Theory Question

Does anyone have any fast and fun ways to help my students memorize key signatures? I have 24 students in my Fundamentals of Music Theory class. About half are in band. Nearly the rest are in choir. The rest have never seen a music note in their life!!! It really disturbs and surprises me that the band students don't seem to make the connection between what they learn in band and the theory. I had the students writing out scales and the band students were placing the sharps and flats on the wrong side of the note. You would think they would know where to put the accidentals because they see it all the time in their band music. I'm totally shocked to find out that the band students don't have their key signatures memorized. This class is having a very difficult time memorizing the key signatures. I've tried the circle of fifths, but it's not clicking. Does anyone have any ideas?

Good teaching?

I think that with this particular question, the best people to talk to have to be the students. How can an administrator say that someone is a good teacher if none of the students they teach are having a good experience. Also, what does 'good teaching' even mean? Is a teacher that has a great personal relationship with all of their students with the students not learning material a good teacher? Is the opposite, with a teacher that gets the content through to the students effectively with little personal interaction a good teacher? It makes me wonder which I would rather be, a teacher whose students are extremely proficient in what I am teaching or students that feel like they are truly valued as people. I am beginning to think that the more your students really feel valued, the more proficient they may become in the particular subject area. I know that when I feel valued as a student, my work ethic and involvement increases greatly. Being shut down by a teacher or being made to feel like you are unintelligent shuts me down to any of the work that goes with the class. I am finding more and more at Pennsbury that if I relate to the students as people first, they are more ready to give me their attention and work with me. Has anyone else found this? Also, is there any difference between how people in high school settings have viewed this versus being in elementary or middle schools?

What is Good teaching?

Here are a few questions that have been plaguing my mind about this weeks narrative question. They go in a few different directions but are all important to think about. I hope they help everyone when discussing these things with people as well as when writing the narrative.

Should or Can "good teaching" be judged by the student? The administrator? Other teachers?Parents?

If society is found focusing on media and the entertainment world, how do teachers (good or bad) keep their students engaged and willing to learn if NOT by entertaining them?

What constitutes "entertainment" in the classroom? Isn't learning meant to be fun and interesting? That is entertainment.

Is discipline a problem if you can guarantee mutual respect in the classroom?

How do teachers (good or bad) gain respect of their students?

Do students taste in "good teachers" change over time? When they are young, are teachers "cool" and that's why students like them? And when students get older does it become the teachers that are "parental" that become popular?

Do different learning types have different "good teachers?"

I spoke to my cooperating teacher about curriculum this week and he believes that there can be many different definitions of the word curriculum. Curriculum can potentially include the written curriculum document, the hidden curriculum, the school-wide curriculum, curriculum as culture, and curriculum as activities. Mr. Chapin told me that he does not find his curriculum limiting because he takes this multi-faceted approach and he uses the curriculum as a guide and a reference, rather than following it exactly.
After some discussion Mr. Chapin and I decided that our own limitations as people and musicians present the biggest limitation to the curriculum that we are teaching. Following some sort of curriculum is inevitable and the individual teacher guides that curriculum. Teachers must find ways to recognize and work past their own shortcomings and realize their strengths to make any curriculum with which they are presented work.

This week/ Curriculum

I had a very interesting week so far. Yesterday my co op had an inservice meeting all day, so it was just a substitute and myself. I basically taught two general music classes, choir, and a special education class all on my lonesome. I must say it was the most stressful yet most rewarding day so far, I really felt like a real teacher for the first time. All of my classes went very well and not only do I think my students were engaged, but we laughed and had a ton of fun. My special education class was a bit overwhelming because right now I am still at the point where I am feeling out their personalities (there are about 14 students, two in wheel chairs), and trying to manage the class with out being too stern or push too hard. I feel like I am beginning to build a rapport with all my students, as a matter of fact my Special Education students sang happy birthday to me today!

As for my conversations about curriculum, I really found out some interesting information about the way my district handles curriculum. For the music department, General Music curriculum, which is on a 30 day cycle, is based on three main topics per grade, per cycle. There are just broad guidlines and parameters, in general the teachers have freedom to creatively lesson plan and modify their lesson plans to the needs of their students, in fact it is encouraged. Choir actually does not have a curriculum, and this has been a main discussion in department meetings. My co op fears that the supervisors are looking at Choir as just rehearsal strategies to prep for a concert and not necessarily a place where learning occurs, so she takes it upon herself to type up a "choir contract" every year with her expectations/mini curriculum for the year for her choir members and parents to view.

Curriculum wise I also found out that my district has a website where all teachers can view their and each other's curriculums, as well as build their own file with their curriculum. They can edit this file with resources, activities, videos, etc that work well with the curriculum. Then other teachers can look through these files and get ideas for their own classroom, or supervisors can see how the teachers are working with the curriculum. The teachers also use the website as a forum to discuss the curriculum or express ideas for the curriculum with supervisors. I think this website creates a great community for the teachers and allows for the teachers to have a voice, or act like an advocate to their students if they feel there is a problem with the curriculum.

