R – One of the great joys of my life is catching up with alumni who have moved on and begun their adult lives. Over vacation I had a chance to sit down with one of my alum who is also a first year music teacher, and she was sharing war stories of her experience to this point. There are threads to her year so far that are painfully familiar to me, having experienced them myself and seen other music teachers go through the same thing in their first year in a new job. The overarching concern I have is that new music teachers are by and large set up for failure before they even begin. Not always, and not often in ways that can’t be overcome and turned around, but set up for failure just the same. Here are the three strikes that music teachers have on them before they even step up to the plate in a new job setting:

strike #1) There’s no set definition of what music education should look like. My alumni was telling me that her mentor teacher (a science teacher) told her before school began how amazing the chorus was and how she had such big shoes to fill from her predecessor. She got in there and lo and behold, the kids had no idea how to read music, had never sung 4 part harmony before (they struggled mightily at 2 part – – – this is at a High School by the way), had NO idea of tone, and routinely had their problems fixed by having their accompanist play louder. This was “the big shoes” she had to fill? And this scenario is remarkably common. The problem is significantly greater than the fact the program was a sham: the bigger issue is that it was accepted as what music education was supposed to be. The pointy little apex of the problem is that incompetence in music education is rarely viewed as such; nobody knows any better to call it out, or the problem is viewed as a lack of talent on the students’ part. Other academic subjects can track their teachers through performance standards, and often do. Matter of fact, this is now being implemented formally across the country. Music? “I went to the concert last night and the kids were ADORABLE! What a great job that teacher is doing with them!!!”

ugh.

Issues of competence aside, go into any 5 schools of the same grade range in Maine. Take a peek inside their classrooms and tell me if I’m wrong here… every English class is fundamentally identical. In curriculum and content and perhaps even delivery. Math and Science? Even more so. Music? You can’t get more diverse. Scheduling, staffing, pull out programs (I always laugh when I hear of pull outs being eliminated due to the “academic” teachers throwing a fit – it must be awful having students pulled from your classes from time to time to do other things… music teachers have no idea what that must feel like), concert expectations… none of this is set in stone in Maine. And precious few administrators know what should be happening in the music classroom. Consequently, music education is perceived as a rather subjective endeavor with subjective outcomes. Which leads me to my next strike.

strike # 2) Communities have a preconceived notion of what music education should be.  “Hi, nice to meet you, we’d like to hire you to teach a subject that is completely subjective, but we’ll question anything you do that we don’t like. You know, since you’re just making it up as you go anyway. And we already know what we want from the program.” Yeah, good luck with that. Strike two is a pretty brutal reality for many music teachers in their first year at a new gig. When an incompetent music teacher does their damage before moving on, they’ve established a “norm” that the new teacher coming in has to eradicate. But for the more normal scenario of a new teacher coming in to replace someone who did a good job, perhaps the dilemma is even bigger. “You can’t do it that way, ______ did it this way instead and it was awesome!” My alumni was talking to me about how she is battling this very problem with regard to class policies on academic expectations and attendance. My first year at York I was easily the most disliked person around, for a variety of reasons. Not the least of these was that I eliminated the traditional audience sing-along of the Hallelujah Chorus due to the small, inconsequential detail that it turns High School sopranos and tenors vocal folds into shredded wheat. I wasn’t “allowed” to make this change in the mind of the community though, because it was an essential part of the program. I had one person tell me that people would stop coming to the concerts if they couldn’t sing it! And administrators? If I had a nickel for every elementary or middle school teacher who has told me stories about their administrator making it clear to them that the role of music class is to provide the other teachers’ prep time. I had one colleague last year at a Middle School tell me about an initiative that the administrator there asked the staff to undertake. She did so and found a way to implement it to a high, successful degree! She went to the administrator to tell him about it and was told, “Yeah, but, I wasn’t talking about your classes, I was talking about the academic classes.” Alrightythen. Sound familiar? Preconceived notion of what the music education program is or isn’t? Now, to make things even worse, this second strike is tied in closely to the perception that the music program is personality driven. And unfortunately, there is a lot of truth to that, and this leads me to strike three.

