We had it all figured out.
Diana was going to do some work in the morning, while I took Ollie grocery shopping with me. Then Ollie would take his nap after lunch and I would get some time to do some work. After he woke up from his nap, Diana would watch him so I could do some chores around the house. Finally in the evening we would spend time as a family.
It was the perfect plan for a Sunday.
Usually Ollie takes his afternoon naps around 12:30, so I figured I had plenty of time to get to the grocery store as we left the house around 11am. As we pulled into the parking lot I looked at Ollie through the car seat mirror that reflected into my rear-view mirror and saw that Ollie had fallen asleep.
Ollie isn’t one of those babies that falls asleep as soon as he hits the car seat. Most of the time he stays awake when riding in the car unless its late at night or after an outing like going to the children’s museum.
As I opened the back seat door I figured that he would get up on his own as I picked him up, which he usually does in situations like this. I didn’t want to forcefully wake him up so I carried him carefully into the grocery store.
Ollie didn’t wake up as we entered the bustling grocery store. He didn’t wake up as we walked down the aisle. He stayed asleep as I picked up a couple things and checked out.
As I put him back into the car and felt the tension release from my arm, Ollie still remained asleep.
I had a choice. I could get the second grocery store as planned or head home and try to get Ollie to sleep in his own crib. The timing of the nap was off since he feel asleep before he ate lunch, which would probably mean his nap wouldn’t be as long, so it might make sense to wake him up and keep him moving. But then again, he was SO tired and Ollie taking a nap now would screw up our day’s plan.
I texted Diana and we agreed that if he was this tired, we should really get him home and scrap our plans for the day.
The day turned out fine, somehow we got all our work done and Ollie got his nap in. No, the day didn’t go as planned but’s okay. The longer you become a parent, the less value you put in “things going as planned." You plan things in life to help organize your priorities, not to create a cage that limits your ability to respond to the needs of the people around you.
The day didn't go as planned but it was still a good day and there's something so adorable about carrying a toddler around a grocery store that is THAT tired.
Monday, November 17, 2014
Friday, November 14, 2014
Year 5: Week 11 – Letting Go Of The Ones I Let Down
I consider myself a pretty good teacher but I’m not really confident about how I rank up with my peers. One thing I am sure of is the fact that I am a much better teacher than I was when I first started almost a decade ago.
My instincts for how to handle situations are much sharper now, I am far more productive during my prep time and I am more responsive to my students. I teach with more confidence because I am more sure of who I am as a person and I am able to navigate politics now whereas in my early years, I felt completely inadequate in this area of teaching.
Many times, my improvements as a teacher make me feel proud but other times I feel guilty.
In my first month of teaching high school band, two seniors dropped my band class. These were two great boys who had been in band since fifth grade and my class just wasn’t as fulfilling as their previous experiences.
During my first year as an one-to-one aide, I had no idea how to manage the kid I was assigned. I had never worked with a student with special needs in this way and I had never worked with a fourth grader before. Instead of having a plan and an approach for this kid, I learned on the job.
After my first performance at my current school, one of the students came up to me and told me how she had no idea what the song they had just performed was about. I was so concerned with putting on a good performance; I forgot to spend time, teaching them what the song was about.
It’s really difficult for me to think about these moments. I feel that in some way I failed my past students for not being the teaching I am now. Yes, I acknowledge that this sounds silly and that there is nothing I can do about the past. I know I did the best I could with my knowledge and experience and that's what’s most important, but that fact doesn’t take away this feeling of guilt.
Because the students I taught in my early years deserved better.
Teachers learn on the job. Some kids has to sit in a class with a first year teacher and deal with their mistakes and tribulations in order for that teacher to become great. Is this fair to the student? In some ways no, but in other ways, if this new teacher is truly passionate about not only teaching but knowing students, a teacher can inspire learning even in there’s some issues with the teaching itself.
I wish I could go back in time and give my past students a better version of me. I know I can’t and even if I could, I don’t really need to. Dwelling on the past isn’t going to change anything, but reflecting on my early years is important.