Attempting to carry on a conversation with the teachers of William Penn Middle School about their curriculum is, in a word, difficult. The curriculum of both academic and special area teachers is generally not something that is seen as an issue. The statewide testing scores for the school are good enough to keep them in the safe area, as far as government benchmarks go, and the teachers are at the liberty of their own best judgment as to how to go about presenting what is in the curriculum to the students. When trying to decide is there was anything worth inquiring about, I found myself drawn, not to the curriculum, but to the possibility of having “too much of a good thing.” The good thing is when a teacher finds a way of teaching that they believe works, and then exploiting it by using it in abundance and never changing it.
In the beginning of the school year Larry Ricci, the principle of William Penn Middle School, presented the past year’s statewide test scores. In his presentation, when he reached a score that had gone down significantly he would briefly mention the need for improvement in that area. His encouragement sounded something like, “we’ve got to keep an eye on those scores” or “let’s really try to improve on this area this year.” There was no immediate need to jump on the teachers of that department and criticize them for poor teaching, or deeply examine why the scores were dropping. Simply bringing attention to these scores, and the need for improvement, motivated everyone (especially with his use of “we”) to help the students. Working together, as a whole, is more effective than putting full responsibility on one or two teachers.
I was reminded of this in a conversation with Mr. Ricci three weeks later when we were speaking of the issues of curriculum. I asked Mr. Ricci what his reaction was to lowered test scores in relation to curriculum. Did he keep a watchful eye out for those departments which were suffering, and insist on a stricter adherence to the curriculum? His response was no, saying, “If the essential understandings of the material are there, then that’s the least that he can hope for.” Elaborating he said, “It’s too easy for teachers to get “stuck.” Going into teaching can be a terminal job, and if somebody doesn’t encourage you to keep changing, well then you’ll do it the same way year after year. We want to be on the cutting edge.” Knowing the nurturing character of Mr. Ricci, and his tendency to favor constructive learning and a student centered classroom, his response did neither surprised me, nor struck me as odd.
Mr. Ricci’s presentation in the beginning of the year was one of three, and the shortest of all. In the two days that we had for workshops, Mr. Ricci and the assistant principle presented the teachers with problem solving activities, which corresponded with many of the tenets of critical pedagogy that I have been taught. Mr. Ricci’s vision for the school as “cutting edge” is not a far cry away from where they presently are.

I posed the question to my cooperating teacher about what she thought of imagination being limited by curriculums. Simplifying "schooled up" to mean giving children guidelines to follow when being asked to be creative, her and I both agreed that in our current elementary school situation, it is necessary to give children guidelines. For example, if we set out a class set of orff instruments and let the class just walk in and run over to the instruments without giving them any rules as to how to play the instruments and how to take care of the instruments, theres no telling what could happen!

In terms of the curriculum set in West Windsor - Plainsboro, there is no giant binder filled with a year's worth of lesson plans that the teachers must teach or else; their curriculum has general goals for the children to meet, such as knowing what du and du de is by the end of second grade. This sort of curriculum gives teachers the flexibility to teach in a manner that they feel suits the children best. It allows the teachers the freedom to be creative themselves to meet the needs of their students.

Another point that was made is that in the real world, there are always limitations and guidelines. A person in advertising has a specific product that he has to sell within a 30 second timeframe. There are always deadlines and schedules that have to be made once in the working world. So in a way, by giving children these guidelines, its only another means of preparing them for the world post-graduation. But then again, maybe I have it backwards. Maybe its because schools have guidelines placed in school that there are strict deadlines and limitations once in the working world.

Curriculum

Talking to everyone about curriculum has been decently easy, and definately interesting. I wanted to share something that pertains to it, and is in my paper, (obviously not the whole thing), but something I was thinking of when I was doing this. For some reason this movie accepted really stuck out in my head recently.

There was this movie, which really had me thinking. It has its moments and although most of the movie is rather “immature” had some amazing thoughts. Accepted is a movie that came out not too long ago and it is about these students who do not get into college, one girl burns out, and the others are creative thinkers who didnt thrive in school setting. They make up a college and go to it; meanwhile other students accidentally get into their fake college. They then decide to run a college and they must come up with a curriculum. What they do is they take this huge whiteboard and they have each student write down classes that they want to take, and then they put these classes into action. Having students lead them and not calling any of them stupid. They at the end bring it up as their curriculum and mention that all students can also be teachers. We can learn best from each other and through experiencing and trying. They took this totally creative idea where everyone had the chance to be creative thinkers and have a say in their learning. Not that this would be as possible in a school setting seeing as how some of the topics for classes were not very good, but it allowed them to express themselves, learn, and be a part of their own educational experience with no limitations.
I just thought that random thought was kinda kewl.

