I learned late today that May 20th is National Band Director’s Day. I’ve had several directors who have impacted me different ways.
ROBERT CROWDER took over some of the elementary school bands when my initial teacher (more, in a moment) worked out to stay at the high school. Mr. Crowder was the first black teacher I had any extended contact with. He was so nice and soft spoken. He taught me at 10th District in grades 6-7. I was in 8th grade, at the huge, inner-city @2500 student Jr/Sr high when MLK was killed. Racial tensions were sky high for a while, including daily walk-outs 10 minutes before school end by hundreds of black students. I didn’t experience it directly, but apparently Mr. Crowder did a lot to help restore a calmer atmosphere in the school.
SAMUEL SANDERS was my Jr High director in 8th grade. I was 1st chair, but always goofing off in rehearsal. He pulled me aside one day and said something like, “You’ve got a lot of potential, but you’re going to throw it all away if you’re not careful.” That impacted me and I changed.
JAMES COPENHAVER taught me in his and my first years. I was in 5th grade and he just got the job. He didn’t like the way I held my horn. He sat down next to me, quietly explained hand position while patting me on the top of my head with his college ring turned around. I have great hand position still. Freshman year, he pulled me aside to say, “I understand you want to be a band director. That means you will have to go to college and I know your family can’t send you. You have four years to work on that clarinet, so that, by the time you graduate, you’ll be good enough that schools will pay for you to come.” He was right. I have so many stories about him. To say he was a strict taskmaster might be an understatement, but he did so many things to help me along. He got me scholarships to summer camps and connected me to the best clarinet teacher (below) in the area. He left after my sophomore year. He taught me to always strive, not only for excellence but for the top spot. I tried to pay him forward when I taught. It was hard because his tactics would be problematic today….but I get enough notes and feedback from students and parents that I know I impacted some lives.
RICHARD FOUST moved up from the Asst position for my last two years of high school. He was a great jazz musician. Overall, he kept the band strong through my graduation.
ROBERT RODEN was my clarinet teacher throughout high school. He was also a band director. He had the first chair clarinetists from two other area high schools in his studio. (Senior year he gave the three of us the same solo for festival). Mr. Copenhaver convinced him to give me an ‘audition’. After listening from his living room lounge chair, he offered me lessons with a condition. “You’re pretty good. I can help you get better, but you can’t afford me. I have a bad heart and am not supposed to do much hard work, so if you will mow my lawn, shovel my snow and do whatever else I need around the house, I will give you lessons UNTIL the day you show up here unprepared.” I have tried to pass that forward, but it is hard to find that level of commitment in the lives of super-busy teens. Mr. Roden died in the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire in 1976. There were @160 deaths. My dad was off duty, but at the fire helping fire fighters.
WM HARRY CLARKE was my college band director. The day I walked into the Fine Arts building for a visit, there was a music major at the door waiting for me, calling me by name and escorting me to meet Mr. Clarke. I learned a lot about conducting and rehearsal technique from him. One skill I never mastered was his ability to always remember names. We had a huge band and he knew everyone by name. That is powerful.
PHILLIP MILLER was my college orchestra director and clarinet professor. He was a good teacher, not such a good human. Other than telling me he had wasted four years of his life on me (when he found out I was an education vs performance major), the most memorable takeaway for me was that, just before I would walk on stage for a solo performance, his words to me were, “Make them stand up.”
Voila, the performance that got 50M views and kicked off her career at age 15.
Emma Kok,a 16-year-old singer from the Netherlands, has a chronic health condition – gastroparesis (paralyzed stomach), receiving nutrition through a feeding tube makingthis presentation even more emotionally powerful as she sings about her dream.
The original video got 50Mhits. This one (below) includes the English translation on screen.
btw …. get a box of tissues. Knowing her story and hearing her voice (and seeing audience and orchestra members reactions), well, as one reviewer said, “This broke me.”
Once you watch the video, you will have several options to hear others react. This reaction is from a professional opera singer:
In this video, she talks about being bullied because of her nutrition bag and because of her delayed growth.
She is currently on a World Tour with Andre Rieu and the Johann Strauss Orchestra.
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.
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.
I promised multiple stories. Here is Story #2. The first story is HERE.
I 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.
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.
According to the 4-digit serial number, my Selmer/Paris Series 10 clarinet was manufactured in 1967. In 1968, my hs band director told my mother I had to get one. Not optional. He might as well have told her I needed a Mercedes for my first car. Dad made me a 50/50 deal, and after selling lemonade to golfers and hanging ad papers on doors … I got it.
I used it all through hs. It got me Solo/Ensemble medals, traveled with me and Holmes Band to KMEA and MENC, to Murfreesboro, TN and Virginia Beach, VA…. to All-State Orchestra, to band clinic and select bands, to summer music camps at Eastern Kentucky and Morehead State Universities, and followed me to Europe/U.S.S.R. with the United States Collegiate Wind Band in the summer between hs and college. I had to replace it at UK bc the clarinet prof kept saying things like,
“That was awful. I can’t tell if it was you or that crappy clarinet.”
Anyway, I just opened packages of cleaning supplies, including swabs, key and bore oil, silver polish, swabs, disinfectant and more….. I want to see if it still has all the notes and speed it once did. Students have heard me talk about instruments with “speed buttons”.
Oh, working on my 1973-ish Buffet R-13 also. Both are considered “vintage” at this point.