strike # 3) Students have a preconceived notion of what music education should be. Students’ involvement in music beyond 4th or 5th grade is based largely on how much they like doing so (and the other academic subjects whine because of pullout programs?!?!). If the student likes the teacher, they’ll stick with it. If they don’t like the teacher, it becomes more of a problem. But the problem is even worse than that. Students often arrive in school with a preconceived idea that music is fun, they know what they like, and the music program’s job is to perpetuate both. I would argue that this point is compounded in choral music. Instrumentalists inherently understand that they need to practice their instrument in order to improve; an accepted rigor component. But singers just “like to sing”. I’ve written before on this blog: music class – academic rigor = co-curricular activity. Music class + academic rigor = academic subject. Students do not instinctively view music as academic, and there’s the rub. Take out the academic rigor, and you’ve got the kids. Add the academic rigor, and all of the sudden the kids either dislike music or think the teacher is mean or that they’re “being told what to like”. On top of all this, students don’t like change – they like what they already know and are used to. My predecessor at York changed the name of “Select Choir” to “Chamber Singers”. She was raked over the coals for that! My first month at York, one of my Chamber Singers raised her hand as I was attempting to rehearse and said, “Excuse me, but we won’t sing music until you play it for us first”. This was the auditioned ensemble, mind you. Many of my students over the years have heard of the love letter I received from my very first choir in Vermont three weeks into the job telling me that if I didn’t change the music in their folders they were all going to quit… “and we’re not kidding!” This third strike is the one that virtually every new music teacher will have to confront on a weekly if not daily basis. Sometimes it’s in the form of passive aggressive behavior, sometimes it’s overt lashing back (my first two weeks at Winnacunnet High School in 1996 was World War III…. and you can ask any of those alumni if I’m over-exaggerating here). But at every turn, there’s going to be push-back in some form.

This blog post is intentionally being written in two parts for a reason. I believe that these three strikes are very real and very daunting. I hear and read all the time how my colleagues battle each of them in many different guises and variations on a regular basis. But the second part of this blog post will be to talk about strategies in addressing and overcoming them. That will be a fun one to write!

three strikes, part two

R – Tis the season for New Year’s resolutions, right? So here are my top ten music teacher resolutions for 2014. Here we go!

10) remember that process is more important, and more fun, than product

9) be less weird be more weird

8) try and maintain even half the enthusiasm and energy and initiative that the newer teachers are bringing to this profession

7) get out of my room more often

6) don’t loose the “balance” to my life that I’ve worked so hard to achieve

5) stop trying to push my ensembles beyond what they are actually capable of doing (and paying dearly for it), but keep pushing them beyond what they think they are capable of doing and what I know they are capable of doing

4) practice piano more often

3) convince myself, for once and for all, that “coffee” is not a food group

2) don’t get overwhelmed, just stay organized

1) remember that no matter how fortunate I’ve been so far in my career to have “peak” experiences with my past and present students, I’ve achieved none yet with my future students – – – and I owe them at least the same opportunities

Happy New Year!

“Part of the art of teaching is the ability to rearrange the world for students – to force them to see things in a new way. I’ve known too many stupid intellectuals to believe that education and wisdom come as a package deal along with facts, it’s your perspective that counts – your ability to see differently, not just to see a lot.” – Sunny Decker, An Empty Spoon

R – I love reading quotes by other people, because they synthesize and implore us to expand our own ideas about things. I’ve spent no shortage of time and space on this site articulating my beliefs about spot on teaching, that it must embody developing the student as a person, developing a love for the subject area and developing (and assessing!) functional literacy of the subject area. But I’ve also talked often about my undergraduate education professor, Stephen Smith and his insistence that education is about getting students to “unlearn the irrelevant”. Sunny Decker brings these two distinctly independent views together for me in her quote. She wrote An Empty Spoon, describing her first year teaching experience at an inner city school in the late 1960s. In that single year she developed a “perspective” that I will never achieve in my entire career. But it’s a perspective we can learn from…