If we could just take the students into consideration more and give them the chances I know that they would thrive. Of course you have the leader/follower problem, but that would swap based on the type of class (music, english, etc). I have always felt that my imagination was being force to be all schooled up, but getting away from that and trying to let our imaginations have a chance is really what we should be doing. I know I never gave up on mine, but it definately makes for an interesting time. Its not up to the students to give themselves these oportunities its up to the administration and the teachers to realize who they have what they like and try to help them learn, and grow.

This week was awesome thought, and I think that the this school probably does better then most based on what I have learnt this week.

When I asked teachers about the curriculum in this particular school they all gave me similar responses. They thought the curriculum needed to be followed to a point. There comes a time in the semester when you just need to stop teaching to the curriculum and either take a few steps back or move on if there is a need to do so. Music is the kind of subject that should not be taken lightly with a basic curriculum. By strictly following a curriculum the students are limited to how much they are able to retain and could be hearing too much information at once that they cannot absorb. Especially in a choir or band setting. If the curriculum explains that the students will learn sight singing, rhythms, and 6 pieces to be performed on the concert, the teacher may not always be able to follow that in a strict manner due to the amount of time a piece needs. If a month or two is spent learning rhythms what will happen when December comes and the 6 pieces of music are only half learned? Of course this depends entirely on the curriculum of the school.

"Schooled Up"

In talking with several teachers at my placement, I got a general consensus on whether teachers felt imagination has been “schooled up.” My cooperating teacher says she feels that as students progressed into high school, the focus on grades and getting into college leads to a loss of creativity. In her conversations with other teachers in the building, she believes that teachers who teach grades that have large standardized tests feel the pressure of accomplishing a certain amount before the test is taken. This limits the creative/imaginative liberties they can take within the classroom.

Another teacher who I interviewed also works with a wide range of students in the classroom (1^st-6^th grades). She showed me a poem one of her second grade students wrote, and explained how creative she thought it was because it did not follow any set form. On the other hand, she said if she had given the same assignment to her sixth graders they would have obsessed over the format, how many lines the poem had to be, etc. She told me that in her experience, older students seem less likely to take risks because they are afraid to be wrong. I think this is something I notice even in college. If an assignment does not have specific guidelines, many worry that they will be doing something wrong and are afraid to put their own ‘spin’ on a project (myself included). This is something that is slowly ingrained in students so that the difference between this particular second grader and a sixth grader would be a loss of imagination.

This teacher also pointed out that teachers definitely put limitations and guidelines on students. While this may ultimately lead to a loss of some imagination and creativity, it is also necessary to provide some guidelines to assignments so quality work is received. My cooperating teacher talked about this as focusing an activity. I feel that in some ways this does limit creativity. Ideally, there would be free play for each grade in the music classroom. My cooperating teacher feels that part of this “schooling up” of imagination in music class could relate to time. We see each class for a minimum of 30 minutes a week in kindergarten to a maximum of 50 minutes a week in general music. Therefore she feels that some of this control/focusing of imagination is necessary due to scheduling. While this is obviously not an ideal situation, it is an unfortunate reality of many programs.

Imagination

In terms of having discussions about curriculum - that hasn't been too difficult for me because every teacher i've spoken to has written their own curriculum and they update it yearly - so they are very aware of what is in their curriculum and how they feel about it.

In regards to Dr. Schmidts assignment of "is our imagination 'schooled up' " - I am not quite sure how i feel about that... I have several answers on different levels. First is my school as a whole - when discussing all of New Brunswick high School - I would say yes, based solely on the numerous meetings and lectures we have had from the principal on how we need to be thinking outside of the box, trying new things with our students, and challenging them. The school is difficult to teach in because not only do most of the students not want to be there, but they have very little respect for someone who doesn't command it from them at the start (something I am struggling with very much so) and even so, many of them are coming to us having barely passed the previous grade (or many haven't passed but were moved up because of age). So the teachers are having such problems getting them to pass their tests (namely the HSPA and/or SRA's) that they have lost their imagination so to speak and have resorted to strict lecture, or constant reading and answering questions. So much so that many teachers are not really teaching anymore.

