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CJ Replay: Teaching Adolescents with a Holistic Perspective

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The October 2016 issue of Choral Journal features an article titled “Keeping the Glass Half Full: Teaching Adolescents with a Holistic Perspective” by Bridget Sweet. You can read it in its entirety online at acda.org/choraljournal. Click “Search Archives” and choose October 2016 from the dropdown menu.

Below is an excerpt from the article.
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“When describing the young adolescent, floods of words come to mind. Unpredictable. 

Emotional.

Hilarious.

Moody. 

Angsty.

Perhaps, however, the word “individual” is the most appropriate, because each adolescent is unique and progresses through adolescence in his or her own way. It is for all of these reasons–and many more–that educators enjoy working with adolescents so much. This paper comprises two main sections. The first addresses emotion and physical development, which are two key adolescent characteristics commonly encountered in the choral classroom; the second concerns puberty and adolescent voice change.”

Emotion
In my work with adolescent singers, I have found them to be smart, clever, hardworking, and extremely loyal once you get them on your side. Because these students truly straddle both child and adult worlds, however, identity navigation and decision-making are not always accomplished in the most sophisticated ways. As a result, general public perspective of adolescents is one of deficit, anguish, unpredictability, and irrational behavior. Fueling the stereotype are adolescent emotions, which have a tendency to run high and fluctuate often.

Many of our choral students will experience difficulties during adolescence, but we can choose to focus on this population with a “glass half full” attitude and remain resolute that “‘Storm and stress’ is not a universal experience of early adolescence. Some individuals are (or seem to be) well adjusted.”1

Attempts to control or direct adolescent emotion in the choral classroom are as pointless as trying to prevent the ocean from crashing against the shore. However, through acknowledgment of adolescents’ emotional fluctuation—embracing it, even—our work as choral music educators can be less burdened. When students seem emotional or angry, there are only benefits in honoring what students are experiencing, even if we (as adults) find the reason for their despair to seem a bit trite. A simple, nonjudgmental comment such as, “I am so sorry that you are feeling this way,” can go a long way with adolescent students who crave validation and belonging.2

  1. Thomas A. Regelski, Teaching General Music in Grades 4–8 (New York: Oxford University, 2004).
  2. Ian McMahan, Adolescence (New Jersey: Pearson, 2008), 185.

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Read the rest of this article (and more!) in the October 2016 issue of Choral Journal, available online at acda.org.

Off The Podium: What Your Students Will Remember, Part 1

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At some point early in my teaching career someone told me:

They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.

…or something like that. I don’t remember who said it or when, honestly. Someone might have quoted it at a faculty meeting, or as part of a motivational speech at a workshop or professional development training, or I might have read it in a book or article. Various paraphrases of this proverb exist, purportedly from a number of people including the great Maya Angelou, but the wisdom of the internet currently attributes the first known utterance of this quote to a Mormon official named Carl W. Buehner.

It doesn’t matter who said it. This idea arrived on the scene for me early in my career, and made me begin to seriously consider: what would ultimately be the impact I made on my students? What would the experience they had in my classes, in my program, have on the rest of their lives? What would they remember?

When envisioning the impact I wished our work together to have on my students, it was clear that although the most obvious content of this work was musical skills and knowledge, very few of them would go on to careers where they would use these things directly – in other words, very few would become professional musicians.

Of course, I wished for my students and ensembles to make great progress, and to perform at ever higher standards of accomplishment. But in the end, this accomplishment – whatever skill level or knowledge they attained – would not be the most important thing they took away from their time in my program.

I began to try to look consistently at what I was doing – the curriculum, my approach to classroom management, the activities of my classes and ensembles and how they engaged the school community – from the standpoint of what would be the ultimate legacy of my program on these students. What would they actually remember?

Creating Community

Music teachers have a unique position in the school environment in that our content area –  an art form – is often more focused on and concerned with the emotional aspects of being human than other subjects children study in school. Children (and adults) crave the acknowledgment of this dimension of their lives, and the means to express and understand it.

Added to this situation is the fact that (in most public schools at least) music classes are not required, but are electives chosen by those who participate – in most cases for emotional reasons. The music class becomes a kind of refuge for these students. In some cases, it is the one class among all the classes they attend each day in which students feel safe, welcome, and part of something they cherish.