The starfish story (not my original) is about someone trying to make a difference and I think of it periodically when I find myself trying to balance that healthy, professional detachment from the lives of individual students with the reality and significance of those lives and my desire to make a difference by being more than “just” a classroom teacher.
Working with students is not a life or death proposition, of course, but some seem to get washed up on the beach. Here’s the story and 10 ways to make a difference. Those 10 ways represent my core beliefs in teaching and working with teens.
The man was out for a walk on the beach when he noticed a boy frantically picking things up and throwing them into the ocean. Curious, he approached the boy to discover that he was picking up starfish that had washed up on to the beach — and was throwing them back into the water.
“Son, what are you doing?” the man asked.
“The tide is going out and these starfish got left behind. I’m throwing them back into the water to save them.”
“But son, there are hundreds of miles of beach. You can’t possibly make a difference.”
As the boy picked up another starfish, he threw it into the water and then turned and said to the man,
“I made a difference to THAT one.”
———————————
Teen years can be trying times. Parents may be fighting, separating, dating and remarrying, which means the teen now has to not only deal with a break up of a foundation in his/her life, but often now has to live in multiple households. Some have to adjust to step-siblings, job losses, financial struggles and more. Then, there are the complexities of school with seemingly unending pressures to perform, trying to get through the dating games, often without an anchor or example to follow. Influenced by increasingly negative social standards, or lack of standards….. teens can get caught in the rise and falling tides. Most learn how to negotiate life’s trying currents, but can turn the wrong way, make a miscalculation or poor decision — and find themselves high and dry on the beach…..and they need help. Not every student needs, wants or will accept a teacher’s help. Sometimes the teacher’s effort is both unappreciated and unsuccessful.
But try we must…because we CAN make a difference “to THAT one”.
Ten ways to make a difference:
Be real. You can’t fake it with teens, they will see right through you. If you can’t be real, you should not be there. Please leave education.
Be available. How easy is it for a teen to say to YOU, “Can I talk to you?”? What if it is not during class or immediately after school? In how many different ways are you available and do students know and understand that? Do they know if it is ok to email, call, text or instant message you? When a teen says they need to talk, somebody needs be available. Be that person. Consider your use of texting and social media.
Be there. Yes, you’re “on duty” at school. What about when a student is in the hospital, at the funeral home, pitching in the softball/baseball game, getting baptized, being awarded Eagle Scout status, or when their garage-type band is playing at the coffee shop? Take your spouse or your kids and just be where you can when you can. They will notice.
Trust them. If you want trust, you need to give some. I have a periodic discussion about trust, abusing it, losing it and the difficulty in earning it a second time. Read: “I WANT To Trust You“. Teens make mistakes and the trust area is one of those places where they can mess up. But help them learn. Take a reasonable chance. Yes, you’ll get burned some….but you will also empower leaders to rise up.
Respect them. There is a good chance they will recognize and return it.
Advocate for them. Of course you have students who are financially challenged and could benefit from music lessons, a better instrument, participation in a select ensemble or some other training. You won’t always succeed, but try to find funding to help. Call the employer to help him get that job. Write a letter to help her get that scholarship. Help them with college applications their parents can’t (or won’t).
Listen, really listen. Teens typically think that people don’t listen. They think adults are quick to lecture, criticize and correct, but are slow to listen. You don’t always have to have the answer. Sometimes there isn’t an obvious answer. Sometimes listening is the answer, because in allowing them to share, you enable them to find their own answer. Unless they are sharing something illegal, dangerous, hear them out. Don’t argue. Don’t interrupt. Don’t pre-judge. And when you can, share your wisdom, experience, expertise and advice.
Expect and Encourage Excellence. Students will complain when the load is heavy and the challenge is significant, but they know, even when they won’t admit, that achieving excellence requires work. They want to achieve and succeed. Being there for them doesn’t mean lowering your standards. Make them stretch. They’ll appreciate you eventually, even if not today.
Don’t assume. A question I ask often is, “You okay?” Simple question….and sometimes they shrug it off, but there have been many times for me that this gives them the opening to ask for help.
Don’t give up. It can be difficult, disappointing and even deflating when teens mess up. Don’t give up on them. That’s what the rest of society wants to do sometimes…. They will be disappointed that they disappointed you, but your unconditional support (not approving what they do) is vitally important to them.
This time of year can be stressful for those romantically attached, hoping to become, casually dating, good plutonic friends or single not by preference. I understand widowed or divorced, too…. but this post targets mostly high schoolers. If you have it all figured out, STOP HERE!
I have used this video multiple times in ensemble rehearsals. Really makes a strong point in the difference in expectation and excellence level in music. Please listen to all of it.
The original video got 50M
I was a music teacher in the system from 2005-2020 (retired). This happened during that time…not sure the year.
According to the 4-digit serial number, my Selmer/Paris Series 10 clarinet was manufactured in 1967. In 1968, my hs band director told my mother I had to get one. Not optional. He might as well have told her I needed a Mercedes for my first car. Dad made me a 50/50 deal, and after selling lemonade to golfers and hanging ad papers on doors … I got it.
Anyway, I just opened packages of cleaning supplies, including swabs, key and bore oil, silver polish, swabs, disinfectant and more….. I want to see if it still has all the notes and speed it once did. Students have heard me talk about instruments with “speed buttons”.