The next level would be my department (and when I mention them I am referring to the music teacher, the drama teacher, the dance teacher, and the visual arts teachers). When it comes to that specific group of people - not at all. This group (along with many others in various departments that I have met) are such out of the box thinkers to begin with (and most of them are young and have been there anywhere between 2-5 years) that they never let anything get in the way of their imagination when it comes to teaching. They are constantly thinking of creative ways to engage students in their subjects. Just today my teacher brought in a guest to speak about Latin music, he was Puerto Rican and brought instruments for the students to improvise on, the theater teacher is taking his students to McCarter Theater to watch productions and go on a back stage tour. All of the curriculums for these teachers were written by them - so they had complete input as to what the students learn and how they learn it. Now granted, the arts appear to have more freedom when it comes to this because we aren't DIRECTLY responsible for students' test scores - however as part of the school we are required to help them in that direction, so we are constantly giving them essay questions as class assignment that require them to use higher level thinking skills and formulate correct and complete sentences.

The last comment I have on this topic is in regards to myself - unfortunately, after only three weeks of student teaching, I can feel my imagination being "schooled". Part of it is my placement, and as much as I love my cooperating teacher and the other faculty, and the students, it's difficult for me. This is an area that I originally wished to teach in - but now am having second thoughts. I find each day very difficult to get through and I am feeling ill prepared when it comes to teaching, and to my musicianship. This is giving me a severe lack of confidence, and therefore I find myself finding ways to simply "get through" lessons. I am no longer being creative in finding new ways for my students to experience each topic because I myself am no longer excited about my own material. In this way, I feel I have let my imagination become "schooled up". I know that if I stopped this from happening my students would enjoy my lessons more and perhaps respect me more - the problem is I also know this wouldn't happen right away. It will take quite a few lessons like this to get them used to the idea of being creative and looking at music in a new way. But because I would nto be recieving that "instant gratification" it is discouraging me from trying it and "failing" - even though I may consider what I am doing now "failing" because I am no longer being true to myself. But - I am attemtping to work through this and hopefully by the next blog I post I will have more positive results to post :) .

Thoughts

Hello All!

I've been thinking about my narrative all weekend, as I'm sure you all have done as well, and I'm wondering if anyone is having similar problems as me. While I have been dialogging with different members within my school, I'm finding that most of the teachers don't even really know what the curriculum says. They mentioned the "Door Stop Curriculum" which literally means they use the print out of the curriculum to hold open their doors, and that basically it is all a waste of time.
When I was talking to a few of the teachers, I had a hard time getting them to think outside of the restraints of their program, schedule, school, district, and community and to get them to think about education and curriculum as a whole. They are so stuck on the concerns that constrain their own teaching and their own programs that they can not even see the big picture.
I guess I found this interesting because I feel like we Westminster students spend much of our time thinking about the big picture and don't ever really think about the restraints that we might focus within our own future MUSIC programs. I think that this is good for us in a way because we will be able to defend education as a whole and make music a central part of education. However, I'm finding problems with this as well, because while yes, I am able to think about education and education in music, I am having trouble thinking about my own teaching and what I want my students to know about music in a practical sense.
This also made me think that maybe curriculum is more than just what the students should learn from the class and what they should be able to accomplish. Maybe scheduling, programing, outside knowledge, etc. should all be considered a large part of curriculum.

Just some food for thought. Let me know what you're thinking.

Choir question

I want to know when you are working with a particular section, how do you keep the other sections occupied without being boring or tedious? Does anyone have any suggestions? It's for a high school class. I've tried other sections humming their part, but it just becomes tedious and boring and they lose interest. I've also had all four parts on one part and have tried to double up the parts as well. Does anyone have a quick and effective way of fixing this? In asking my co-op he says it's a skill that comes with time.

First one

I see that I am the first to blog. I'm not exactly sure what we are supposed to talk about so I will just talk. Student teaching is going very well, I love it in fact. Last night I had my first rehearsal with the Marching Band. When I say first I mean first EVER. I was nervously thrown in but it went very well. They have me working with the pit and the kids were pretty good at adjusting to a conductor who has never worked with a band before. It was cold outside but it was fun. I also taught a lesson on Gregorian chant yesterday which was OK. This was a subject that was never too exciting for myself so it was difficult to come up with a way to teach it that would not only keep the students awake but would allow me to stay engaged my own lesson. It went well. Hopefully it will get better everytime. I guess we all just need to experience teaching hands on everyday before its ever perfect.

The articles assigned for this week are interesting. The idea of "childhood" and what it means is interesting. School plays a huge role in a human childhood where we sit all day and learn, learn, learn. If it weren't this way then what way would it be? Everything starts from some beginning. If we never learn 2+2=4 then how are we expected to know that 4-2=2? If children were born and expected to become adults by the age of 6 do we simply throw them into an Algebra class? By separating the students by their age, for instance 4th, 5th, 6th grade etc. we are establishing that they will have a childhood and an adolecence. The only way to drastically change how they are grouped in school we would have to change their roles in society as well. That might be a little more difficult.

Welcome!!!!

Hi Folks,

Welcome to the blog. This will be the site for weekly writings, reflections, as well as the construction of some of your student teaching Narrative.

See you soon in class!!

Patrick