High Schools

Safety, Transparency and Reputation when Coaching Students

Leave a Comment / Classroom Teacher, College Prep, Communication, Consulting, High Schools, Parenting, School Security, Teaching Music /

By John Gardner

transparencyFor a short time during my earliest teen years, without concern about walking to and into his home, I studied piano with a single guy who lived a few blocks away. During high school freshman year, I took lessons with a college girl who came to our school and went with me into a sound-proofed practice room. Later in high school, I would travel weekly to an area band director’s home for instruction. Concerns about safety transparency and reputation never came up.

But times are different now. Priests, coaches, and teachers are convicted of having inappropriate relationships with children and students, creating a sensitive and suspicious society that dissuades good teachers and students from participating in the time-tested tradition of individualized instruction.

The concept of innocent until proven guilty does not apply. No one can afford even an accusation. A School of Performing Arts that provides private lessons for area children put windows in all the classroom doors, instituted a parental sign-in/out procedure, and has a staff member walk in on every lesson every time. Band directors schedule lessons in busy offices or in large ensemble rooms full of distractions. College students video lessons with middle/high school students, not only for critique but also for security.

One band director told me that

…you don’t have to be guilty….an accusation can destroy a reputation and/or cost your job. And unfortunately, even after proven innocent, the doubts, questions and hesitations can continue to damage a reputation that took decades to build. Teachers have to be soooo careful.

The very nature of individualized music instruction almost mandates that student and teacher be alone in a room with a closed door. How do we take the legitimate safety concerns that student, parent, and teacher share along with the teacher’s concern for reputation (and employment) and still provide specialized, accelerated training?

SAFETY is everyone’s concern even if from different perspectives. Be aware and be careful.

TEACHERS…

  • invite parents to sit in or be nearby during lessons.
    • My experience: When I teach 1-1 lessons in my home, parents can relax in my living room while I work with the student in the dining room. A 6th grader’s mother would bring a book and sit in the room.
  • leave a door open or at least ensure it is unlocked and/or has a window. Enable anyone to walk in on you. That delay while you get up to open the door from the inside can cause undue suspicion or concern (and increase interruption time).
  • schedule lessons when others are around. Avoid evenings or non-school days when teaching at school or make sure someone else is home if the student is coming to your home studio. Do everything reasonable to remove any question andensure both student and parent are comfortable. Keep in mind that teens are increasingly cautioned to beware of one-on-one situations with adults. Respect that.
    • My experience: When a mother requested I work with her student over holiday break, I scheduled it at school along with an appointment for another teacher to drop something off to me during the lesson time. I left the band room door opened and set up the chairs in clear view from the hallway so passing janitors could see and hear.
  • video or audio record the session. Make sure everyone knows. Place the camera so both teacher and student are visible, but NOT in a way that makes the student uncomfortable or could set you up for a different kind of complaint.
    • My experience: When I teach lessons via Skype, I ask that the camera be pointed so that I can see either fingers, embouchure or both, so I am usually looking at a profile view of the student’s top front. When girls start adjusting their clothes, there is some discomfort. Be aware, empathetic, and be careful. Explain your reasoning — or move the camera to remove the discomfort.
  • if you have a regular coaching schedule, post the schedule. If you have a website with a calendar, parents (and students) are better reminded and informed.

PARENTS…

  • check references. In addition to safety, you want to make sure you’re getting a good product (teacher). If the teacher is an outsider coming to the school, the school should have conducted a background check. Ask.
  • sit in or be in the area, at least periodically. Sitting in an adjacent room can provide reasonable privacy while often enabling you to hear your child play. They won’t do that for you at home, right? Bring a book.
  • for virtual lessons (via Skype, for example), be in the area. You don’t have to stand over the child’s shoulder, but listen in and even walk in a couple times….say hi to the teacher.