Thinking about the students that I felt like I “let down,” because of my inexperience has helped me stay focused and work hard for my current students. I know that years from know I will look back at some of the things I’m doing with my students and be embarrassed. I hope that this continues to happen because this means I’m growing as a teacher.
Remembering those kids and those moments from the past where things didn’t go great reminds me to give my kids my best. I can’t give my kids the teacher I will be in the future but I can give them the best of what I got right now.
To my past students I let down: You deserved the best teacher in the world but instead you got me. I like to think that I gave you the best that I had all of the time but I know that there were times when I couldn’t give you that and I’m sorry. While it may only be a small consolation, know that you have never left my mind and I am thankful to have had the experiences that I had with you. I'm proud to have been your teacher and I am proud to call you one of my students.
My instincts for how to handle situations are much sharper now, I am far more productive during my prep time and I am more responsive to my students. I teach with more confidence because I am more sure of who I am as a person and I am able to navigate politics now whereas in my early years, I felt completely inadequate in this area of teaching.
Many times, my improvements as a teacher make me feel proud but other times I feel guilty.
In my first month of teaching high school band, two seniors dropped my band class. These were two great boys who had been in band since fifth grade and my class just wasn’t as fulfilling as their previous experiences.
During my first year as an one-to-one aide, I had no idea how to manage the kid I was assigned. I had never worked with a student with special needs in this way and I had never worked with a fourth grader before. Instead of having a plan and an approach for this kid, I learned on the job.
After my first performance at my current school, one of the students came up to me and told me how she had no idea what the song they had just performed was about. I was so concerned with putting on a good performance; I forgot to spend time, teaching them what the song was about.
It’s really difficult for me to think about these moments. I feel that in some way I failed my past students for not being the teaching I am now. Yes, I acknowledge that this sounds silly and that there is nothing I can do about the past. I know I did the best I could with my knowledge and experience and that's what’s most important, but that fact doesn’t take away this feeling of guilt.
Because the students I taught in my early years deserved better.
Teachers learn on the job. Some kids has to sit in a class with a first year teacher and deal with their mistakes and tribulations in order for that teacher to become great. Is this fair to the student? In some ways no, but in other ways, if this new teacher is truly passionate about not only teaching but knowing students, a teacher can inspire learning even in there’s some issues with the teaching itself.
I wish I could go back in time and give my past students a better version of me. I know I can’t and even if I could, I don’t really need to. Dwelling on the past isn’t going to change anything, but reflecting on my early years is important.
Thinking about the students that I felt like I “let down,” because of my inexperience has helped me stay focused and work hard for my current students. I know that years from know I will look back at some of the things I’m doing with my students and be embarrassed. I hope that this continues to happen because this means I’m growing as a teacher.
Remembering those kids and those moments from the past where things didn’t go great reminds me to give my kids my best. I can’t give my kids the teacher I will be in the future but I can give them the best of what I got right now.
To my past students I let down: You deserved the best teacher in the world but instead you got me. I like to think that I gave you the best that I had all of the time but I know that there were times when I couldn’t give you that and I’m sorry. While it may only be a small consolation, know that you have never left my mind and I am thankful to have had the experiences that I had with you. I'm proud to have been your teacher and I am proud to call you one of my students.
Monday, November 10, 2014
Parenthood: Week 76 – Snot & Awe
The first time I saw Ollie sneeze it was adorable. He was three days old when it happened. His body stopped moving for a second and the cutest little sneeze puffed out of his nose shaking his entire body. Afterwards Ollie had the most incredible look of confusion, exhaustion and relief.
Ollie’s sneezes aren’t quite as cute anymore . . . because of the snot.
There are a lot of things that people don’t tell you about raising kids. I heard about the tar-like newborn poo and the streams of urine but I wasn’t quite prepared for the snot.
I knew that stuffy noses were an issue for toddlers but I didn’t realize to what extent. I’ve watched parents wipe toddler’s noses and seen kids sneeze without covering up their noses but I had no idea how much toddler snot would be a part of my life.