“More” does not equal better, “better” equals better. It’s one of my favorite tongue-in-cheek statements that, “he who dies with the most ‘stuff’ wins”. We know that’s not true. Can the corollary also be drawn that, “he who dies and knows the most stuff wins?” I’m concerned that our schools are teaching students “more” instead of getting them to dream. Our schools are teaching students “more” instead of getting them to think deeply about things. And having them discover the joy of doing so. Our schools are teaching students “more” instead of teaching them about themselves. Our schools are teaching students “more” instead of igniting their minds. Sometimes the biggest difference between the “A” student and the “B-” student is not one of academic accomplishment but one of mental and emotional health… and in my experience, the “A” student has not usually been the better off of the two.

In 1997, Apple created the “think different” campaign and it included many different posters that displayed influential figures/events in recent American history. I love these for the slogan, but especially for the choices of subject matter. These posters didn’t feature presidents or senators. They didn’t include people “hired” to be leaders. They featured people like Cesar Chavez. Miles Davis. Pablo Picasso. And the one who graces my office at school, Jim Henson. None of these people on the 29 variations of posters were born as any great thing. But they had one common thread… Steve Smith would have called every one of them, “responsible radicals”. Steve Jobs would call them people who thought differently; they reflected their different thinking in their actions, and were different people as a result. Sunny Decker would say that their unique and outside the nine dots perspectives were the overt diving boards from which they jumped, morphing them into the people they were destined to be. Steve Jobs laid this quote on his audience in a speech he gave in 1994:

When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money.

That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact, and that is – everything around you that you call life, was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.

The minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually something will, you know if you push in, something will pop out the other side, that you can change it, you can mold it. That’s maybe the most important thing. It’s to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you’re just gonna live in it, versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it.

I think that’s very important and however you learn that, once you learn it, you’ll want to change life and make it better, cause it’s kind of messed up, in a lot of ways. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again. 

Jim Henson was not necessarily any great man, and he didn’t stop or prevent wars. He didn’t offer the world any spiritual foundation either. He made puppets. But you know what he did do? He thought different. He behaved different. He was different. And instead of conforming to life as he knew it, he took a dream and a passion and created a new reality for millions of people. But consider this: if he had created a whole new reality that positively impacted only one person, would he still be legitimately considered a “success”? You bet your life he would. And if we’re not embodying and teaching our kids that, what have we been doing with them?

R – The older I get, the more I find myself asking this question: am I a better teacher this year than I was last year? Was I a better teacher last year than the year before? Why or why not?

One of the many benefits (and joys!) of working with student teachers is constantly having the dialogue around, “why did you do that?”; “why did you make that choice in class today”; “why did you approach teaching the song that way?” And please note, the mentor and the mentee are both the ones asking those questions of each other. I’ve said on more than one occasion that Jarika taught me more during her student teaching than I taught her. How can that possibly be? She questioned everything I did – brilliantly –  and I had to resolve why I did things certain ways. In doing so, I realized that I could do many of those things better. But here’s the catch: unfortunately, we live in a society and culture where asking questions is perceived as either weakness, or a passive/aggressive way of saying “I think you might be wrong.” Consequently, more often than not, whenever I question people, they don’t actually hear me, they instead obsess over reading between some imagined lines.

And that pisses me off.