If they feel this way about being in your class, they will remember it.

Chinese New Year parade at Blue Rock School, West Nyack, New York, 1992 (click images to enlarge)

Ultimately, creating a nurturing environment is the long term project of cultivating a micro-community. At the beginning of my career, when I taught in small private elementary and middle schools, this community would embrace the entire school population – students, teachers, and often many parents. Later, when I taught at a larger, public school, this community consisted for the most part of students in my program, and sometimes even only those in certain, more dedicated classes.

Often, arts teachers are among the few teachers that students work with for several consecutive years. As they grow and mature and advance through the grades, students’ academic teachers change, but arts teachers often remain the same, providing a unique opportunity for students to build stronger, more fruitful and abiding relationships with these teachers.

Whatever the case, for many students – especially in elementary school – the community atmosphere you create and nurture may be the first experience of community outside their families. It can be a big responsibility for the music teacher, who finds herself in the position of needing to balance providing a nurturing environment with presenting a challenging and fulfilling curriculum.

They will remember when you are negative

One of the first things that became crystal clear to me is that students will remember your negative manifestations. In the short term, negative behavior on the part of the teacher – sarcasm, anger, frustration, impatience – even the expression of anxiety or worry – will create negative impressions that will hinder the productivity of your time together.

In the long term, if you have a habit of these kinds of behaviors, they will color everything your students remember about you, and in some cases may even affect the way they feel about making music. Every music teacher has heard stories about music teachers who made a negative impact on a student – many of us have even had teachers like this. I have personally met many adults who related to me that they studied this or that instrument as a child, but had “a bad experience” with a teacher, and ultimately abandoned their music studies.

At the very least, creating negative impressions in the classroom is to be avoided as much as possible. This is easier said than done, as teachers are human after all, and managing rooms full of children by yourself all day long for weeks, months, and years can wear down anyone’s patience – not to mention the host of pressures that assault teachers (and adults in general) from outside the classroom.

But it can be done. The music classroom can become a refuge not only for the students, but also for the teacher. In a positive, emotionally safe classroom environment, with clear expectations for behavior and the work of the class or rehearsal, the time you spend in class can bring you as much satisfaction and renewal as it does for your students. Having clear positive guidelines for behavior like the Four Practices (instead of, or at least in addition to a list of rules banning negative behaviors) can go a long way towards creating this environment, especially if you refer to them often and model them yourself.

Don’t forget to model Wholehearted Attention yourself, even as you demand it from your students – for your own sake as much as theirs. Focused immersion in the act of making music with your students can be as much of a solace and renewal for you as it is for the students in your care.

©2017 Walter Bitner

This article is concluded in What Your Students Will Remember, Part 2.

 

Walter Bitner is a multi-instrumentalist, singer, conductor, and teacher, and serves as Director of Education & Community Engagement for the Richmond Symphony in Richmond, Virginia. His column Off The Podium is featured in Choral Director magazine, and he writes about music and education on his website Off The Podium at walterbitner.com.

Off The Podium: Wholehearted Attention

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ChoralNet is delighted to welcome veteran music educator Walter Bitner to our roster of weekly bloggers. His posts will focus on music education, and choral music education in particular. We hope you will enjoy this new series, and invite you to post comments and reflections.

Grannis Photography
Grannis Photography

Music teachers in school settings often feel a sense of isolation from the activities happening in other classrooms, and a lack of understanding on the part of other teachers and administrators about what it is, exactly, that music teachers teach.  There are striking differences in the way teaching and learning happens in the music classroom when compared to the activities happening in other classes.  In the current standards-obsessed education climate, appropriate musical activity in the classroom faces real obstacles in being appreciated, understood, and ultimately funded, because it resists being reduced to a checklist of objectives.

Which is not to say that there are not discrete objectives for a music teacher to impart to his or her students – quite the opposite, in fact.  Music-making is such a complex activity that the act of separating all the components that go into it into easily assessed bytes of information ultimately leaves out essential aspects of what it is really about, presenting an incomplete picture at best, and at worst, a distorted view of the purpose and value of musical activity.

