Lesson Reflection

I think that I was more nervous than I had ever been in my life before I did my 10-minute lesson.  I struggled greatly trying to come up with a lesson plan.  Honestly, most of my time “preparing” was actually just spent trying to come up with a good idea.  I finally thought of something that I could do, and went with it.  Doing a lesson on fugues was one of my original ideas, but if it hadn’t been for finding that color visualization video on YouTube, I’m almost sure I would have settled on something else.  My big issue with the idea was trying to present it in a clear, easy to understand way, and that video really helped me do that.

            My stress was building throughout the weekend, and it peaked right before Dale started his lesson, and I found out that I was going to be second.  I sat in my chair with my head down, nearly in tears.  It was a bit strange.  I’ve performed music probably thousands of times in all different environments.  I don’t even have a major fear of talking in front of crowds general.  Yet this was different somehow.  I think the main reason why was because I was unsure that what I had prepared was going to work.  I suppose I felt a bit underprepared.  This is despite having shared and practiced my lesson over the weekend with my wife and my parents.  They all were very encouraging, and said I would do great, but I just didn’t believe them, because that’s the negative attitude I tend to have.  I think another reason why I was so nervous was because along with the conducting assignment I had to do two days later for a different class, this was the most relevant thing I had been given to do in graduate school yet.  I wanted to take it seriously and hopefully do a good job.

            When I started, I had pulled myself together, and I was no longer nervous.  One of the things I was most unsure of was the beginning of the lesson.  I felt pretty good about the idea of having the class sing a round, but I hadn’t completely crystallized how I was going to do it in terms of what words I would use to get them to start.  Overall, I was pretty happy how the whole initiation part turned out.

            Having someone from class come up and play the piano was a last minute change I made.  I was intending on playing it myself.  I’m an extremely poor piano player, but I had practiced that part enough so that I was fairly comfortable with it.  In the end though, I thought it would be better to have a student do it because it was another way for the class, or at least someone from the class to be doing something instead of the teacher.  I thought, anything to make it more like a lesson and less like a lecture.  I’m glad I made this decision, because I think it worked just fine. 

            Making sure it wasn’t a lecture was possibly the number one concern I had, and was most likely the thing that made it so hard to come up with an idea.  Everything that was popping into my head just involved information, and me talking.  I knew that the ideal lesson would involve the students doing some sort of activity most of the time rather than just sitting and listening to a teacher talk to them.  Ideally, the activity would involve them playing music.  As much as I tried to fight against lecturing, I ultimately failed. 

Mr. Schneider rightfully pointed out in his comments that I was indeed starting to lecture, and that I was introducing too many terms.  After discussing it with him, and doing some more thinking about it myself, I think I’ll be able to come up with some ways of making the lesson more student-centered for next time. 

Should we have to rely on parents and fundraising to run a modern BOJC program?

I believe there are three parties of almost equal importance that determine the success of a student in elementary school learning a new instrument.  The first is the student him/herself.  The second is the teacher, and the third is the parents.  If one of these three isn’t invested, then the student isn’t likely to continue with their instrument.  Although the teacher is responsible for what the student does in school, the only way the student will improve is if he/she practices at home.  A lot of kids aren’t totally self-motivated, so the parent’s job is to keep their children on track, and making sure that they practice.

            By the time students get to high school, they have hopefully become more self-motivated.  However, I believe parents are still important.  Even if they don’t have to actually sit down with their kids when they practice anymore, they still need to be supportive.  They should attend the concerts, they should help transport their instruments, and they should pay for private lessons.  In this way, parents need to be relied upon to run a successful BOJC program.  If the parents stopped sending their kids to private lessons, for example, the students will not be able to improve as musicians, and their ensemble at school will suffer.

            However, I don’t necessarily think a BOJC program should need the financial support from parents or fundraising to be successful.  I think it really depends on the school.  There are certainly schools that may require fundraising because they have limited recourses, which are put into things other than music.  There are many other many school districts however, that do provide enough already.  I really think it needs to be taken on a case-by-case basis.

Reflection on the choir warmup

            Much like the trumpet lesson, I was a bit scared at the prospect of leading the choir warm-up.  When it came time to decide which one in our group was the least experienced, it was a run away.  I can’t think of too many other musical activities that are further outside my comfort zone.  For one thing, I can barely sing.  I suppose I would call myself of baritone, but that’s just because I can’t sing high enough to be a tenor or low enough to be a bass.  I’ve also never once conducted any sort of ensemble.  That being said however, I sort of wish that I had tried conducting rather than snapping.  It definitely seems much more musical, and I could really observe as the other warm-ups went on that it really has a tangible affect on the singers.  Another thing, which I clearly should have done, was to make better eye contact with the rest of the class.  This is no surprise to me that I stunk at this aspect.  I’m terrible at making eye contact with people that I talk to, let alone people that I’m trying to conduct.  I’m sure I came across as quite uncomfortable, and that’s basically how I felt.  I realize that I can be quite hard on myself, but it’s hard for me not to be.  On a positive note, I felt just a tiny, tiny bit proud of myself for going up there before anyone else and ultimately following through with it.

