Learning the Hard Way

Early in my career, a student came up to me after class to say she couldn't make Band Festival because she was going to her mom's for the weekend. We were performing in days.

She was a 7th grader and since this was her first time, I tried to impress on her how this is a different kind of performance, how important she was to the group (she was one out of three clarinets in a band just shy of 25), and went through some logistical options so that she could leave as soon as we completed our performance to go to her mom's. I also reminded her that our official date and performance time had been shared weeks before, the potential dates were shared in our calendar that came out months before, and that this was a required performance as part of her grade.

All of this was said in best "teacher explanation" voice I could muster so close to our performance date. No yelling. Not angry. She left smiling and seemed confident she could make some alterations to her schedule that would allow her to still perform. 

Shortly after our conversation, I got a phone call from her mom. I've had some unpleasant conversations with parents in my ten years. Some have left me shaken up. This was the only one that's made me cry.

This parent took my discussion with her daughter as being manipulative. She yelled. She questioned my integrity as not only a teacher, but as a person. She was angry that the school didn't send extra sets of everything to her because her ex didn't tell her anything. I barely got a few sentences in to try and explain. Nothing I said was going to change her mind though. Her daughter would not be attending the performance and made it very clear she didn't give a damn about whether I docked her grade.

It was written in the syllabus that performances were mandatory and that "legitimate non-emergency" excuses had to be submitted at least three weeks out from the performance. The policy was well-intentioned. It was what I'd grown up with. It was meant to prevent situations just like this where students had to adjust parts only days before a performance. But I hadn't yet figured out that saying "what's fair isn't always equal."

I'm ashamed to say that I lowered her grade. I tried to help by giving her a 50% instead of an outright 0, but that didn't make it feel any better. 

This encounter is the first thing that comes to mind every time the conversation about make up assignments for missed performances comes up. It's an almost weekly conversation on the Band Director's Facebook Group. The first suggestion to come up is usually an extensive writing assignment. Some offer no make up option at all and fail the student. Some get into details on syllabus wording and what's considered "excused" before determining if a student should have a make up opportunity at all.

It's true that a performance is not an experience that you can replicate for an individual student. But the make up should have something to do with performing. A long paper seems punitive far more than educational. And offering no make up at all fails to take into account that we teach kids. 

Kids whose schedules are at the discretion and mercy of their parents. Kids who just plain screw up and miss things. Kids who might be in high school but are pretty much raising themselves and their car breaks down. Kids whose families schedule vacations without checking the school/performance schedule. Kids whose families don't prioritize music and school like we feel it should be. And yes, kids whose parents use them as a tug of war rope in their relationship and custody issues. 

Students who miss performances play through their concert music for me on their own. Usually it's after school, but sometimes on their lunch. No rubric. They just play it straight down for full performance credit. That's it. Performance for a performance. Honestly, the awkwardness of the experience is enough to deter most kids from wanting to do it at all or again, even though I do try to make them comfortable before playing.

There are certainly times I'm frustrated by a student's absence and the issues it can cause for other kids. There are also times I question the "emergency" that comes up. But as a colleague once said, I'm not in the business of determining and debating what's "legitimate." There are other things to spend my energy on.

I've since left that district, and that student is probably close to graduating if not already in college. I wish I could apologize to her for how I handled the entire situation. But then I could tell her that the experience led me to change my entire approach to missed performances and has prevented a lot of students after her from being negatively impacted by my policies.

Teachers still need to learn and change. Even we  have to do it the hard way just like their students.

Summer Goals

Writing goals down for just me is making a to-do list. Writing them out and sharing them here though helps keep me accountable. With a couple of very relaxed and mostly (had to take care of some emails here and there) school free weeks under my belt and the Fourth of July past, it's time to start looking ahead in earnest.

• Spanish
• Over Spring Break I learned that my local library offers Rosetta Stone for FREE! I had a big ah-ha moment earlier in the school year when I asked students who spoke a second language. Almost two thirds of my class raised their hands! With a growing ELL population, I would really like to get at least some basic Spanish down, including learning some terminology specific to teaching band. My students speak many languages aside from Spanish, but I'm hoping this will help me connect to more kids and families. I'm hoping to complete a lesson or two per day for the rest of the summer and to find some music ed resources too. Once the school year starts, I can practice with my students.
• Level 1 Google Certification
• I love all things Google and would love to expand my knowledge base. I'm really hoping to complete this before I share about using Google Classroom at a Fine Arts conference in late August. It's not a requirement for my presentation or anything else, but that feels like a reasonable time frame in which to get it done and will also mean that it's completed before the school year starts.
• More Grading Revamping
• I still don't know where I'm going to go with it, but I need to do something about my grading. They have to get grades. I have to hear them play individually. I don't want to do participation points. I believe in retakes and no late penalties. But at last estimate there will be close to 280 students in the band program next year and I'll have around 240 of them, which is up from the 220 I was responsible for this last year. My friend summed it up nicely by saying that logistics are battling with philosophy. I've got some ideas bouncing around, but I'm still figuring out a better direction for both my kids and me.
• Exercising
• Not necessarily school related, but when I'm more physically active, I just feel better. Along with walking my dogs and going for bike rides, I've purchased some weights and a few exercise bands to get back to the routine I when I was doing physical therapy earlier this year.
• Reading
• Holy Cow! I forget how much I love reading until a break comes (or maybe I just don't let myself remember). During the school year, I generally doze off instantly once I get a chance to sit still and read. I've been alternating fiction with educational books and it's been a good balance so far and I'm hoping to keep at it right up until school starts again.