Toddlers probably don’t sneeze anymore than adults do but when they do they completely lack the social manners of sneezing. They don’t cover their nose or grab a tissue. They just let the sneeze go, uncovered. While this is gross, this really isn’t the worst part of the situation.
If an adult sneezes and for some reason can’t grab a tissue in time, he or she will immediately wipe their faces and/or any affected surfaces immediately. Adults find the feeling of having snot and boogers on their faced uncomfortable socially as well as physically. Toddlers don’t.
The other day I was in the car with Ollie and he sneezed. I glanced at my rear-view mirror and saw in the car-seat mirror a one-inch thick stream of snot hanging out of Ollie’s nose past his upper lip. As much as I wanted to pull over and wipe his face off I couldn’t. Instead I watched in horror as he proceeded to rub the snot around his entire face with both of his hands, while licking his lips.
If I had kept looking, I probably would have crashed my car so I pushed away my rear-view mirror, turned up the music and tried to forget what I had just seen.
As I opened the backseat door I saw snot EVERYWHERE. It was in Ollie’s hair his eyebrows, around his eyes, by his ear, on his lip, dried up by his nose, underneath his chin and between his fingers. I knew that as a bad I would be picking snot out of my son’s nose but I never imagined I’d be picking his snot out of his hair.
I’m not even going to get into the torture device known as the Nose Frida. This thing is actually incredibly effective, just make sure to use saline nose spray beforehand and prepare for your baby to be screaming during the process. And no, you never get used to literally sucking your kids snot out of their nose through a tube. Yes, there’s a filter, but it’s still incredibly gross.
Of course I wipe off Ollie’s nose, pick away his dried up booger and suck out snot with the Nose Frida without hesitation. You do what you got to do for your kid and like changing poopy diapers; you got to clean up the snot.
One day years from now, Ollie will do something without thinking and I'll get frustrated with him. I’ll just have to remember to remind myself that at least he’s not rubbing snot all over his face.
Ollie’s sneezes aren’t quite as cute anymore . . . because of the snot.
There are a lot of things that people don’t tell you about raising kids. I heard about the tar-like newborn poo and the streams of urine but I wasn’t quite prepared for the snot.
I knew that stuffy noses were an issue for toddlers but I didn’t realize to what extent. I’ve watched parents wipe toddler’s noses and seen kids sneeze without covering up their noses but I had no idea how much toddler snot would be a part of my life.
Toddlers probably don’t sneeze anymore than adults do but when they do they completely lack the social manners of sneezing. They don’t cover their nose or grab a tissue. They just let the sneeze go, uncovered. While this is gross, this really isn’t the worst part of the situation.
If an adult sneezes and for some reason can’t grab a tissue in time, he or she will immediately wipe their faces and/or any affected surfaces immediately. Adults find the feeling of having snot and boogers on their faced uncomfortable socially as well as physically. Toddlers don’t.
The other day I was in the car with Ollie and he sneezed. I glanced at my rear-view mirror and saw in the car-seat mirror a one-inch thick stream of snot hanging out of Ollie’s nose past his upper lip. As much as I wanted to pull over and wipe his face off I couldn’t. Instead I watched in horror as he proceeded to rub the snot around his entire face with both of his hands, while licking his lips.
If I had kept looking, I probably would have crashed my car so I pushed away my rear-view mirror, turned up the music and tried to forget what I had just seen.
As I opened the backseat door I saw snot EVERYWHERE. It was in Ollie’s hair his eyebrows, around his eyes, by his ear, on his lip, dried up by his nose, underneath his chin and between his fingers. I knew that as a bad I would be picking snot out of my son’s nose but I never imagined I’d be picking his snot out of his hair.
I’m not even going to get into the torture device known as the Nose Frida. This thing is actually incredibly effective, just make sure to use saline nose spray beforehand and prepare for your baby to be screaming during the process. And no, you never get used to literally sucking your kids snot out of their nose through a tube. Yes, there’s a filter, but it’s still incredibly gross.