Why is questioning met with so much reticence and skepticism? And is there a bigger detriment to growth in our profession than the failure to accept questioning as a healthy and welcomed thing?(!!!) When I ask, “why did you do that”, or “how do you think that accomplishes your goal”, or “what is the point to that”, what I actually MEAN is, “I WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOU KNOW, AND I’M TRYING TO GET INSIDE YOUR HEAD AND LEARN FROM YOU AND YOUR PERSPECTIVES!” I may or may not agree with you, but that’s not the point and I’m not judging (there’s the word!) you! I just want to learn more!

Where am I going with this…. well, one of the safe havens for questioning and learning and poking around the edges and diving into less charted territory is professional development. Not in the, “you’re going to learn all about Common Core today and we’re going to teach you how to incorporate it into the ridiculously, already inadequate amount of time you see your kids each week” kind of way, but rather in the digging deeper and gaining new perspectives on what you do kind of way. On Thursday, October 24th, there is a statewide arts conference being held in Orono. This blog post isn’t an advertisement for it; there isn’t an arts teacher in Maine who hasn’t already had that information passed on to them several times prior to reading this (if they chose to ignore it, that’s a different story, but that does tie into this post…). There are over THIRTY teachers in Maine presenting workshops. These aren’t outsourced “professional speakers”, but real teachers, who work in our same state with our same kids, struggling with our same struggles, confronted with the same challenges. 3rd year teachers. 37 year teachers. The Maine Arts Assessment Initiative was established to get people everywhere to ask questions and learn from each other for the purpose of moving forward in their craft. The irony of course being that doing so means that our own students become the real beneficiaries.

I do not get why an alleged professional educator would not be jumping out the window to get at attending a conference like this. “I’m already attending another.” Oh. So there’s a limit as to how much you’re willing to grow as a professional. “There’s nothing there that interests me”. Good call. Let’s perpetuate a culture based on instant gratification (“likes”) as opposed to actually working to get better at what you do. “The only presenters are other teachers… since when did they become the experts I should have to listen to?” They aren’t experts. They’re teachers. And they have something to share with colleagues… things that will cause people to question and to grow. I though THAT was the point of professional development?!!! “I’m not going to learn anything new”. Then do us all a favor and leave the profession, there’s enough mediocrity in education without you contributing to it.

There are legitimate reasons not to attend every professional development opportunity that comes along, I know that and so do you. This blog post isn’t debating that point. But in the final analysis, it’s not about October 24th or any other conference (there’s a general music conference going on TODAY in Augusta that promises to be a sensational professional development). It’s about questioning. It’s about growing. Am I a better teacher now than I was last year? Derek Lawrence was one of my Chamber Singers when I began my gig at Winnacunnet High School in the Fall of 1996. He’s an extraordinary person and I’m blessed to be able to still be in contact with him. This morning I came across this on my facebook newsfeed; Derek wrote the following, and he basically says it all:

When people say “I really want to learn X” it seems a more accurate statement should be “I really want to have X skill. I want to have this skill developed to a high enough level that it is effortless for me to accomplish those things that I want to be able to do.” Skill does not develop in the absence of work however. The difficulty is that those people who seem to possess this skill in high degree also discipline themselves daily to maintain and build on this skill. It is never something that can be stored in a drawer and pulled out for show; it is something that must be consistently pursued each day and in that sense – the dedicated beginner and the master have much in common.

Can I hear an “Amen!”?

R – My friend and colleague Jen Etter drove 600 miles with me the last couple of days, to and from Presque Isle to work with some of the region’s arts teachers up there. A delightful time. And as our travels came to an end last night, our brains both hurt after talking for hours and hours about practical and philosophical topics around music education (she won’t mind my telling you that we’re both geeks like that). One of the topics we hit on yesterday was the role of performing ensembles as academic in nature, and when they become so.

