1)Basic Conducting- I just read a research article about the benefits of teaching basic conducting patterns to an ensemble. The research shows that the students greatly improved their rhythmic and phrasing abilities. As a teacher this is a fanastic aspect to add to rehearsals because it reinforces music fundamentals, while keeping the students attention, something one must work hard to do in a large environment such as a band rehearsal.

2)Music History- I had a quarter in 8th grade band where we did nothing but play and learn about the music of different time periods, as well as composers. I learned a lot and it really helped my interest in music grow. For students it gives them a variety and puts more purpose to the music than just performance. In understanding what JS Bach did for music the students may gain an appreciation.

3)Listening- Lots of bands listen to recordings of things they are going to play. But there is value to just listening to music, discussing and learning from it. Schools often require writting assignments in all classes, this would be a fantastic way to impliment that. Listen to the peice, reflect on the peice. Brilliant!

4)Ear Training- Simple call and response, rhythm recognition, interval recognition. If you took 3 minutes out of warm up to do call and response exercieses not only does the band get warmed up, but they are buidling those ears. If you have the time to do a little Ear training or Theory work sheet- just the basics, once every couple of weeks, the understand would go up. This is definitly on the list of national standards.

5)Chamber Music- I hope someday I have a program that allows me to devide my band into a brass choir, wood wind choir, and percussion ensemble once a year to give them the oppertunity to learn from chamber ensembles and get them interested. I’ve noticed that it is diffficult for kids to get chamber groups together and part of it has to do with interest. But a little experience could take them a long way in getting them started. Furthermore you improve all their playing through this. Chamber music is also a good way to develop student leaders, an important part of any band program.

These are all I can come up with for now. As I think of a few more I’ll probably write another post on the same subject. But these areas expand the horizons of music to the students. Part of why I chose music is because it covers so much: science, history, culture, technology, literature, craftsmanship, creation, discovery, i could go on. In order to inspire great music students you need to guide them to the extent that music covers.

I recently heard from a friend and elementry school teacher from my home town, that at the begining of the year, a mother of one of her students confronted her to try and get her child out of her class and into a class where more of her friends, since her time at school would be horrible with no friends in her class. You’ve got to be kidding me! Fortunatly the change never happened, but if it did what would the child gain from that? Does the child learn and expect that people are going to bend over and change things like that? Socially, it wouldn’t give the child any experience with making new friends. You’d be pulling the child out of a class that they had had sometime to become acustom too and puting them in a class with a new teacher who knows nothing about the child, which could make it difficult for both teacher and student. What were they thinking!

This next one is hilarious, yet horrible at the same time. My home school district has had a lot of problems with its High School/Middle School math program. It is one of those intigrated deals, parents don’t know how to deal with it, kids who never had it before get owned by it, a report says that students who went to collge have a hard time with math there if they didnt have any tradition math classes like pre-calc, and the teachers aren’t always a fan of it either. I had three years of the intigrated stuff and a year of pre-calc, and the pre-calc was hard but really prepared me for college math courses. the people who did the 4 years of intigrated for the most part have had a really hard time with math in college. So these fed up parents (one who is on the school board- I didn’t vote for this one) created a task force to try and fix the math program at school. So they went through and made this curriculum to what they think it should be, then picked up enough support to make the school board enact it. It is the worst program I have ever seen!

What I’m getting at- in general, in general don’t believe parents are equiped to make decissions on classroom learning for their kids. Unless they have had educational methods they dont have much of a clue on what makes a good curriculum or how a teacher should plan and teach a lesson. Kid fails a test and parents automatically want to blame the teacher, and start accusing their methods. How do the parents know what is going on in the classroom? Is it the teachers fault or the students? A responsible teacher would be concerned for a failing student. I’ll admit to my parents having done this before. Some of them were actually appropriate, like the teacher clearly being wrong on the definition of nuclear fusion. Other times when everyone in my class is getting less than a B, even though we are working our butts off and people go off accusing the teaching, when maybe all that needs to be done is some reinforcement in some areas.  In fact I thought that particular teacher was one of the best I had in high school. Unfortunatly, the line when parents should and shouldnt act in the classrooms is very obscure, and since they are paying taxes, no one is in a position to tell them to chill out. so how about that.