Of course I wipe off Ollie’s nose, pick away his dried up booger and suck out snot with the Nose Frida without hesitation. You do what you got to do for your kid and like changing poopy diapers; you got to clean up the snot.
One day years from now, Ollie will do something without thinking and I'll get frustrated with him. I’ll just have to remember to remind myself that at least he’s not rubbing snot all over his face.
Friday, November 7, 2014
Year 5: Week 10 – To Be Fair
Fairness is a fascinating concept. It’s something that kids are obsessed with but very few kids if any understand.
To a 3rd grader, fairness means that everyone gets a turn and the teacher treats every student exactly the same way. In reality, fairness is actually about giving different individuals what they need to reach a similar goal. For example, I would hold a door open for a student in a wheelchair but I may not for a different student who can walk under his or her own power. I’m not treating these kids the same way, but they both got through the door. That’s what fairness is all about.
This concept goes way beyond my students’ heads, even with some of my 8th graders. It’s the same reason why kids have issues understanding that a math problem may have more than what correct solution and that the “good guys” in world conflicts aren’t always good.
Developing minds needs to view the world without nuance and subtlety so that they can better categorize their surroundings. Some kids hang tight to their own illusion of fairness, the idea that everyone gets the same thing, to help them understand the world around them.
As a teacher you have two choices. You can try to get them to not focus on fairness through discussion or you can do what I do: use their obsession with fairness to your own advantage. If I convince my students that I make choices partially to be fair, then they interpret this as me validating their concerns.
I’ll tell a group of students that in order for everyone to get a chance at playing an instrument, so it’s fair, they will be quieter during transitions. If I tell a student that he can’t have two drums because everyone else has one, he will immediately put it away. And if I tell other students to be quiet during someone else’s solo because they were quiet for them, it makes sense to them very quickly.
There’s a balance between playing into our students’ worldview and helping them grow beyond their own perceptions. It’s important that students are pushed to understand the nuance of fairness but developmentally students need to be older to have these kinds of conversations.
One of the fastest ways to loose a student’s trust is to do something that a student perceives is unfair. A teacher who unfair doesn’t seem to care about the students and make kids confused and upset.
To be fair sometimes means that you have to be stricter. Other times it means that you have to spend more time with organization. These adjustments are worth it.
Talking about fairness helps make students feel that you are fair. Once students see you act in a fair way then you can begin helping them understand what real fairness all about.
To a 3rd grader, fairness means that everyone gets a turn and the teacher treats every student exactly the same way. In reality, fairness is actually about giving different individuals what they need to reach a similar goal. For example, I would hold a door open for a student in a wheelchair but I may not for a different student who can walk under his or her own power. I’m not treating these kids the same way, but they both got through the door. That’s what fairness is all about.
This concept goes way beyond my students’ heads, even with some of my 8th graders. It’s the same reason why kids have issues understanding that a math problem may have more than what correct solution and that the “good guys” in world conflicts aren’t always good.
Developing minds needs to view the world without nuance and subtlety so that they can better categorize their surroundings. Some kids hang tight to their own illusion of fairness, the idea that everyone gets the same thing, to help them understand the world around them.
As a teacher you have two choices. You can try to get them to not focus on fairness through discussion or you can do what I do: use their obsession with fairness to your own advantage. If I convince my students that I make choices partially to be fair, then they interpret this as me validating their concerns.
I’ll tell a group of students that in order for everyone to get a chance at playing an instrument, so it’s fair, they will be quieter during transitions. If I tell a student that he can’t have two drums because everyone else has one, he will immediately put it away. And if I tell other students to be quiet during someone else’s solo because they were quiet for them, it makes sense to them very quickly.
There’s a balance between playing into our students’ worldview and helping them grow beyond their own perceptions. It’s important that students are pushed to understand the nuance of fairness but developmentally students need to be older to have these kinds of conversations.