STUDENTS…

  • meet a new teacher for the first time with a parent and in public.
  • go with your gut.
  • if anything makes you uncomfortable, speak up or get out. Nearly 100% of the time, you are either mis-interpreting or the teacher is completely unaware and will respond and adjust. Don’t destroy an opportunity based on your misunderstanding a teacher’s oversight.
  • if a parent is dropping you off, have a cell phone to call if the teacher is not there, you finish early (or going over), or you otherwise need parental pick up.
    • My experience: It was during a storm and I was mid-lesson after school when the power went out. Emergency lighting came on, but not enough to continue.
  • if you are going to a lesson, tell your parents (or someone) when, where and for how long.
    • My experience: I’ve had an unnecessarily disgruntled parent when I scheduled some after school coaching with a student who never got around to communicating and mom didn’t know what was going on ’til the student didn’t get off the bus. My mistake was assuming the parent knew.

TRANSPARENCY helps everyone.

Sometimes there is a drop off in parental involvement and in student/parent communication during high school. Teens want more responsibility and independence and both parent and teacher should strive to help them in those areas. Assumptions often cause problems, however, and most issues I’ve ever experienced in the triangular relationship with parent and student elevate because somebody “assumed”. Several years ago, I gave each of my business office employees a personalized, engraved magnet that said, simply:

Assume Nothing!

TEACHERS…provide a list of expectations and policies.

  • Payment. How much, how often and what happens when they don’t. Are materials (music) included?
  • Cancellations when you cancel, when student cancels, how much notice and what if there isn’t any?
  • Minimum requirements; lessons per month, practice time, materials such as tuners or metronome, a functioning instrument with adequate supplies (reeds, etc)…
  • Privacy. Don’t share student/parent contact info or details about what happens during lessons. That is why they are called “private” lessons.
  • Communication. Be easy to contact. Determine whether your communication is to be with the student or parent. Any written communication with the student should be copied to a parent, when possible, including texts, emails or other types of media messages.

REPUTATIONS are slow to build and quick to crumble.

Students and parents need to realize how important that is to the teacher, especially when their very livelihood depends on it. Younger or single teachers need to be hyper-aware, but no one is too old, fat, bald or ugly for legitimate concern and caution.

Without an element of TRUST, this simply cannot work. Hopefully, the teacher has ‘earned’ some trust from both the student and the parental. It is unfortunate that we hear via national news when trust has been abused. That is horrible. But it is also a very, VERY small percentage of people. My advice to all…. in a nutshell:

Be Aware & Take Care!

Thanks for reading.

 

 

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5 Steps to Cleaning Technical Passages for Instrumentalists

Leave a Comment / College Prep, High Schools, Music Performance, Teaching Music /

By John Gardner

Solo and Ensemble no frame

“If the notes are on the paper, it is your job to play ALL of them.” -John Gardner

Too often, when I have heard high school (and college) students perform a piece, there are then inevitable technical passages. Rarely do I hear long technical passages played cleanly and correctly. The word ‘slop’ comes to mind. The reason the performance contains slop is because the practice contained slop.

Here’s how a typical high schooler practices:
     Start at the beginning
     Play to the technical passage
     Slop
     Stop
     Go back to the beginning and start over.
     Repeat the above steps.

Cleaning technical passages

  • Stop repeating what you CAN play and concentrate on what you can’t. I suggest circling those 3-5 most problematic spots in a solo. Then, when you start to play the piece, instead of starting at the beginning, start with the problem passages. Play them first — and last, twice as often as the rest of the piece. Don’t always start at the beginning just so you can sound good.
  • Always, ALWAYS stop and fix it.
  • Break longer passages into smaller pieces
    • Play the first 4 sixteenths plus the first note of the next beat.
    • Do that until you can play it PERFECTLY 3 times in a row.
    • Play the next set of 4 sixteenths plus one note. Get it perfect 3x.
    • Play beats one and two. Perfect.
    • Play beat 3.
    • Play beats 1-2-3.
    • etc.
  • Slow it down, get it right, and then speed it up GRADUALLY.  
    • Use a metronome (free apps available for iPod, iPad.
    • Start with a tempo at which you can play it perfectly.
    • Increase the speed on the metronome no more than 5 beats per minute.
    • Don’t increase until you are consistently clean and correct.
  • Change the rhythm. What you are doing is practicing small groups of notes quickly without playing all of them quickly at the same time. By reversing and changing these rhythms, you are playing different groups of notes quickly.
    • Play 16ths as if you’re playing dotted eighth/sixteenth combination, exaggerating the quickness of the 16th.
    • REVERSE. Now play pairs of 16ths as sixteenth/dotted eighth. This is harder to do.
    • Then play them as three triplet sixteenths and an eighth note.
    • REVERSE to play eighth plus three triplet sixteenths.

