuant to State Law 28A.405.380.

We are truly sorry that your position has been reduced, Maestro. It is out hope that another option may present itself. If so, the Personnel Office will be in touch with you immediately. If there is anything else we can do to help, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

B. Jekyll, Ph.D.

The Strangest Pre-School Concert Ever!

My daughter's pre-school presents concerts 2 or 3 times every year. The school director explains each time that the performance is more about the students being in front of an audience than anything else.

The programing is always a bit odd. Rather than the typical "If You're Happy and You Know It" and the like, the director chooses things usually saved for more mature performers. Last year, the class performed Roger's and Hammerstein's "Do-Re-Mi" and "Climb Every Mountain." Which leads to another interesting story about a birthday party that many of the students went to that year: When the hostess of the party (who worked for the arts and crafts store where the party was held) asked the kids to sing a song while they waited for some paint to dry she was shocked when they all wanted to sing "Climb Every Mountain" and said, "Well, OK. If you know it." And of course, they did, and they sang it.

But the program this week was stranger still. The teachers wanted to present a collection of tunes that spanned the decades from the 50's - the 80's. So the students picked the tunes themselves from "Best Of..." CD's from each of those decades.

Immagine 20 4 - 6 year olds singing George Thorogood's "Bad to the Bone." And there is something a little strange about children of that age singing that traditional pre-school anthem of lost love: "Yesterday" by Lennon and McCartney. Other selections included "Rock Around the Clock," "I Love a Rainy Night," and "Celebration" by Kool and the Gang.

Of course, it was more about the kids being in front of the audience... A lot of the kids sang strong and well, others did the lip sync thing. The accompaniment music was the original recordings, so there was always the professional performer backing them up when even the strongest voices amongst the group failed.

I can't wain until there performance at graduation next month!

Substitute Teachers: Never go to "Plan B"

For some reason, band classes give more trouble to substitute teachers than any other class. I suppose it is because most students know that the average substitute teacher knows more than they do about English, history, or math, but likely does not know as much as the students in music. Even if the substitute took band classes when they were in school, even if they were extremely talented in their band classes, it does not mean they will be successful at teaching band.  Students somehow know this and take advantage of it to sometimes disastrous results.

The easy cop-out solution to this problem is to leave a video for the students to watch, but is this really beneficial to the students?  I have a variety of music related videos in my library, but none of them relate directly to what we are rehearsing in band at any given moment.  Some of my least favorite of the bunch are historical fiction.  Each features a composer in a fictional story that involves a child about middle school age and somehow the child and composer interact to solve each others problems and they all live happily ever after.  Do the students really learn anything about music?  Probably not.

As dangerous as it might seem I prefer to leave lessons for my subs in which the students play their instruments.  If I'm lucky I will get a substitute that is a skilled music teacher who will be able to teach the students something new about the music, or give them insight that perhaps I had not.  If I'm not so lucky, the substitute will have no music skill.  In that case I instruct my students that their job when we have a guest teacher is to show-off for them how well you can play.  

If I know that I will be missing school in advance, I prepare the students for their guest teacher by running parts of a rehearsal with no conductor.   Often times when a non-musician tries to start the group they will not count properly (ie not in the tempo or time signature of the piece).  Have you ever been to a birthday party where someone has started singing Happy Birthday by counting to 4?  It drives me nuts!  So to combat this (or rather cope with it) I run a rehearsal in which I start everything WRONG.  I'll start by counting to 3 in the wrong tempo when a piece is in 4/4 time.  I'll start a piece by saying (with no particular cadence) "On your mark, get set, go!"  Each time, the students have a somewhat rough start, but listen to each other and finish the piece.  I figure, if they can play the piece well when I start them off wrong, shouldn't they also be able to play it well when someone else starts them off wrong?

When I leave the plan for the sub I tell them that they students have a variety of tunes prepared to show off how well they play and that they should ask them to play each of them and if something doesn't sound right, they should play it again.  If it sounds worse, move on to something else.  

Now here is were "Plan B" comes in.

I have had guest teachers before have the band play and then decide a short way into the rehearsal that they were in over their heads.  Often times this happens when they play something badly and the sub tells them they did a good job.  Right away the kids know that it is open season on subs!  "These kids are out of control!"  the guest teacher says to himself.  The guest teacher then decides to go with "Plan B" and whip a trusty video out of their brief case.  As soon as the video goes in, things go down hill further and further.  Why?  The minute the sub when "Plan B" the kids knew that they were in control and they took it.  Stick with plan A next time.

My 4 Steps to an Effective Rehearsal

Several years ago a parent came up to me at the conclusion of a band concert with a question. "It is amazing how much the students have learned! Some of that music seems so complicated, how did you do it!" I had to pause for a moment before answering the question. After all, I spent four years of college, plus many years of experience as a musician to learn how to take kids from opening the case at the beginning of the year to a polished performance. How could I answer "how did you do it?" in just a short conversation. Then it occurred to me. I told the parent, "I did it by teaching them one thing at a time."


