Public Schools

Puppy Dogs and Clarinets

By John Gardner

white labrador retriever puppy dogThere is a sales technique called the “Puppy Dog” close. It gets is name from the puppy dog at the pet shop scenario:

A mother and young child go into a pet store to buy a dog. They find one, but mamma says it is too expensive.

The wise sales clerk invites the mother and child to take the puppy home for the night….with the offer to bring it back the next day if they don’t think it is worth the price.

They will NOT likely bring the puppy back.

I fell for that sales close with a car once. My wife wasn’t with me when I stopped on the lot (intentional, so I had a way out of a pressure sales situation). The smart salesperson invited me to drive the car home to show her. SOLD!


Classic music Sax tenor saxophone and clarinet in blackI used the “Puppy Dog” approach with a clarinet student (I will call her Sally). The first time I heard her play was in a middle school concert. I didn’t know Sally, but I noticed her. It was 2-3 yrs later when I convinced her parents to let her study privately with me. She had incredible musicianship but was hindered by a mediocre instrument.

When I would ask about a step up instrument, she always responded about how busy her parents were. Knowing her father’s occupation, I knew PRICE was NOT the issue.

The music dealer let me borrow a top of the line clarinet for a day, with return privilege that I was not expecting to utilize.

I took the clarinet to Sally’s band rehearsal at the high school, instructing her to play it in the rehearsal and then to take it home that night to practice with at home and either return the clarinet or payment the next day. She handed me the check for payment in full.


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Is it ever ok for a teacher to LOVE students?

There is more to school life than what happens during the academic day. Some academic teachers are also coaches or extracurricular sponsors. Coaches develop strong bonds with their athletes. Music and theater arts teachers spend considerable extracurricular time with students – evenings, weekends, summers. These teacher/student relationships are significant and life long impacting.

Is it ever ok for a teacher to LOVE students?

In a reunion with some of the students from my first teaching job, as they were sharing memories, one person put it this way:

“Come back to teach the students of the students you taught.”

I expected to hear some of the heart-warming stories and did, but one comment caught me off guard a little. As one was listing attributes he appreciated, he included…..

“…and your smile.”

What teachers do you remember most 10-20-30 years out, and for what do you remember them?

Band is the ultimate team.

Unlike a basketball team with its starting five, there is no bench in band. Everybody is in. Everybody is a starter. Few other types of groups will involve people from such varied backgrounds. There are children of doctors and lawyers performing with children of single-parents working multiple jobs or utilizing government help. There are the students who have their own cars and those who need rides, those with the iPhones and the free phones or no phone. You will find students in most bands from every church in the community and others who have never been inside a church.

High school provides a memorable time for teens and parents to be on the same team before graduation and the empty nest.

If only it were like that for all teens.

At this most critical time in their decision-making years, if teens can’t find love, acceptance, encouragement and support from parents, teachers and mentors, they will search for it elsewhere, often with disastrous results leaving them with consequences that change lives and crush dreams.

But even more than TEAM, band is FAMILY…

Most high school athletic teams are together for a “season” — maybe six weeks with a few more for preparation. Band meets in the summer, including band camp which can be 8+hours a day. Then there is every day at school with additional rehearsals in the evenings, plus the Friday football/basketball game and the Saturday competition.

…and more functional than some.

As I stood outside Door 34, she jumped out of the passenger side of the car and ran past me, teary-eyed, crying,

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

As she went by I saw the papa, for the first time, approaching me and angrily waving a piece of paper.

“How much of this schedule is mandatory?”

I paused, if only for a moment as I thought through his reaction to my answer…

“All of it.”

After grumbling something that I probably couldn’t repeat, he returned to the car and didn’t quite lay rubber in his exit. The daughter was waiting in my office, still crying and apologetic. I hugged her. How does such a sweet daughter have a parent like that?

There are loving parents who are working 2-3 jobs each, going to school and dealing with the challenges of large families – and it is somewhere between difficult and impossible for them to spend a lot of time at football games, parades and competitions. I get that. But what do you say to this parent?

“We need to pull [Benjamin] out of band because he won’t clean his room and he needs to learn respect. He loves band and so this is the only valuable thing we can take away to make our point.”

Or this one?

“Why should I pay money for her to spend time spinning a flag. There are no colleges that will offer scholarships and besides, what job is that going to prepare her for?”

Or to these students?

“Can you please give me something to do. I’ll straighten the library….anything….just don’t make me go home.”

“I have a job so I can earn the money for my band fee, and I keep hiding it, but my mother keeps finding it and taking it.”

“I have to quit music lessons. My dad found out I was using some of my job money for music lessons and says that if I am going to waste my money on that – I can start paying rent.”

“Please don’t try to introduce yourself to my dad. Please don’t. Please, please, please don’t. He is not a nice man.”

I want to share the LOVE they may be missing.

Educationally, the L-word is dangerous. Administrations encourage admiration and respect, but love is conspicuously absent. Understandable. Inappropriate teacher student relationships make national news and destroy lives. Elementary teachers can hug students, but by middle school it is to be a touchless relationship. I disagree.

Sometimes an appropriate touch, handshake, high five, tap on the shoulder or even a hug – can be powerfully effective in mentoring, consoling or encouraging. It doesn’t have to be physical. It can be listening and responding when others won’t.

C.S. Lewis in his book, The Four Loves, divides the Greek vocabulary for “love” into four categories:  Storge (στοργή storgē) -affection, Philia (Philia (φιλία philía) – friendship, Éros (ἔρως érōs– romantic love, and Agápe (ἀγάπη agápē) – charity.