Practice your performance, record yourself, critique your performance, mark your music and repeat the above cleaning steps.

A youth baseball quote I recall from years ago comes to mine;

“Be sure you catch the ball before you throw it.”
Musical translation:
“Play it right before you play it fast.”
——————-

 

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Justice for Vivian

High Schools, News and Happenings /

I uncle was a policeman. My father was a fire fighter (Asst Chief)…. I was raised to respect our civil servants and I almost always do. Most of the time, when you watch video of a violent encounter, it starts with non-compliance and more toward the officer(s). But sometimes, officers go to far. That is the case here…..and, in this case, it is not this officer’s first time.

On the ground, arrested for failing to identify, you can see her id just a couple feet beyond where she landed.

Part of her arrest was for failing to provide id. She was trying to pull it from behind her school id on a lanyard. In the pic of her on the ground, yo can see her id just a few feet away.

The first video shows the violent removal. Prior to the release of the video, the town council was supporting the police officer and the prosecutor had set a trial date. Once the public saw it, all charges were dropped and officer was fired. In this report, you hear about this officer’s 10-day suspension where he worked last year because of his temper.

Flawed, but not worthy of dismissal.

Conclusion – officer fired. Statement by Vivian.

Justice for Vivian – all the videos

https://www.justiceforvivian.com/portfolio

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Are Gifted and Talented programs racist?

Family, High Schools, News and Happenings, Personal experience, Repost, Respect, Teaching, Types of education /
Seattle Schools are closing its “Highly Capable Cohort” (Gifted & Talented) program because the claim is that too many of the participants are white or Asian…. “in an effort to make the program more equitable and to better serve all students, the district is phasing out highly capable cohort schools. In their place, SPS is offering a whole-classroom model where all students are in the same classroom and the teacher individualizes learning plans for each student.” Think about what that means for each classroom teacher.
Gifted and Talented
Our local schools had a GT program called “Project Challenge”, involving our sons …. until the system abruptly ended the program, leaving stranded students who were taking classes 2+yrs ahead of grade level. We fought the repercussions until we found an advocate who enabled one son to commute daily from middle to high school for math, to skip multiple years of Spanish and to take advanced classes at the university. Those programs are more common now, but they were not at the time we were involved. I wrote about it here: https://www.virtualmusicoffice.com/the-system-worked-for…/
We wrestled with teachers who wanted to use our sons as tutors (noble and helpful, but does not address their “special needs”) or to do individual study in the back of the classroom (like what could happen in a discipline situation).
We are seeing some of the results of closing most mental institutions and “mainstreaming”. How many tragedies are blamed on “mental health” issues? If people need help, let’s help.
And here’s another problem I have with the “too many whites and Asians” racist argument….. Which pro sports teams, such as NFL, NBA, MLB “mainstream” players to ensure they have a balance of ethnicities and abilities? No! We want to win, right? Olympic teams are not balanced per quotas. We want to win, right?
I won’t argue that DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion), which sounds wonderful is the new AA (Affirmative Action), but it all seems so similar, aka fad trend of the era.
Yes, let’s work to benefit those with “special needs”, but special needs at both ends. Let’s NOT label people ‘insane’, but also, let’s not ignore them. We NEED GT graduates coming into our society, even if they are white or Asian.

Are Gifted and Talented programs racist? Read More »

Color-coded Clarinet

High Schools, News and Happenings, Personal experience /

clarinetStudent transferred from another school. One of my band missions was to check the mechanics of clarinets to ensure the best chance at getting the right notes. Note that some students come into hs playing the same horn they’ve had for 3-4yrs…. Sometimes they are fighting the horn.

Of course, most parentals would never drive a car four years without ever checking the tire pressure or changing the oil. But maintaining a clarinet? I actually had a parent ask me once, “Isn’t this the one you told us to buy?”

Anyway, this clarinet was especially intriguing. Why colored tape? The explanation was the director taught “color-coding”. Guess what I did.

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Which budget do we cut?