So, I saw a tuba lesson be given, and as soon as the student was done playing her graded selections, the lesson was over. This young tubaist was entitled to the last 10 minutes of her 20 minute lesson, and she didn’t get it. One of the biggest reasons people quit instrumental music is the difficulty level. This can be improved through proper training and practice in fundamentals…if the kids knew how. Now, I will admit as a trombonist I have a specific bias towards how brass should be taught. But let’s take this tuba player’s 10 extra minutes. There are many things that a band director should be prepared to do with any extra time, here’s a list:
-Sightread with the student
-Work on fundamentals
-Listen to a Recording of that instrument
-Have the student give a personal evaluation
-Play something fun, like movie themes or duets
-Give practicing suggestions for other pieces of music

In addition using up these 10 minutes, everything on this list reinforces good practice habits. I’ve observed a lot of lessons even before i became a music major, and one of the biggest things that directors harp on students for is not coming to a lesson prepared. I can’t blame the kids, because the fact is many of them don’t know how to practice in the first place. I really learned this when I was a section leader in band. I noticed that most people in my section when band started didn’t even know how to warm up. “Just pick it up and play, I’ll loosen up eventually” I ended up holding a sectional where I did nothing but long-tones and lip slurs. After that, when ever they got out the horn to play they did some long tones and lip-slurs and there definitely was an improvement in they’re playing.

I guess what I’m getting at is Directors not helping (and possibly hurting) their programs ability to succeed. You take those 10 extra minutes and you teach the kid how to practice properly a) s/he is more likely to do it and b) will more likely stay involved with your program because of their success. In short teach your kids to practice improve your overall program.

Any way, I’m impressed. Seems rather simple to me. Kid has a right to chose to or not to participate in a veterans assembly. Not according to the school. School punishes him with detention. Doug, who encouraged the student to make his own decission of whether or not to attend the assembly served the detention with him. Rather profound and commendable.

The first thing that really, really struck me, was the administration who weeks earlier had thought time was being wasted by using Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” as method for identifying problems then creating action plans to address them. Hey world! We’re not going to let our students think that problems exist, were just going to lead them blind so we can put them in a situation of having no clue when it is their turn to deal with them, and nothing gets done and they leave the same problems for their children. This would have been a fantastic experience for the students I believe. I wish I would have had an opportunity like that when i was in high school.

Now about this not letting students express their patriotism in their own ways. Well! As a someone who believes that self expression is one of the greatest parts of human existance, punishing a student who did not feel like expressing their patriotism. On the list of my favorite figures in history definitly has to be Thomas Jefferson. I think he would be all over this deal. If I remember correctly, he is the one who says if you can’t conform to the demands of a higher power, in this case the administration, you shouldn’t have to. There are the human rights of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness…what people always neglect to mention is that if the governing power doesn’t allow these for you, there is the right of revolution or not to conform. (hopefully im not misquoting this). You shouldn’t force anyone to take part in any assembly, its been guaranteed to us in the bill of rights, atleast i hope it still is.

I remember in law class, second semester senior year, we took two class periods, where we looked at the bill of rights in how it relates to students, and were completely shocked at the number of rights schools seem to break or bend in order to do what they do. Freedom of religion is always a touchy issue. Freedom of speech is always infringed upon, someone doesn’t like what is going on the school, talks to his friends about how he doesnt like that the school has this and this, next thing you know he is sitting in a hard chair after school, when he should be doing homework or getting some time to play and be a kid. What about Amendment 4-Unreasonable search and seizure- We’re going to randomly search kids cars and back packs to find potentially incriminating things. Why? because they aren’t adults, therefore we cannot trust them, that is our reasoning. Amendment 5-Due Process, no self incrimination, etc- How many of you have been in this situation: “No one gets to leave the class room until the person who did it confesses”. besides potentially violating amendments, what are you teaching these kids in this? If anything it is to not trust the schools.

Good work Doug.  I don’t know if I would serve detention with a student like that, but i hope if I ever encounter a situation like that, i have the strength to do the right thing.

I’m sorry to say, but my High School’s music program has nothing that I really want to brag about. I feel like the band and orchestra have weakened substantially. Both groups are having trouble putting out what I would call quality performances. Although, there is new hope for the choir, with a new director. Kinda hard to believe that I came from what i thought was a sad music program and im going into music ed…but that is a different story. My High School and community lives on its athletic programs, and although there is a lot of money that goes into all our activities, music and arts gets the least non-monetary support. Volunteers and commited students are the true back bone of a music program.