One of the fastest ways to loose a student’s trust is to do something that a student perceives is unfair. A teacher who unfair doesn’t seem to care about the students and make kids confused and upset.
To be fair sometimes means that you have to be stricter. Other times it means that you have to spend more time with organization. These adjustments are worth it.
Talking about fairness helps make students feel that you are fair. Once students see you act in a fair way then you can begin helping them understand what real fairness all about.
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
Monday, November 3, 2014
Parenthood: Week 75 – Halloween
I never really liked Halloween growing up. The dressing up thing never really turned out being as much fun as I imagined. I did like the candy part but I wasn’t one of those kids obsessed with candy, so even that part wasn’t that big a deal.
Most of the time Halloween was cold and rainy and even if you had an awesome costume you’d end up having to wear a coat over it. I just never got into Halloween and as soon as the social pressure of the school Halloween parade and party disappeared I stopped dressing up for Halloween altogether.
In college I discovered the fun of dressing-up in silly costumes through marching band. We would have dress-up days for our Thursday night rehearsals. Most of these dress-up days were in-jokes and they were a lot of fun (e.g. “Avril Lavigne in Adult Diaper).
About the time I got out of college, what Halloween now is for college students was just beginning. I missed out on that craziness for the most part.
In my twenties, I went to a couple Halloween parties. Mostly I didn’t dress-up much, it just didn’t seem like it was worth the time or the investment.
When Buffy came into our lives we realize that we had to dress her up (I discussed this process in this post). Not only was it adorable, but also getting her a costume meant that she would be allowed into the Chicago Botanical Gardens for their dog Halloween event. The gardens would be paradise for Buffy so we got her ready for that and had a great time. Every year, we’ve had Buffy she has dressed up and enjoyed one afternoon of romping around the Botanic Gardens.
The only thing more adorable than dogs in Halloween costumes is, you guessed it, babies in Halloween costumes. My Facebook feed for the past week has been overloaded with babies in all sorts of costumes. This alone is making this one of the more enjoyable times of year for me.
Of course, Ollie had to dress-up for Halloween last year, and Buffy’s costume had to coordinate.
Mind you, Ollie could barely sit-up straight at this point. Trick-or-treating was not happening for this little guy. Dressing up was just for our entertainment and getting a cute photo.
This year we settled on Ollie and Buffy both dressed up like koala bears. We bought Buffy’s costume and Ollie’s hat and then made the rest of Ollie’s costume. This required a trip to Michael’s which was only slightly more painful than watching Iowa’s football team demolish Northwestern University at their game last week.
Our neighborhood does Halloween on the Sunday before the actual Holiday in the mid-afternoon. I didn’t really understand why they did this until I had a toddler myself. There’s nothing fun about taking kids out on a cold, fall dark evening to go door to door. Especially since this year on Halloween it snowed AND hailed.
Instead on a Sunday afternoon, Ollie and his toddler friends made it to one or two houses in our neighborhood and then ran around and played in our backyard.
It was a great Halloween.
Ollie and the other toddler’s had no idea that the colored small things were actually candy. They were just happy to pick up them up and drop them in their bags, then take them out, and then put them back in their bags and then take them out. . . okay you get the point.
Yes, someday Ollie will realize that Halloween is all about candy and later he may not want to dress up like some cute animal and that’s ok. However for now instead of a Holiday that is about what you take, scaring people, playing pranks or getting a date, we can bask in the cuteness of Halloween and the enjoy the innocence of Ollie being happy to simply be with his friends.
Most of the time Halloween was cold and rainy and even if you had an awesome costume you’d end up having to wear a coat over it. I just never got into Halloween and as soon as the social pressure of the school Halloween parade and party disappeared I stopped dressing up for Halloween altogether.
In college I discovered the fun of dressing-up in silly costumes through marching band. We would have dress-up days for our Thursday night rehearsals. Most of these dress-up days were in-jokes and they were a lot of fun (e.g. “Avril Lavigne in Adult Diaper).
About the time I got out of college, what Halloween now is for college students was just beginning. I missed out on that craziness for the most part.