Assistant Directing, Classroom Teacher, Communication, High Schools, Marching Band, Music Department, News and Happenings, Personal experience, Teaching /

I promised multiple stories. Here is Story #2. The first story is HERE.

Budget pigI was a music teacher in the system from 2005-2020 (retired). This happened during that time…not sure the year.

$ $ $ $ $

Word came to the instrumental dept that one of our two contracted summer sessions would be cut from the budget and band parents could take over funding to keep both sessions functioning.

I was tasked with making our case before the board. The “conversation” went something like this…..

Me: Our FIRST summer session starts before the end of the Spring semester when we start integrating incoming students and preparing for the local June parade. Do you want the band to represent the school in the HD parade?

Board: Of course, the band MUST march in the parade.

Me: Our SECOND summer session starts a few weeks before the Fall semester and is when the band learns music, marching fundamentals, and the performance show for football games and band competitions. Do you want the band at the football games?

Board: Absolutely, the band MUST be at the football games.

Result: Funding continued for both summer sessions.

Note: We did not ask for gift cards.

Which budget do we cut? Read More »

Gift Card Theft

High Schools, News and Happenings, Personal experience /

See my “Story :1” below the video and article link:

21 Alive Investigates….. This is the story that got me so angry.

I am so angry about the gift card stories we’re learning about that I’m going to, in multiple posts, share some of my stories that happened before, during, and after…

I was a music teacher for HCCSC from 2005-2020 (retired).

Story #1: At a time when hundreds of thousands were misused, the music teachers were mandated to submit time sheets for summer hours worked, so the corporation could ensure we were putting in the hours contracted for. (Guess what the time sheets proved.) Each sheet had to be signed, and approved by the department head, the principal….and then they went on to the corporate office for additional approvals. Sometimes, once we documented the contracted hours, we stopped submitting the sheets as it was clear we were not going to get paid for any additional. Gotta watch those teachers, ya know.

We didn’t even get a gift card.

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Sight-reading Tips

1 Comment / College Prep, High Schools, Teaching Music /

By John Gardner

Solo and Ensemble no frameMusicians auditioning for acceptance or for music scholarships are working on prepared pieces — likely the same piece he/she is using for solo contest. An aspect of many auditions that are a challenge is the demonstration of sight-reading proficiency. Colleges want to know how quickly you can learn their music.

In most sight-reading circumstances, there will be time for you to preview what you are about to play. In a concert band festival, the sight-reading session involves 10 minutes to look over a piece (counting/clapping rhythms, checking out different aspects, before time is up and the judge is ready. Whatever amount you get, gage the time to get through the following:

Key signature. What key are you in? Finger through the scale. Look throughout and see if or how many times it changes during the piece.

Notes. Check range. If possible, sing or sound what you see…. Can you hear and sound what you see? Some people refer to those aural skills as “seeing ears” and “hearing eyes”.

Time signature. Does it stay the same or change?

Tempo. If marked, this should give you a general guideline, but keep in mind that is a performance tempo. For sight-reading, look for the most difficult passage that you will play, get a quick idea of how fast you think you can play it accurately, and use that as your overall tempo. Once you start, you don’t want to change the pulse depending on difficulty.

Rhythms. Scan for anything that looks tricky and take a moment to count, clap, sing or whatever — to get that/those rhythm(s) in your head.

Dynamics. Scan for them and then be aware as you play.

Stylistic markings. Staccato, legato, articulation, accents, etc. The tendency in sight-reading is to concentrate on notes, which are primary but watch for the other signs as you go. Like driving the car, staying on the road (notes) is important, but watching the road signs (slow down, stop, cross-walk, etc) are equally important to getting to your destination safely.

Once you start – DON’T STOP! If you miss a note, that one is history, you can’t go back and fix it … part of practicing for sight-reading (or for any performance) is to force yourself to continue.

Finding music to sight-read. Get books from other similar-range instruments. Pick random hymns in a church hymnal. Check the band director’s office. Go to the music library and pull out random pieces. For sight-reading practice, however, don’t keep playing the same piece(s), unless it is to prepare them for performance or to see how quickly you can perfect them.

Another important aspect to sight-reading is evaluation. If possible, have someone else listen to you and critique what you played. You may be playing a rhythm wrong that you will continue to play wrong.

