Just because I'm a teacher...

Just because I'm a teacher doesn't mean I have to pretend to know all the answers. Just because I'm a teacher doesn't mean I can't learn from my students. Just because I'm a teacher doesn't mean that I'm a liberal and agree with everything the Democratic party stands for. Just because I'm a teacher doesn't mean that I agree with everything unions do. Just because I'm a teacher doesn't mean that I have three months a year with nothing to do. Just because I'm a teacher doesn't mean that I think I am underpaid. Just because I'm a teacher doesn't mean that there aren't other aspects of my life outside of teaching that further define who I am. Just because I'm a teacher doesn't mean that I wasn't smart enough to do something else. Just because I'm a teacher doesn't mean that you know exactly what I do everyday because you were once a student. Just because I'm a teacher doesn't mean that I think I am entitled to more than what I am given. Just because I'm a teacher doesn't mean that I'm politically charged up. Just because I'm a teacher doesn't mean that you should expect me to raise your children. I have the joy of working with kids, helping them learn how to navigate life and shaping our country's future while making a good living, providing for my family, and further developing myself just because I'm a teacher.

Middle of August

There is nothing like the middle of August. The weather is beautiful. There is plentiful time to be spent with friends and family. Tons of projects both around the house and hobby-related are getting done. The "second career" is in full swing. And from a school year view, a new year is just around the corner. And I could not be more excited! I always love it when people address the fact that the school year is approaching. They are preparing for a response of utter despair, longing for it to be June again, or some shameful comment about having to deal with students again. Instead I love shocking them with my authentic joy and enthusiasm toward getting back. The response is always classic. "Really, you can't wait?". "Wow, you are dedicated." "Your family must be driving you crazy." That last one always gets me thinking that maybe I shouldn't be so excited. I love spending time with my family and realize that the school year shakes things up quite a bit. Right now, family life is wonderful. And the challenges of the schedule, my mind not always being present when I'm home, my own kids' homework and school challenges and then the dreaded early bedtime make family life more difficult. But we fall into a routine and life is good. No, I really am excited about getting back. I can't wait to work with the students I had last year and watch them continue to progress and reach new levels. I can't wait to meet the new students and let them know that middle school is going to be an incredible three years of their lives. I can't wait to go to work every day and wrap myself up with music, music and more music. There is nothing better than going to work and getting to do what you love! I can't wait to learn more myself. The first two weeks of school, I have three guest speakers coming in presenting on the topics of the music from India, hip hop and flute playing. I will learn just as much as the students. I can't wait to see my colleagues again and work together to come up with great new ideas. I can't wait to make music together as ensembles. August is always a time that legitimizes my decision to become a teacher. I get so excited to go back, that I know I'm doing what I should be doing. There is nothing like the middle of August.

Professional Development

This past Wednesday we had our latest professional development day. We met as a department to discuss amongst other things, what professional development activities have we done this year have been successful. It got me thinking about what professional development has always meant to me and why I struggle with what school districts want it to be. First of all, I don't believe that every discipline taught in school can use the same template of professional development. Trying to do so limits and frustrates the curriculum writers and teachers. Second, professional development involves finding best practices and experts to discover what works best in education. As a music teacher, I find these best practices and experts in the following places: Music conferences such as Minnesota Mid-Winter Music Education Conference, national National Association for Music Education conferences, and the Midwest Band Clinic Taking courses that apply to what I need to know. Some great courses I have taken lately have been in the categories of Music Technology, Bullying, and What Makes Great Teachers Great. Performing and Composing/Arranging Music. I get so energized when I perform with the great groups of musicians I'm privileged to play with here in the Twin Cities or when I write a piece of music that I can't wait to get back with my students and share the experience, what I learned or the simple love of music in our lives. Third, I think professional development is never done. Curriculum writing is constant. It's always changing based on what doesn't work or what is changing in our world. Fourth, professional development is costing our schools too much money. By trying to structure professional development into school workshop days, 2-hour late starts and having multiple coordinators is costing us money that could be used more directly for our students.