In my twenties, I went to a couple Halloween parties. Mostly I didn’t dress-up much, it just didn’t seem like it was worth the time or the investment.
When Buffy came into our lives we realize that we had to dress her up (I discussed this process in this post). Not only was it adorable, but also getting her a costume meant that she would be allowed into the Chicago Botanical Gardens for their dog Halloween event. The gardens would be paradise for Buffy so we got her ready for that and had a great time. Every year, we’ve had Buffy she has dressed up and enjoyed one afternoon of romping around the Botanic Gardens.
The only thing more adorable than dogs in Halloween costumes is, you guessed it, babies in Halloween costumes. My Facebook feed for the past week has been overloaded with babies in all sorts of costumes. This alone is making this one of the more enjoyable times of year for me.
Of course, Ollie had to dress-up for Halloween last year, and Buffy’s costume had to coordinate.
Mind you, Ollie could barely sit-up straight at this point. Trick-or-treating was not happening for this little guy. Dressing up was just for our entertainment and getting a cute photo.
This year we settled on Ollie and Buffy both dressed up like koala bears. We bought Buffy’s costume and Ollie’s hat and then made the rest of Ollie’s costume. This required a trip to Michael’s which was only slightly more painful than watching Iowa’s football team demolish Northwestern University at their game last week.
Our neighborhood does Halloween on the Sunday before the actual Holiday in the mid-afternoon. I didn’t really understand why they did this until I had a toddler myself. There’s nothing fun about taking kids out on a cold, fall dark evening to go door to door. Especially since this year on Halloween it snowed AND hailed.
Instead on a Sunday afternoon, Ollie and his toddler friends made it to one or two houses in our neighborhood and then ran around and played in our backyard.
It was a great Halloween.
Ollie and the other toddler’s had no idea that the colored small things were actually candy. They were just happy to pick up them up and drop them in their bags, then take them out, and then put them back in their bags and then take them out. . . okay you get the point.
Yes, someday Ollie will realize that Halloween is all about candy and later he may not want to dress up like some cute animal and that’s ok. However for now instead of a Holiday that is about what you take, scaring people, playing pranks or getting a date, we can bask in the cuteness of Halloween and the enjoy the innocence of Ollie being happy to simply be with his friends.
Friday, October 31, 2014
Year 5: Week 9 – Assessment #1
Assessment along with instruction and curriculum create the trifecta, the “braid” as one of my graduate school professors referred to, which is teaching. If any of these three factors are misaligned or don’t support the other factors, than truly effective teaching cannot happen.
If you have a fantastic curriculum, but do a poor job with instruction your assessments tools will suffer. If you have amazing instruction skills and great materials to teach but your assessment tools are poorly developed, it undercuts all of the other work you do in the classroom.
In order for these things to be truly aligned teachers need to think very carefully about all three of these aspects as they plan and teach. If one of these factors is too weak, if one ends up leading the other too far too strongly, learning suffers.
This is the case when a teacher is given an outline to a standardized test and he or she feels pressured to “teach to the test.” This ends up creating an imbalance forcing curriculum and instruction aside that can rob students of meaningful learning experiences.
Music teachers can sometimes get away with focusing less attention on assessment. Our subject is not included in standardized testing and often doing things like playing tests can be cumbersome, but in my view point, this is no more challenging than grading a stack of essays.
This week I gave my band kids there first formal assessment of the year. We decided early on in our planning that we wanted to align these major assessments across band and choir. While they were different there was similarities between the quizzes, which we felt reflected the different musical disciplines.
I assess my students every day. Sometimes it’s informal, listening to them warm-up and often it’s formal through Smart Music. This quiz we did last week was a written quiz, which assessed their knowledge of certain musical concepts but also evaluated their ability to translate their thoughts into words.
Whenever you ask a student to put a pen to paper you are assessing the student's writing ability. Teachers have to be very careful that they aren’t intentionally assessing things that may not be relevant to the class. If I truly wanted to just focus on their musical knowledge, for many students, short answer essays would hinder their ability to demonstrate that knowledge.