In my university training I took a course called "Video Micro-Rehearsal" in which we worked on this "one thing at a time" technique. We used a 3 step process in that class in which we taught one thing at a time: set, follow-through, response. I added a fourth step to the process for the purpose of teaching good rehearsal habits to my students at that is "STOP" between the follow-through step, and the response step. Another instructor summed up the steps like this: "Tell them what to do (set), let them do it (follow-through), tell them how they did (response).

Let's look at each of the four steps of the process in turn:


Step One "Tell Them What To Do":

This seems simple enough. Before you want your band to play something, you need to tell them what you want them to play, but if you want them to actually learn something you need to go a bit deeper. Simply telling them to play the same song over and over again will not do. We could go a step closer into what appears to be rehearsal by asking them to play specific parts of a piece that may be problematic. But if we truly expect them to learn anything, we must make that instruction more specific. It is not enough to have them start at letter B and hope that any problems might fix themselves; instead we must ask them to start at letter B and properly subdivide the dotted rhythms, or articulate the beginning of each set of slurred notes clearly.

Just as I told that parent after the concert those years ago, I teach by teaching them one thing at a time. Sometimes, upon hearing my band play something that they don't know well the number of things that need fixing is a bit overwhelming. If I were to ask the students to "begin at measure 22 make sure that you play all of the B's flat, mind the piano dynamic marking at 24, listen to the background part in 27 so that you can properly subdivide the rhythms in the melody,...." they would easily be so overwhelmed that they would remember little more than "begin at measure 24" if they remembered even that. In video micro rehearsal we called this a "split set." However, if I were to work on each of the many things in that split set one at a time, not only would the students absporb each of these concepts in turn, it is also possible that some of the simpler problems may fix themselves through the repetition of the passage while working on the more complex things "one at a time."


Step Two: "Let them do it."

This is what we called "follow-through" in video mirco-rehearsal. Again this one sounds like a no-brainer. Have you ever in rehearsal told your band about some nuance in measure 216 only to then instruct them to begin at measure 227? We called this one a "broken set" we told them what to do in 216, but we never "let them do it." Music is a skill that is best learned by actualy doing it. We could lecture our bands about rhythm, tone quality, intonation, articulation, and nuance all day long, but if we never let them do it, it is unlikely they would grasp any of these concepts. Imagine coaching a football team and teaching them a play in the dressing room, but never letting them try it on the field until a game. It is unlikely they will be able to properly execute the play.

Step Three: "Stop."

Obviously the music will stop eventually, and most condcutors have a good sense of pacing so that they know when to stop. I have included this as one of my four steps for the benefit of the students. Of the four steps this is the one that they students must be most responsible for. When the conductor signals the cut-off, the students must stop, look, and listen so they are ready to hear stop four. If the stop doesn't happen, or doesn't happen quickly enough, the students will have forgotten what you told them to do it step one, or what they actually did in step two, so that step four will have very little relevence.

Step Four: "Tell them how they did."

We called this "response" in VMR. In order for this response to really do any more than a verbal pat on the back, you need to make sure that the response has some relevence to the set that you gave back in step one. If I tell them to articulate more clearly in step one, then in step four I must tell them how well they articulated, not just tell them "good job." If I tell them to observe the key signature and play all of those A's flat because we are in the key of E flat, "well done," will not suffice. I'll need to tell them "That's right, it sounds so much more like the key of E flat when we play those A's flat!"

It's this process of teaching just "one thing at a time" that gets the band from making those first unpleasant squakings in september for a musically pleasing performance come concert time.

Most successful concuctors use a process an awful lot like this whether they know it or not. I have choosen in my rehearsals to not just use the process, but teach it to the students as well. In the first week of school (and as often as is required for review during the year) I deliberately teach my rehearsal process to the students as well as their specific responsibilities during each step. When they are aware of what the steps are, they are less likely to add their own extra steps. Does your rehearsal every look like this:

1. Tell the students what to do
2. The students talk until the band director yells at them
3. The students play something resembling the direction given in step 1
4. The students stop playing and talk amongst themselves until the band director shouts at them
5. Tell the students how they did.

Teaching the students how you intend to do things can solve this and make your rehearsals more effective.

New Internet Listing

The King of the Band Geeks blog is now listed on Music Education search site Music Education Magic: http://www.musicedmagic.com/  

I hope some new readers find there way here from the Music Ed Magic page.  If you've found us this way, please leave a comment and let me know that you're here.  

I plan on posting an update soon featuring my simple 4 step rehearsal method.  

Welcome musicedmagic readers!