None of those match completely what I’m trying to define. Storge (affection) can include the physical. Philia (i.e. Philadelphia – brotherly love) comes close but can include the sexual. Éros is obviously not appropriate, and Agápe, often interpreted as the love between Christians is also close, but gets into spiritual and that is not quite it either.

I “L” my students with a parental type. I see their potential and their youthful enthusiasm and I love that. I love their willingness to share with me things that they can’t comfortably share anywhere else.

“You are always the one to trust with issues like this because you treat us like people and not just another bunch of “teenagers”.”

ADMIRE students who…

  • pay band fees out of a paycheck
  • pay for private instruction lessons out-of-pocket
  • seem completely self-supporting (clothes, obligations)
  • apologize for the way their parent(s) behaved
  • juggle the extra rehearsals and activities with job and homework — and go for the best grades without parental encouragement or expectation
  • keep a positive attitude when others have parents involved and but they don’t

Nobody said life is fair. Those who endure hardships can be the better for it later. Trust me on that. As the oldest of five children raised in a single parent family by a polio surviving mother (and if you have no idea what that means, thank God), I understand poverty, but also how to work through it, with it, around it, and above it …. so cut me some slack when I don’t expect less from the less fortunate.

Students often impress me with friend choices and for the way they support and encourage each other. It is moving to see how friends and band members surround one who is hurting, physically or emotionally. With proper relationships established, teachers can be included in, or involved separately in similar support and encouragement – even of some personal issues.

RESPECT students …

  • who work through moderate pain or discomfort without complaint
  • who have the musical ability to thrive, but can’t get the new instrument, or the private lessons, or go to the summer camps….or even stay in band, because of a parent who doesn’t see the value of band or color guard
  • expect more of themselves than their parents do
  • endure custody battles and try not to allow it to interfere with band

I hope these students appreciate how hard I try to make their situations work out.

And we have students whose parents are their biggest cheerleaders and amazing supporters…..

  • helping them earn the highest of Boy or Girl Scout honors
  • supporting their garage band
  • encouraging out of country mission trips
  • inspiring them to pursue the same vocation as the parent
  • or spending countless hours volunteering for band (committees, sewing, cooking, feeding, chaperoning, driving, etc)

We have CARING students who….

  • stand outside Wal-mart when it is below freezing to ring bells and play Salvation Army brass ensemble music
  • volunteer in nursing homes and with church youth groups in a host of different types of volunteerism
  • help raise money for those sick and injured

I am a retired high school teacher who appropriately loves, admires, and respects students.

Teacher Student Love

 

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17 signs you teach in a factory school

I attended “10th District” Elementary School and an inner-city, public Jr/Sr High School that had three, 4-floor buildings. Then I went to a 40,000 student state-subsidized University and recently retired from a 1400-student public high school.

Four factors contributed to my writing this post, designed as an introduction.

1. The first reference I recall to anything related to “factory education” was in a meeting between administration/school board and a group of concerned high school parents challenging the predicted negative impact of a schedule change on their audition-based ensemble. Responding to a passionate presentation, an administrative representative boasted,

We’re not here to teach the elite,
we’re hear to teach the masses. 

2. A grad school professor at Ball State criticized “factory education” and emphasized the need to redesign the model and move away from mass production.

3. A colleague at my high school who was in on the planning and there when the doors opened, described how the building was designed like a factory — with the offices in the front and the different department modules.

4. My sons are involved with some non-factory setup educational models (a Classical Christian Academy, a School of Performing Arts, and a Boston area boarding school) and I look forward to utilizing what I learn from their experiences to help me (and you) understand why public schools are sometimes referred to as factory models of education, or education factories cranking out graduates the way assembly lines crank out cars.

The modern assembly line

Henry Ford revolutionized the concept of the modern mass-production factory in the early 20th century when he developed the concept of a revolutionary new process using skilled workers in specialized areas where the workers were stationary and the product parts were assembled as they moved from branch lines to the mainline where the final product was assembled and completed when it reached the end of the line. Prior to that, groups of individuals moved around a stationary vehicle. His approach was all about dividing the labor to speed up the line to produce more product efficiently. The person who inserted the screw was not the one who tightened it, for example. Every worker had a small part in the production until the completed product reached the end of the line.

Looking at these satellite views and floor plans, can you tell which are high schools and which are factories? I’ll share more points following the pictures.

Indiana High School
Indiana High School
General Motors Assembly in Fort Wayne, Indiana
General Motors Assembly in Fort Wayne, Indiana
Floor Plan A
Floor Plan A
Floor Plan B
Floor Plan B
Floor Plan C
Floor Plan C
Floor Plan D
Floor Plan D

Two of the above floor plans are high schools and two are factories. Can you tell which is which? I’ll give the answer below.

Indications that you might be in a factory school.

Factory-vs-School

In the above floor plans, A & D are schools while B & C are factories.

I was trained in public schools and universities. My sons experienced public education through high school. One went on to a public university, is currently attending a private graduate institution, plus involved in a private School of Performing Arts and a Classical Christian Academy. The other son went to a private, top-tier undergraduate university, an Ivy-League graduate school and will be teaching in an elite boarding school outside Boston as a high school professor with his Ph.D.

A few of the questions I hope to address in future posts:

  1. Given today’s circumstances vs those in the ’80s when my children entered school, would I repeat the path of public education or go a different route?
  2. What are some of the differences in the approach of the top-tier universities and elite boarding schools? Should you?
  3. Is it really all about the money, i.e. can those with the means really get a better education?
  4. Are there multiple worlds of education?
  5. Is life fair?
  6. What options do we have?

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