Expectations

I have noticed during my many years in music education both as a student and now as a teacher, that there are varying degrees of expectations. Some music directors have very high demands for students while others simply want the students to have fun and enjoy music and not worry too much about having the best band in the region. Some music teachers are very competitive and judge their program's success on winning awards. Other music teachers are philosophically against competition and stay away from contests. Some music teachers have high expectations in certain areas of their program, for example their marching band, but don't have as high of standards in other areas, say for instance jazz band. The past few years, I have given my expectations for students more thought. I have considered these thoughts above in trying to do what I feel is both best for the students and what fits best for my teaching style. I have noticed that my expectations for musical success need to be raised. And when thing came to me today as I was focusing on raising my standards: both your level of fulfillment and level of frustration go up. You look at the student that you inspired by telling her how good she is sounding and that you are going to give her more advanced music to work on. You get an e-mail later in the day from her mom thanking you because they were just having the conversation at home about wanting to be more challenged which would lead to more motivation. As a teacher, there is nothing better than watching that all happen. Then there is the student that lets you down because you tried to raise the standards, and she didn't take those steps with you. I wonder that had I just let her keep music in that small level of importance in her life if both she and I would have been just fine to leave it as is. Instead we both walk away frustrated. I guess I come back full circle in thinking that is why we have teachers that have different levels of expectations. If a student has a ton of motivation and potential, the bar needs to be raised. If the student just wants to play in the band a couple days a week, never practice but have music be a part of their lives for those couple hours, is there anything wrong with that? That student is not going to progress very quickly and is never going to be an outstanding musician, but if that student is learning to appreciate music and is enjoying it, how much do we push as a teacher? So is the gain in fulfillment worth the gain in frustration? What do you think?

What Makes Our School Great!

If I am going to want my blog to be taken seriously, I better start posting more than once a year. Many thoughts have been running through my head regarding education. It's amazing how when you first start teaching, your thoughts on education don't extend much past the four walls of your classroom. When you are in Year 15, you are constantly thinking big picture and what is both right and wrong with education extending far beyond your immediate situation. At this point, I could write a novel of thoughts both positive and negative. So maybe I should stretch this out and make several posts over the next several weeks. And maybe I can even get some of you to join in for some dialogue. That brings me to where I should start? And as I would hope my nature usually dictates, I will start with the positive. I will start by explaining why Chaska Middle School-West, the school that I teach at, is so successful. 1. Administration is absolutely fantastic. I have learned through my years of teaching that being an administrator is an amazingly difficult job. As a teacher, 90 percent of my time if not more is spent with the students. As an administrator, your "spread-thin" time is spent with students, teachers, other staff, parents, community, administrators at other schools in and out of your district, government officials, local authorities, outside educational organizations, and then of course your own boss: the superintendent and school board. Quite honestly, I have no idea how they do it. Our school has two of the best around. I think the way they are successful is that they trust the people around them to do their jobs. They set expectations and don't micromanage. This leaves them with time to deal with the issues and problems that come up that truly need their attention. They also understand kids and where we need to take those kids in order to be successful in life. They will do anything they can to make our kids outstanding citizens. This goes beyond just being able to test well in math and reading on two days in April. This extends to all areas of academia and beyond. 2. We treat the students with respect and let them learn in a comfortable yet safe environment. Through our Star Program, we make it very clear to students what the expectations for success are and what will happen when poor choices are made. Then we follow through as a unified staff with consistency. Since the Star Program was implemented a few years back, I am amazed at how little discipline issues we have at our school. Not to say, problems don't come up. And there will always be those few kids that don't respond. (You have to keep in mind that if the parents are not doing their job, it's very hard for us to make up for that.) However, the statistics that are kept by our amazing dean of students show that behavior referrals continue to go down year after year. 3. The opportunities for kids are incredible. We are allowed as teachers to offer so many cool things for kids. This includes after school clubs such as the music things I get to do (rock band, marching band, jazz band, country/bluegrass, guitar, country/bluegrass, hip hop, Mariachi, music technology, movie band, etc.), the art clubs that are very talented art teacher offers, the graphic novel club one of our language/arts teacher has started, and the phy ed extra curriculars that are offered. Then there are school wide activities like History Day, the Medieval Banquet, the Veterans Day festivities, Pennies For Patients (raising money to find a cure for leukemia) and our Evening with the Stars event. It's also great that our school believes that learning can take place outside of our four walls. Being able to go to places like the Festival of Nations, Orchestra Hall, the Science Museum, art museums, and skiing as well as discipline specific field trips like a Mexican restaurant for Spanish, and a band festival for Music. These are all activities that help kids retain knowledge, use their knowledge and give them positive memories from their middle school years. Oh yes, I could go on and give more. But as I said to start this entry, I need to stop and save some thoughts for later posts. Teachers, parents, students: I want to hear why your school is incredible and what makes it that way. Because I think the last thing I want to add to this post is that what makes our school great is that we are always looking for ways to make our school better. And there are plenty of schools out there doing amazing things. So let's hear it!