Hope this helps. Add your comments or send questions.

 

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The Harsh Reality of Getting To and Paying For College

Leave a Comment / College Prep, Consulting, High Schools, Parenting, Personal experience, Public Schools, Teaching /

Unlike many teachers, a high school band director can have a student for four years or more. Sometimes, the high school director is also the middle school teacher, so those students can have the same teacher for seven years. They come to the high school as curious freshmen and develop exciting dreams. Sophomores are excited about the colleges they will attend and what they will do. They want to go to the higher level, name brand universities for law school, med school, music school. 

But then, sometime during Junior year, it seems, the realities of less than stellar grades and parents balking at the published prices of the dream schools begin to crush and shatter that earlier enthusiasm and optimism. 

A quote I hear too often, and the main motivation for writing this book, goes something like:

“I really wanted to go to [Name Brand] University, but I’m going to have to go to [Community] College and commute from home – because it is what we can afford.”

What Crushes Their Dreams?

They are not stupid, but might be ignorant 

When Middle School 8th graders become high school freshmen, they can have a glazed-eye look about them. They are coming from a smaller setting where they had pods and teams of teachers who spent significant time helping them not only get through the educational process, but also to smooth their often traumatic entrance into the teen years. Suddenly, they get to the high school where the building is bigger (easier to get lost), there are more people, more classes, they have more teachers who have less time to hold their hands and who will hold them to a higher level of accountability. They’ve been the big-dogs on the middle school campus and now are at the bottom of the high school heap. The good news is that most successfully navigate the transition and are set for success. 

As they experience the increasingly specialized high school classes, they get excited about topics or classes they like. They develop big dreams. Often, by the end of freshman or sophomore year, they are going to go to the name brand school; Law School, Music School, Medical School. These are exciting times.

Unfortunately, factors can dampen their spirits and dash their hopes:

  • Classes are harder, expectations higher and grading is less forgiving. Students who have always gotten all “A’s” can encounter some grades they’ve never seen before. Most make the adjustment, but some become discouraged and give up.
  • They are negatively influenced by the mediocrity of the general student population. There is intense peer pressure to do as little as possible. Unless highly self-motivated, positively influenced by strong teachers or from home, the slide to do as little as possible progresses. 
  • They struggle with seeing the long-term. When I talk to band freshmen about an award they can receive senior year, but that requires some things that they must do freshman year, one of the challenges is to get them to see that far ahead. If you want to see some rolled eyes and crossed arms, just try telling freshmen about the super high standards of top-tier colleges. 
  • Some smart students will coast along – because they can. Students won’t get in trouble in a public high school for getting a B or C grade. No. The emphasis is on RTI, on intervening on behalf of failing students. Teachers are pressured to have a rigorous class and to do everything they can to pass everybody. The goals tend to center around aiming for that 80% mark. Teachers can be punished for having too many low grades, but are not rewarded for high grades, so by default, the idea of average and mediocrity, if not encouraged, are at least tolerated – and become the norm.

By the time students reach junior and senior years and begin to see the next level, their grades and past practices can knock them out of consideration. The problem is less that they couldn’t have done it than that they didn’t know. They’re not stupid, just ignorant.

They treat college prep the same way they treat high school homework

Just a few weeks into freshman year at his top-tier university, my son called to tell me about his first English class paper.

“Dad, I’ve got a grade on this paper that I’ve never seen before.”

When I asked him what he had done differently, the response was….

“I did what I always did in high school. I waited until the night before it was due and then wrote the paper.”

He discovered that the bar was set higher there. 

I hear students discussing (or watch some of their social-media posts) about a paper they are writing for another class. Here are typical statements:

200 words down – 300 to go.

Half a page to go – if I increase the font and adjust the margins very slightly, maybe [teacher] won’t notice.

Does anyone have a paragraph I can borrow about…

The goal is not excellence, but average. Students demonstrate realization that the system’s goal is not to get an ‘A’, but to meet the assignment. We unintentionally encourage the problem by emphasizing meeting minimum standards or expectations. We don’t strive for excellence, but to meet or slightly exceed the standard, the minimum, the average. Administrators praise teachers when they can display on the big screen a graph showing their school ever so slightly ahead of the state average. The school where I teach celebrated receipt of a ‘B’ (one step up from average) rating from the state. No one talks about becoming the best school in the state. That kind of talk seems reserved for athletics and the arts, not so much for academics.