One of the fascinating things about music education is how the emphasis K-12 gradually transforms from “creation” to “re-creation”; general music generating personal musical experiences, leading eventually to performing ensembles performing other composer’s works. The skills – academic skills – that are developed early on are developed and amplified through song, creation of original material and explored through music and musical instruments. This next statement is an over-generalization, and I know that, but it isn’t until 4th or 5th grade that formal, more “traditional” instruments are usually introduced, and hopefully by then there is an academic foundation that is in place for those kids (if there isn’t, the elementary music teacher needs to take a close look in a mirror and ask some difficult questions). 5th and 6th grades introduce the performing ensembles as classes. But academically, are the kids ready to be held accountable for rigorous content in those courses and how does that relate/compare to simultaneous general music expectations? And more to the point, what is the student retention rate when academic expectations are placed on them at that level? My suspicion is that it drops. So then is that really the best way to service those kids? By 7th and 8th grade, how have academic expectations shifted for those ensembles? Or have they? By High School, have those academic standards been established for the students and how are they being met: with disdain? Apathy? Confusion over, “since when did this become academic?”

(And keep in mind, I’m talking about “academic” as individual student growth and accountability, not evaluation of the ensemble as a whole – it’s bunk to suggest that evaluating the ensemble is a valid evaluation of all the individual kids in it. A math teacher with 25 students in a class doesn’t make 1 copy of an assessment that all the kids do together and they all get the same score. The math teacher actually takes the time to make 25 copies of that assessment. There is a reason for that.)

The topic here is an interesting dance on two fronts. The first is around student retention in the ensemble. If I push the kids too hard, too soon, they might not “like” or enjoy the performing ensemble and they will drop the course. If this happens too often, I may even loose the course entirely, an administrator will notice that my numbers are down, and my position will be cut. Of COURSE I can’t push the kids too hard, I’ll loose my job! The other dance is around being an academic subject. Hypothetical conversation, scenario #1:

teacher: I just want my students in chorus to love singing.

me: are there any academic expectations for your kids?

teacher: yup, they have to sing on pitch with good tone and sight read.

me: and how do you know if each individual student is accomplishing those goals and to what degree they’re doing so?

teacher: other than listening to and evaluating the group as a whole?

me: yup.

teacher: I don’t… but I just really want them to love singing anyway.

administrator: sorry, I’ve been eavesdropping. Since you aren’t holding individual students accountable, let’s move chorus outside of the school day to make more room for subjects that do hold students accountable.

teacher: THAT’S NOT FAIR!!! YOU’LL BE HEARING FROM NAfME ABOUT THIS!!!

Scenario #2, teacher starts holding students academically accountable… and 47% of the kids drop the class.

Can we really even win? Is there a logical time for our performing ensembles to become academic in nature? If YES, then when do we make this transition, how do we make this transition, and how do we also transition the public mindset from, “…wow, weren’t those 2nd graders just adorable at that concert last night?” (concerts are “entertainment”) and how do we do so without driving kids away who just want to enjoy the experience of being in an ensemble? If NO, then how can we call what we do “academic”? I’ve said recently that not all that is essential in the arts can be assessed. But all that is academic can be. And if we occur during the school day for academic credit, all that is academic must be. But at the risk of loosing the very students who we’re trying to assess?

I wish Jen and I had recorded our conversations the last two days – or at least hired a stenographer to ride in the back seat with us. But as opinionated as I can get in these blog posts (I’m allowed to, it’s Jarika’s and my blog), I don’t have a strong feeling of direction on this topic. Other than having HS and MS ensembles as required courses (there’s a reason that Math, English and Social Studies teachers don’t have these same conversations), it’s a battle either way, and it’s a battle that could end in disaster either way. Perhaps this is why generations of music teachers have said out of one side of their mouths that they are academic and out the other side that they can’t hold their students academically accountable. If they have to sacrifice academic content OR the concert, I don’t know a single teacher who has ever sacrificed the concert. There are so many things wrong with that. And yet, there are also so many things right about that. I guess this blog post is not about my standing on a soap box for once. It’s just merely raising a topic that that Jen and I hit on while riding in the car, on which neither of us have a satisfactory answer. But it’s worth discussing.