And it’s true that there is a vast amount of both knowledge and skills for a music student to assimilate.  An accomplished musician is expected to have a systematic knowledge and set of abilities in regards to music generally and to their chosen discipline specifically (i.e. technical proficiency on an instrument/voice and mastery of a complex notation system, working knowledge of music theory, history, repertoire, etc.) as well as the ability to apply these skills to varying social circumstances. To be successful, a musician must develop a secure understanding of the rehearsal and performance process both in regards to their own abilities and psychology and in the context of the conventions of making music with others.

Much of the content a musician must master is traditionally presented sequentially out of necessity – as in other academic disciplines like mathematics, many musical concepts build upon previous knowledge, and these are the aspects which lend themselves most easily to academic means of assessment, and to codification as standards.

But this is only part of what a music teacher does in the classroom, in rehearsal, and what music students learn and experience.

Music plays a unique and important place in our culture and an understanding and appreciation of music is a hallmark of the educated person.  Beyond the content of the music curriculum however, there is something fundamentally different about the process of music-making from the way most other subjects are taught in school that is of immense value to the successful education of dynamic, flexible, and responsive individuals.  Students who sing in choir or play in band or orchestra must simultaneously perform a complex set of operations that call on more aspects of the human being than any other activity they face in school.  All at once, they must:

  • Maintain awareness of the physical body, holding a specific posture(s) and performing precise physical techniques to produce sound either with the voice (the breath) or on an instrument (the breath and/or hands and in some cases other parts of the body).
  • Listen: not just to a single object of the attention (e.g. a teacher’s or classmate’s voice), but to the sound they are producing themselves and what those in the ensemble around them are doing (often many different parts or sections of the ensemble doing different things all at once) – constantly adjusting their performance in response to what they hear.
  • With the eyes, interpret visual cues from the director to align their efforts with those of everyone else in the ensemble – constantly adjusting their performance in response to what they see.
  • With the eyes, read and interpret a complex notation system (that they are in the process of learning to understand) that describes what they are to play in real time.
  • Negotiate their own emotional responses to the experience – this can be complex in itself, consisting of multiple layers including response to social experience (subordinating ego to the needs of the ensemble), artistic/intellectual/spiritual response to the music itself, and emotions provoked by the constant process of evaluation, criticism, and the attempt to improve performance that is the daily grind of the rehearsal process.
Grannis Photography
Grannis Photography

The concentration required to do all of this at once is formidable, and the only other activities a child participates in in school that come close to this level of complexity are in other performing arts: dance and theatre.  At its best, musical performance demands a wholehearted attention from the participant, a complete absorption in the moment in which all other thoughts and concerns disappear.  The development of the ability to sustain this wholehearted attention takes time and effort for students, and careful cultivation of the learning environment on the part of the teacher.  Repertoire must be chosen carefully to present the right challenges for the ever-changing capacities of students, and be artistically worthy of this kind of effort.  And the teacher must exhibit this wholehearted attention herself in her work in the classroom, consistently modeling a kind of behavior with which the students may not be familiar, as it is not required of them in the other learning environments they are exposed to.  Ultimately, as any fine musician learns, this is the way – the only way to do this difficult work well is to do it with wholehearted attention.

My experience as a teacher taught me that – for the vast majority of my students – this kind of effort was something they valued tremendously.  Children wish for the opportunity to rise to the demand placed on them in a musical ensemble, to put forth their very best effort right now, in this moment, in making something special happen that is beyond what any one of them could accomplish individually.  Participating daily in an activity that required their wholehearted attention brought them a respite from the worries of the day, and the music classroom became a place of refuge and renewal.

Musical considerations aside, teaching a child to make a consistent effort to put everything she has into what she is doing right now has the potential for great impact on the kind of people our students will become.  In our ever more distracted world, with so many stimuli vying for our attention, the ability to concentrate completely on the present moment seems to be in danger of becoming a scarce commodity.  Yet the implications of teaching a child to do this in even one facet of their lives sets an example for how one could live differently.

A child who has learned to apply wholehearted attention to one part of life may be able to apply it to other moments when the practice of this kind of attention can have a great impact on themselves and others – when she is faced with difficult emotional or social circumstances, the death of a loved one, or the needs of her own child some day.  But even in small ways, this practice of attending to the present moment with all of one’s faculties can bring an experience of freedom, wholeness, and connection to others and the world that is vitally different from the stressed, distracted, multi-tasking state many of us find ourselves in too much of the time.