The GOOD NEWS is, that if the goal is to get into the community college or the big state university, that approach will probably work. But for these freshmen and sophomores with those big dreams of becoming the lawyer, the doctor, the engineer or the professional musician, those are not the “standards” that make it in the top tier schools – or in life.

They take what comes and go with the flow

Given their life history, why are we surprised? Teens coming into high school have had almost no control in their life story. They didn’t choose their parents, or where they live, or what economic condition they would endure. They have moved away from their friends as the parents get jobs or flee bill collectors. They are the unintended wounded in divorces and then have to “learn” to get along with parental “friends” or to have to go back and forth between parents. They have to learn to become brothers and sisters to someone else’s children. They have two and three bedrooms in different homes. Some jump from home to home weekly while others make a long summer move every year. The reality of single-parent households often includes a poverty component, or an absent parent working multiple jobs to try to make it. And what choice does the teen have? 

By the time they get to high school, they are numb to relationship building. When they apply some of the standards and practices they’ve witnessed in their homes to their first boy/girlfriends, they experience similar traumatic results. Hearts are broken, and many erect shields of protection as a defense to both students and adults – including teachers.

So when the realities of their short-sighted focuses, crushed dreams and dashed hopes come to bear as they approach time for college decisions, they default into the same mode they already know so well. They just take it. They go with the flow.

Check out 3 Scholarship Strategies That Worked For Me and Mine

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The only time I was ever asked for a kickback

Leave a Comment / Fundraising, High Schools, Personal experience, Respect, Sales and Marketing, Selling in the Schoolhouse, Work from Home /

I was working for the national fundraising company and in my first few years as a full-time product fundraiser. I spent most of my time calling on larger groups such as total elementary and middle schools, bands, choirs, leagues.

It was a time when you could still walk into an elementary school, go to the office and ask the secretary if you can see the principal — and have at least some chance that you might. No security cameras, buzzing in, showing id and such. 

It was almost always okay to leave product samples. I would often leave something in the office for the secretary because everyone knows secretaries know everything about what is going on and have the power to get you (or prevent you from) the decision-makers. When I had chocolates available, those were especially appreciated. Principals and group decision-makers would usually accept chocolate samples. 

Other gifts were sometimes problematic. There was a choir director I had worked with for several years. At the time, I was working with a prize vendor who offered novelty phones (land-line, of course). I especially liked the coke phone as a student/seller prize. But I wanted to give this director a piano phone and he wouldn’t accept it — until he was in his last year ready to retire. It wasn’t a matter of “buying” his business (the phone cost @$20) but of genuinely showing appreciation to a long-loyal customer. 

Samples and small gifts were one thing. This story is about something else. I am not including the name of the town, school corporation, school, or individual. I want to emphasize that school teachers, sponsors and administrators are overwhelmingly highly-ethical people with a real desire to help students.

This visit was at a medium-sized elementary school with a principal I had yet to meet. He invited me into his office, closed the door, and sat behind his desk. He was an older guy who appeared to have put in enough time to retire. 

I was immediately shocked when he started telling me how he hated children, hated his faculty and staff….and, well, everything about his job. As a former teacher, I was simultaneously uncomfortable and angry as he continued. But then it got worse.

After what was supposed to be ice-breaking information gathering prior to giving me details to include or address in my “sales presentation”, he asked me a bizarre question that caught me totally off guard;

“If I sign up to do a fundraiser with you, what is in it for me?”

He couldn’t be asking what I thought he was, and I didn’t want to assume, so I implemented my excellent sales training by asking questions.

“You mean what is in it for your school? [Immediately continuing]….your school should earn about $xxx which will help fund some of the needs you already mentioned.”

“Well, yes…..but what about ME? This is going to be a sizable sale with a good amount of commission for you and I want to know what you would provide me in appreciation.”

At that point, I started putting my materials away, stood up, thanked him for his time, and told him I couldn’t work with him. 

As I made my way to open the office door, he mentioned something about confidentiality, and when I glanced back his facial expression was something in between anger and fear. 

I never went back. 

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