Some of the finest music programs I have ever seen come from small, middle of no-where, towns with little arts funding. The schools don’t have the finest instruments or an amazing performance space, but I often see a high level of commitment. They dont always have stellar performances, but they sure love what they do, and the work that they put into concerts is really appreciated by everyone.

I’ve seen a lot of city schools from areast that are pretty well off produce a lot of braging about their music programs, but it always seems more snooty. I’ve gotten things like “My HS choir sang this better than this group here.” And i wonder with these people who came from such ‘awesome’ programs if they really loved what they got to do. Schools who have enough funding do things record concerts for the students, get nice instruments, go to band festivals and the like, are the kids getting the same appreciation? most certainly not.

I recently attended an concert done by an HS group in a small town and was very impressed, I saw some fantastic things going on with the director and the students and knew that the ensemble really valued what they were doing. I also saw some fantastic teaching going on by the director even during the performance. One of the people with me came from a well to do city school and was dissapointed with the group because they didn’t sound as well as their group did. This person didn’t see all the fantastic things going on and only focused on the performance.

Not everyone easily has the capabilities to go through public schools and become a great performer. So step back and ask would you rather have students be fantastic performers or love what they do? I see people put all their energy into performance, and after HS the kids just quit playing because they feel that they were exhausted. I would rather teach my students to love what they are doing and have music stick with them their entire life, than always giving fantastic performances. If they truely love what they do, they will learn to succeed at it.

So do we need to throw more and more money into education? We know for a fact that throwing more money at thing’s makes them work better! I mean look at Iraq. oh yeah….

One of the big problems I identify with society today is that we use money as a way to distance ourselves from problems. I can’t count the number of people I’ve met who aren’t willing to go work in a homeless shelter for a day, but as soon as you mention money, pull out the check book write out $20, hand it to you with a smile and slam the door in your face. Where does this money go? How much of each dollar goes towards actually helping people? How much towards management? I’m not saying there aren’t some great groups for issues like this that really benifit from donations, but does just throwing money at the issue solve the problem…I mean, these are actual people. Do we just throw money at education since we don’t want to get in the trenches to improve something? Distancing ourselves from the problem.

Just to be clear I’m not saying that teachers shouldn’t be paid more. In fact I think they should be. However, is paying a teacher more going to make them better at their job? I dont think there is a way to prove that objectively. Do we need to give programs more money? Give math departments more money to get better textbooks? Physical education money to offer more variety of activities? As a music person it is fairly easy for me to come up with a billion and a half things to purchase for a music program… Music, instruments, repair tools, recordings, stands, chairs, the list goes on. But does throwing money for new text books automatically mean the kids will learn better? As a future music teacher, will I be able to accomplish great things with out proper funding for every thing I would like to have, as it seems now that budget cuts are happening everywhere. The answer is- I sure hope so.

I’ve been greatly influenced by my past experiences as a scout camp counselor teaching canoeing, sailing, swimming, archery and all sorts of tasks. Did we have a ton of money to make our programs amazing…not really. Did we get paid a lot to do the job? Most certainly not. But I swear during that one week a summer where a kid comes to camp, he experiences some of the best learning he will experience in his lifetime. Maybe it is the change of environment. maybe it was the interest in the subject. I think what it really comes down to who the teachers were to the students. It was more than just the master teacher looking down on the eager students. Would we be able to accomplish a good program with less money than we had? I think so. Would we like more? of course.

Another thing I’m not sure of. No Child Left Behind essentially rewards and punishes schools (and thus teachers) based on how their students “perform” on their standardized tests. Well lets see, give teachers more money for getting the kids to fill in the correct bubble. What do the kids learn from that? Something is rotten in the state of Denmark, and it smells like brains. Where are the kids held accountable? Their brains are already rotting from too many video games and now for the sake of money were mindlessly craming bubble tests in there, because if we just throw money at it everything will get better. Just wait. Any day now Iraq is just going to disapear of the face of the earth and leave all the oil behind waiting for us to pick it up. Right. Just keep throwing money at organizations to help the homeless and the homeless people will just disapear. if it were only that easy.

Problems get fixed by the best solution. I avoid comprimizes at all costs, because a comprimise is not a solution (I’ve been on too many commitees). Give a man a fish he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he eats for a life time. Give education a couple million…. I’ll let you decide how to finish that.