Du Da Ta
Monday, March 3, 2008
Apparently I'm a teacher now.
You can add "teaching," or more specifically, "how to control a classroom," to the ever expanding list of things I wish I'd learned in music school.
But its good. For those of you who haven't heard about this yet, I'm teaching music fundamentals to a small group of 4th - 6th graders in a charter school in Camden. It is part of an after-school pilot program that is run by one of the orchestras of which I am a member. The kids spend an hour in their instrument lesson and then an hour in their "theory" class. So I teach the same class to two different groups of kids on Monday and Wednesday afternoons. They are learning cello and violin, and they are fantastic kids.
I didn't really know what I was getting into, though. "Music theory?" I thought. "Crap." I suddenly wished I'd paid a little more attention when I was approached about taking this job. But it turns out, "Music Fundamentals" would be a better description of what I teach. These kids are learning rhythm and note names. Without a piano in the classroom, it is difficult to start teaching pitch, but we're making due as best we can.
With help from A., a close friend who is an elementary music teacher, I have been teaching all sorts of stuff that I wish had been taught to me in this manner. I have a serious sense of pride that all my kids can do rhythmic dictation and can read both treble and bass clef with a fair amount of fluency. The kids are great-- they are interested, smart, funny kids, and I only ever have to teach six (at most) at one time. I don't think I could handle 30 of them, but six is more than enough for now.
I'm learning how to teach-- every lesson I learn something new that I need to explain differently. I'm learning what works and what doesn't work. I learned quickly that you have to change things up pretty fast to keep their attention, and that you really have to lay down the law about discipline. But they're responding, and learning. It feels good.
One of my main problems with a lot of "outreach" is that I am not convinced that we are actually "educating the audiences of tomorrow" with any of it. Don't get me wrong-- I think it is important to educate kids in the humanities if only to make them better "world citizens." And I don't suppose I'll ever really know the long term implications of showing kids a horn and how it works. Who knows, maybe one of those kids will actually be inspired to play an instrument because they came to a kiddie show, or had one imposed on them in school.
But this weekend, I actually witnessed how educational programs are supposed to work.
The orchestra has about fifteen kids signed up for after school string lessons. The symphony offered free tickets to the students in the program AND their families to our concert on Friday night. Four of them came, with their families, and in class today, they were buzzing about it. The kids were genuinely excited about the experience. They remembered that the storm movement of Beethoven Six was something we discussed and listened to in class last week. They talked about their favorite parts of the concert-- some liked the pianist best, but one of them was really into the new piece we played. And one of the string teachers told me that two of the girls had been so inspired by the concert that they had gone home and practiced extra hard for their lessons today.
Forgive me, Reader(s), for my overwhelming sense of accomplishment right now. THIS IS THE POINT OF EDUCATION PROGRAMS. We took four kids from an underprivileged, under served population, gave them string instruments, and tried to show them that classical music can be fun and relevant. You will all have to forgive me for being overjoyed in knowing that it actually worked.
Do I think these kids will be professional musicians? Who knows? But Janae said, "I want to practice a lot so I can do that!" And Marco said, "We feel like its our orchestra because all of our teachers are in it and we get to see you play!"
These kids live in Camden, one of the poorest and most dangerous cities in America. I don't pretend to know what their lives are like outside of their music lessons. I don't even try to guess most of the time. I know that when I go to Camden, I'm pretty happy when I get to leave, which causes me some guilt that is probably worthy of some self-exploration in another blog post.
But I finally feel like I'm making a difference.
Posted byL. at 7:52 PM
Labels: teaching
cool beyond comment. way to go.