Inspiration

Well it has definitely been awhile since I've posted on my blog. Shame on me. I just got back from watch the Cadets of Bergen County in their final rehearsal at Chanhassen High School. And it was inspirational to say the least. Many thoughts swam through me head as I drove back home from this short 15 minute performance/rehearsal. First, I am reminded at the need to be inspired in life. As musicians, we need to see incredible performances like this on a regular basis. It makes me want to practice, write music, study music, teach music, etc. It is so motivational. But it can apply to anything in life. I think of a couple friends of mine who are awesome parents that inspire me to be a better dad. I think of the pastor at my church who inspires me in so many areas in life. I think of reading the Bible, eating food prepared by a great chef, watching professional golfers at the British Open and so on. Inspiration is something we all need.

Another thing that was a bit more specific was how marching band is generally viewed so negatively in our school district by our middle school kids. I saw two sets of parents tonight who were really enjoying the show tonight. In both cases, their kids were not there. Now who knows. They could have had other commitments, but what a great opportunity for our kids to see how incredible the marching experience can be. We must find a way to expose students to the music opportunities that are out there and how incredible they can be. That is something I need to improve upon as a teacher. Music education is not just rehearsing recycled music in a band, choir or orchestra rehearsal and performing a concert. IT IS SO MUCH MORE!

That leads me to a blog entry for another day...one that is hopefully coming sooner than later.

Fall Concerts

Hey students and parents. I really enjoyed the concerts this past month. I was very proud of the kids in their improvement these past couple months. I always say that we should record the first rehearsal of the school year and then listen to it after the concert to see just how much better we have become.

Here are a few comments I have regarding both concerts:

6th grade:
Gallant March and Champions went really well. I was especially happy with the percussion on Champions given how hard that snare drum part is and you never got to practice together as combined bands.

Fury was the highlight of the evening. That was our hardest piece and you pulled it off with flying colors. Way to go!

Mystic Journey had that interesting error by the trumpet section coming in four measures early. That never happened to us in rehearsal. Great contrast of soft and loud sections though. Dillon, great baritone note!

Dynamite was very fun. Great job dancers!

You were well-dressed, well-behaved and acted very professionally. Very nice!

8th grade:
A-Plus was very funny. Great marching percussion/flag entrance. Your mistakes were perfect!

Sing Sing Sing was the best song of the evening. All-around great playing. Good choreography brass. Great dancing Alyssa and Katie.

Monmouth Overture had a wonderful opening passage flutes and Ajay. Very nice playing all around except for the trumpets being a measure ahead for about 16 measures near the beginning.

Wicked was well-played but lacked energy. The lack of dynamics and articulations made it seem like it went on and on and on. We need to work on balance as well. There were times the melody was covered up. More practice at home ladies and gentlemen!

Hits also lacked energy at times. I felt like we started to wear out. Again, more practice at home will lead to greater endurance. There were some very nice moments though.

I loved all the transitional material. Kalley and Alyssa sounded wonderful on that out-of-tune piano. Maddie, you make a good Dorothy. And, Dr. W. "in the house".

Nicely dressed and you acted professionally. Great effort as well. Let's work on practicing more at home!!!!

Would love to hear your comments.