So there they are. Official Professional Development starts in seven weeks. The school year starts in eight. There will still be plenty of relaxing and recharging, but these are goals that will help me not only be a better teacher, but a better me.

What are some of your goals for the summer? Have some Spanish music ed resources? Got a great book recommendation? Discovered the secret to meaningfully grading a large number of students while maintaining your sanity? Please share!

Grading Grumbles

Help. I'm struggling. My grading is hurting (my students and me) more than it's helping. Something needs to change and I need to start planning for it now.

Here's where I am:

• I need to assess students individually to help them improve their musical development. As beginning and early musicians in mixed instrumentation classes of around 45, the best way I've found to do that is Google Classroom. Through Doctopus and Goobric, I grade with a rubric and try to give detailed feedback to help them progress.
• Students can take assessments as often as they choose (within the marking period) to earn a higher grade. They can also turn things in late as long as it's prior to the performance it's related to or before the end of the marking period. If they get better, the band gets better, even if it's at a slower rate.
• I've been trying to go more towards standards based grading while working in an A-E system. This has meant I've eliminated participation points (my thoughts on my Rehearsal Etiquette grading) and do not offer extra credit.
• I've gone from 12-14 assignments per marking period last year to 7-10 this year. This was in response to a few things:
• my inability to keep up with that many assignments, even if they were just credit/no credit
• a general consensus from parents and students that there was too much outside work assigned in band
• I'm very much on the "less is more" train when it comes to any and all homework. They have plenty homework in other classes and I don't think I should be adding to that just to pad grades. 
• I have weighting set up with three categories that are about 33% each (give or take depending on if there are performances that marking period). My hope was that some weighting would help balance out grades for those students whose playing isn't as strong but can demonstrate learning other ways.

Here are the issues:

• I'm constantly behind. I want kids to retry and turn things in even if they're late, but keeping on top of what's currently due for 220 students plus their late/redone entries is taking over my life. 
• With my weighting and just the small number of graded assignments, just one can have a big negative impact if a student does not do it. So even though their others may have gone fine, that one drags them down.
• Students do not take advantage of the retake system nearly as often as I'd like (even though I struggle to keep up with redone work). Many are capable of doing much better, but choose not to.
• We're still having a challenge with the idea that it's "just band" and that outside work is necessary for improvement. I don't think I'm requiring that much, but every marking period, I have students and families extremely unhappy with their band grade and even at the end of Year 9, angry emails/phone calls still turn my stomach. 
• We're in the very beginning to early stages of skill building for most of these students. Peer and self assessment can only take us so far because they're still learning a lot of the basics needed to move on. We spend a few weeks as a class on a scale or exercise before it's assigned as a test and do a lot of self assessing during that time. At some point though I have to hear them play on their own and give them feedback on how it's coming.

I want band to be enjoyable while still holding kids to high musical expectations. There is no gleeful cackling over kids getting low grades or even failing band. Mostly just a lot of second guessing as to how I can do things differently. I just don't know what else to do to keep things fair and also keep my sanity.

Does anyone have a middle school grading set up that they love? Something that keeps their students moving along, provides an accurate picture of their growth, but is fair enough that students aren't left disillusioned with band? 

Help.

Changing My Tune on "Rehearsal Etiquette"

Rehearsal Etiquette 20%

Students must be prepared for class (instrument, music, pencil, reeds, etc) in order to participate fully and be a productive member of the ensemble.  Tardiness and improper behavior disrupts rehearsal. Students will earn daily points toward this portion of their grade.

This is a part of my grading criteria for 6th Grade Band. It says the same thing for my 7th and 8th Graders too. The only difference is the percentage. Over the years it's dropped down from 40%. I had good intentions with it. As a young teacher, my first groups really tested my abilities and I wanted to tie a consequence to constant rehearsal disruptions. As students and I got to know each other over time, poor behavioral choices decreased, so did my percentage.

Fast forward to this school year. I kept Rehearsal Etiquette as part of my grade criteria but it's time to remove it due to three things:

1. Logistically it's much harder to keep up with for 210 students than it was for 80.
2. There is a built-in behavioral component to their report card that is unrelated to their class grade and has actual rewards and consequences.
3. (here's the big one) The only time I find myself remembering to enter the Etiquette grade for the day is when something negative happened.

Because it it my first year in a new building, I'm encountering some of the same challenges I did as a brand new teacher. With more experience under my belt though, I know that many of those challenges will decrease as I build relationships with my new students. Additionally, if I follow through with the Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports model that our school uses (and I'm a member of the PBIS team), I need to do a better job of teaching proper rehearsal etiquette rather than punishing when it is poor.

It's taken a while to change my thinking, and now that I have, it is only fair to my students to continue to change my system.