The reason that I was comfortable with this quiz assessing their writing skills is that it teaches me a lot about our students. There are some kids who play really well but struggle with putting their into writing. For that student it’s critical that I balance this student’s writing with his or her playing. Also, I find that some students who aren’t the strongest musicians write really well about music. This gives me an important insight to their minds and what they are getting out of class.
As I grade these quizzes I’m modifying future lessons and instructional techniques. Every assessment is an important reminder of not only my student’s learning but my own teaching. If every student gets the same question wrong, it’s probably my fault for not utilizing effective instruction techniques.
The other important thing about having formal quizzes and tests in music class is that it legitimizes the class as not just an activity in the eyes of the students, parents and other teachers in the building. While this is not a central reason to give a quiz, it is an important one to consider.
You’ve got to keep that braid strong. It’s a constant struggle to make sure curriculum, instruction and assessment are balanced in our teaching. When we think deeply about what we do, when we dive deep into the meaning of our curriculum, the depth of our instruction and the effectiveness of our assessments, we address students’ whole experience as a learner and a student.
Within this trifecta, we find truly great teaching. In this way we make learning feel organic and relevant and most importantly personally meaningful to our studends.
If you have a fantastic curriculum, but do a poor job with instruction your assessments tools will suffer. If you have amazing instruction skills and great materials to teach but your assessment tools are poorly developed, it undercuts all of the other work you do in the classroom.
In order for these things to be truly aligned teachers need to think very carefully about all three of these aspects as they plan and teach. If one of these factors is too weak, if one ends up leading the other too far too strongly, learning suffers.
This is the case when a teacher is given an outline to a standardized test and he or she feels pressured to “teach to the test.” This ends up creating an imbalance forcing curriculum and instruction aside that can rob students of meaningful learning experiences.
Music teachers can sometimes get away with focusing less attention on assessment. Our subject is not included in standardized testing and often doing things like playing tests can be cumbersome, but in my view point, this is no more challenging than grading a stack of essays.
This week I gave my band kids there first formal assessment of the year. We decided early on in our planning that we wanted to align these major assessments across band and choir. While they were different there was similarities between the quizzes, which we felt reflected the different musical disciplines.
I assess my students every day. Sometimes it’s informal, listening to them warm-up and often it’s formal through Smart Music. This quiz we did last week was a written quiz, which assessed their knowledge of certain musical concepts but also evaluated their ability to translate their thoughts into words.
Whenever you ask a student to put a pen to paper you are assessing the student's writing ability. Teachers have to be very careful that they aren’t intentionally assessing things that may not be relevant to the class. If I truly wanted to just focus on their musical knowledge, for many students, short answer essays would hinder their ability to demonstrate that knowledge.
The reason that I was comfortable with this quiz assessing their writing skills is that it teaches me a lot about our students. There are some kids who play really well but struggle with putting their into writing. For that student it’s critical that I balance this student’s writing with his or her playing. Also, I find that some students who aren’t the strongest musicians write really well about music. This gives me an important insight to their minds and what they are getting out of class.
As I grade these quizzes I’m modifying future lessons and instructional techniques. Every assessment is an important reminder of not only my student’s learning but my own teaching. If every student gets the same question wrong, it’s probably my fault for not utilizing effective instruction techniques.
The other important thing about having formal quizzes and tests in music class is that it legitimizes the class as not just an activity in the eyes of the students, parents and other teachers in the building. While this is not a central reason to give a quiz, it is an important one to consider.
You’ve got to keep that braid strong. It’s a constant struggle to make sure curriculum, instruction and assessment are balanced in our teaching. When we think deeply about what we do, when we dive deep into the meaning of our curriculum, the depth of our instruction and the effectiveness of our assessments, we address students’ whole experience as a learner and a student.
Within this trifecta, we find truly great teaching. In this way we make learning feel organic and relevant and most importantly personally meaningful to our studends.
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