We have all heard and used the common expression “pay attention” but in fact, attention is not a payment, it is a gift.  Teaching students to give this gift to their own lives may in the end be the music teacher’s greatest legacy, and the most important thing that students learn in rehearsal and performance, regardless of whether or not they continue to make music as adults.

©2015 Walter Bitner

Walter Bitner is a multi-instrumentalist, singer, conductor, and teacher, and serves as Director of Education & Community Engagement for the Richmond Symphony in Richmond, Virginia. His column Off The Podium is featured in Choral Director magazine, and he writes about music and education on his website Off The Podium at walterbitner.com.

Reflections from a First-Year Educator, by Christina Nelson

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At the time of writing this, I have not yet completed my first full year of teaching. However, I have already learned a lot in the first semester. I arrived at my school mid-year and was both nervous and excited. My day consisted of five classes; 7th and 8th grade beginning tenor/bass choir; two 7th grade beginning soprano/alto classes (that would combine during performances); 8th grade intermediate soprano/alto choir; and 9th grade concert choir (SATB). I wanted to make beautiful music, teach students about vocal technique, and develop a strong and positive culture in each class. Little did I realize the impact that the previous sentence would have on my teaching when I stated and thought about my goals in that order.

Christina Nelson

While at the ACDA national conference in Kansas City I participated in a session entitled Developing Community Through the Choral Rehearsal, led by Randall Bradley of Baylor University. He said something that made me change the way I had been teaching: “Use music to make people instead of people to make music” [emphasis mine]. I realized at that moment that I had been so busy thinking about the technical aspects of choral music and education, I had forgotten why I fell in love with this beautiful and intimate art in the first place, and the real reason I wanted to become a choir director. I realized that I was trying to teach my junior high kids as advanced high school or collegiate students and that was obviously not working. When I returned home after conference, I began consciously treating music more as a tool and stepping out of my “college student mode.” I was reminded that while music is certainly important, so are my kids as human beings. I started doing “Circle Time” with my classes and spent a few moments with my classes asking my students to “Tell Me Something Good” about their day or weekend.

One day, when my 7th grade girls came in upset with each other for something, I asked each student to compliment someone else in the class. We went around the circle and students raised their hands to compliment others. Afterward, the girls were getting along and rehearsal ran more smoothly. A few days later, a student shared some rough things that had been happening at home and started crying. Before I could say anything, another girl raised her hand saying, “Ms. Nelson, can we compliment each other today?” The other girls voiced their agreement and of course I said yes. As they complimented this girl and told her how amazing she was and why (when we compliment, we go beyond appearances), I realized that my 7th graders loved complimenting each other and that brought tears to my eyes. Over the next few days, I realized that each class was coming to thoroughly enjoy complimenting each other when their initial reactions had not been quite as enthusiastic.

Not only do our students need to see that we are human, we need to remember that they are also humans who have a lot going on their lives as well. By taking the time to build relationships during rehearsals, my students and I grew closer as a team and they became excited to be with each other. Our rehearsals became more productive and we ended up performing some tough repertoire at our final concert in June. Sure, there were rough days, but what educator doesn’t have rough days? And how often is it a rough day versus a rough few minutes or a rough class period? The trick is to focus on the positive moments. Allow those moments to propel you forward: To see their eyes light up when they conquer a difficult passage, when a student who walked into class upset leaves with a smile on their face, or when the entire class leaves the room singing and doesn’t stop till they are almost to their next class. These are just a few of the positive moments that I have experienced. Of the many things I have learned in six months of teaching, using music as a tool to build relationships is at the top of the list.

“Use music to make people instead of people to make music.”

Christina Ruth Nelson graduated from Pacific Lutheran University (PLU) in December 2018 with a bachelor of music education degree, with a concentration in secondary choral education. She completed her studies under the direction of Dr. Richard Nance and Dr. Brian Galante and also served as assistant conductor of PLU’s advanced soprano/alto ensemble, University Singers, during her senior year. She completed her student teaching at Graham-Kapowsin High School with Mr. Jason Saunders and has recently finished her first semester of teaching at Stahl Junior High School in Puyallup, WA.

Are you a choral educator who has something to share? You are invited to write a blog post and submit it to us for publishing consideration. Send a draft to .