Technology in Music Education

            Part of music education involves listening to music.  Since technology has affected the way we listen to music, this carries over into the classroom.  We’ve gone from records to cassette tapes to CDs to MP3s.  Smart phones allow us to carry around thousands of songs with us at all times.  We can find almost any song or musical artist we can think of on youtube.  This means that teachers have greater flexibility.  One general music teacher just recently showed me how she has every song she teaches along with every lesson plan and activity organized in iTunes on her phone by grade level and time of year.  I can think back on how different things were since I was in college only ten years ago.  In my private lessons, every week my teacher would give me music to learn and a cassette tape with a copy of the recording to practice along with.  I’m sure today he just has students look up the song on youtube, or email them the file.  Having the Internet at our fingertips all the time has made exploring music much easier and more convenient for both teachers and students.

            I think that technology has helped especially in the area of composition and performance.  Not so long ago, to record music, you had to go to a recording studio.  Now, we can carry around portable versions of Garageband and Sibelius on our phones.  There are things like metronome apps, tuner apps, and ear training apps that can help aid in practicing.  One free app that I’ve used quite a bit myself is iReal Pro.  In addition to a few other uses, it allows musicians to practice along with a song, and the volume level of the practice instruments can be lowered or muted all together.  As a bass player, I’ve found this especially helpful.  I can really see how a teacher would be able to use it with students.

            Since it seems like just about everyone now, including kids, have smart phones, one may think it would be a no brainer to take advantage of some of these applications.  However, I can see a possible downside.  A lot of schools have a strict no cell phone policy, and I can understand why.  For much of the day, students really shouldn’t have any need for their phones in school.  I can see a possible scenario where if exceptions are made to this rule, it could be hard to monitor.  Overall though, I would be in favor of using phones as long as it’s only for specific lessons the teacher has planned.

            Since kids grew up with this technology, there’s a good chance that they know how to use some of it better than the teachers do.  By using it to help teach music, teachers can make their lessons more relatable and fun for their students.  The only other down side I can imagine is if the technology itself becomes the focus rather than the actual music.  However, as long as teachers always keep this in mind, I think that technology will continue to have a positive impact on music education in the future.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMrxdXagJUQ

Response to "The Trouble With Rubrics" by Alfie Kohn

I have to admit, Alfie Kohn’s article “The Trouble with Rubrics” bothered me a little bit.  In the article, he argues that it’s not a good idea for teachers to use rubrics to assess their students.  His major reason is that rubrics cause students to work with the ultimate goal of getting a good grade rather than to just do good work because they want to.  As a result, the quality of work suffers.  Kohn quotes an article by Linda Mabry of Washington State University.  Her point is that in terms of writing assignments, the standards that rubrics hold to tend to focus on spelling and organization, so the for a student to get a good grade, creativity and thoughtfulness take a back seat to grammar and form.

            I have two major issues with Alfie Kohn’s argument.  The first is that he seems to have an extremely idealized view of students.  For the student who wants to do work hard and do the best job he or she can do, I can completely see how a rubric might get in the way and be somewhat of a detriment to the type of work they might produce.  However, most students are not purely intrinsically motivated like this.  A lot of students need more structure, and need to be told what steps they need to take to complete the assignment and yes, get a good grade.  I was somewhat amazed at the part of the article when Mr. Kohn said that if a rubric must be used, it should just be a guide for the teacher, and shouldn’t be given to the students.  If students don’t know how the assignment is going to be graded, how are they supposed to know what to do?

            My second issue with the article is that Kohn offers no alternative to rubrics.  I understand that that is not really the point of the article, and perhaps he does have other ideas.  Perhaps he’s written another article about those ideas.  However, I don’t see how you can write something saying how rubrics and grading are a bad idea, and not offer any other concrete ideas at all.  I can definitely see his point about some of the flaws with rubrics, but his problems with rubrics really seem to apply to any sort of grading.  I’m not sure how school, in the traditional sense, can exist without grades.

          I would really like to agree with Alfie Kohn.  I think grading in music is probably even more difficult than grading in writing or math.  This is because music is an art, and art is inherently subjective in some sense.  As someone trying to become a music teacher, I would love to have a good alternative to using rubrics or other types of grading.  Perhaps I could simply judge each student on an individual basis based on his or her work and improvement on that work.  This certainly sounds more appealing than using a rubric, but I’m just not sure if it’s practical.  It’s one of the many things I’ll find out when I start teaching.