Relationships: Their Power and Importance

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The May 2018 issue of Choral Journal includes a short article on the importance of relationships, specifically within the choral music classroom. Written by Jason Sickel, 2017 Kansas State Teacher of the Year, the author writes that “school choir directors are in a unique position since many of our students enroll in our choirs for multiple years. We have the ability to build strong and lasting relationships with students and colleagues.” This article presents ideas, tools, and activities that “might promote a culture of caring and an attitude of mutual respect and trust.”

An excerpt from the article is below:

There are two foundational practices that I incorporate from day one of the school year and challenge myself to continue throughout the year:
• Greet every student at the door for at least the first two weeks.
• Learn every student’s name as quickly as possible.

While both seem logical and almost cliché, it is true that students will never feel validated, accepted, and respected if you don’t call them by their first name after the first week of school. We communicate indifference and a lack of concern if we don’t learn names quickly. Greeting students at our classroom door sends a welcoming message and also allows teachers to get a visual reading on each student and assess how his or her overall mood might be.

Is it difficult to be at your door when you have just finished a class and the next one is about to begin? Absolutely! I find that I must stay quite well organized to ensure that each choir’s music is in order and my warm-up exercises are posted on the projection screen.

Although my evidence is anecdotal, I can tell you that when I do miss greeting the students at the door, the class seems to take longer to settle and get focused.

Here are other important aspects of my relationship-building process:
• Positive phone calls home. I find that if I don’t set a reminder on my e-mail or my cell phone, these calls don’t happen. I also find that when I do make a call, the result is so positive and uplifting for me that I want to call more students than I had planned! I also love it when students come back to school and tell me that they were very excited to hear that their parents had received a positive phone call from me. The ripple effect of this simple two-minute phone conversation can have lasting effects.
• The choir room is A SAFE PLACE. It has to be. End of story. Singing is one of the most vulnerable things we do. It is deeply personal, and it is inherently a part of our core being. Adolescents who sing with their peers must understand that no matter what sound emanates from their mouths, they, the student, are normal, accepted, and valued as a member of our ensemble.

Read the rest of this article from Jason Sickel in the May 2018 issue of Choral Journal here!
Note: you must be an ACDA member to read the Choral Journal. If you are not already a member of ACDA, join today! Associate members can join for only $45 a year and receive access to the Choral Journal online and other ACDA benefits.

3 Creative Ways to Motivate Your K-12 Choir

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Conducting a children’s choral group can be both energizing and exhausting at the same time. On one hand, your students LOVE to sing! On the other hand, it can be hard to get them to focus when it’s rehearsal time.

Leading a children’s choir successfully requires you to get creative in the way you keep your students motivated, so here are three tips and tools to get your group excited about music.

3 Ways to Motivate Your K-12 Choir

Add Creativity to Your Warm Ups

Don’t just stick to the old-fashioned scales and triads when warming up young voices. Turn that major scale into some phrases with words – don’t be afraid to get silly. Better still, encourage your students to create their own and share with the rest of the group.

A good book to find more inspiration is Vocalize! by choral director Andy Beck. A playful warm up will always set the tone for a productive rehearsal.

Get Students Moving

It goes without saying that children have short attention spans and easily get bored. But this isn’t math class – so get them moving! Have a break mid-rehearsal where you incorporate a simple theatre game or two. There are countless books that offer simple games that your singers will beg to do in future rehearsals!

These games are centered around valuable performance skills, such as listening, focus, and improvisation. One excellent resource that many students enjoy is 101 Improv Games for Children and Adults by Bob Bedore.

Take Advantage of Technology

It’s important that music instructors take advantage of the latest technologies to make learning more fun in rehearsals. Try an app such as Loopy to find new ways to spice up your usual repertoire.

Another excellent way to get your older students inspired is to watch a motivational TED talk together. Check out choral conductor Eric Whitacre’s TED talk on YouTube. His ideas are taking choral performances to the next level, especially with his virtual choirs!

Make good use of these resources with your group of young singers, and you’re bound to get them excited about coming to choir. Thinking outside the box will not only encourage their creativity, but it will also make your job much more rewarding.

Do you have any more ideas of ways to keep your choir students motivated? Let us know in the comments section below.

This article was contributed by Molly McLinden from TakeLessons, a platform for local and online singing lessons. Molly is a choir, opera, and classical singing teacher. She’s been an instructor since 2002 and thoroughly enjoys working with students of all ages and backgrounds. 

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