The Language of Educational Success

Recently, I came across this article in the Atlantic on educational reform and the amazing achievements of Finland. The gist of the article (which you should read anyways), is that the key to Finnish success in education is not competition and high-stakes accountability, but exactly the opposite. Finland has virtually no private schools, no standardized tests except a high school exit exam, and no voucher system, school competition, etc. Instead, what the reformers of Finnish education have focused on in the past few decades is equality of educational opportunities for all children! Pasi Sahlberg, a Finnish Ministry of Education spokesperson, points out that

There's no word for accountability in Finnish. Accountability is something that is left when responsibility has been subtracted.

This is a radical idea to many Americans, that maybe we don't need accountability and competition as much as cooperation, equality, and responsibility. Yet it makes perfect sense with everything I have experienced as a teacher. The language of vouchers, charter schools, and school choice,  is a language of finding something better than the norm. The problem with this is that most students will still be experiencing the "norm" of public schools.

Imagine all of our children were on a large ocean liner. We want them to have the amazing experiences that we had on that boat decades ago. One day, some people start noticing that the boat is slowly sinking. Do we:

A. Pay a private ship to come rescue just our son or daughter, and continue them on the journey at a costly fee?
B. Demand that the boat be fixed without resources, in fact while simultaneously building "better" boats that aren't big enough for all the kids?
C. Pool our resources and repair or build a better boat for ALL the kids?

To accept competition as the basis for education, you must be willing to accept the outcome that some students will get an inferior education. What Finland has demonstrated is that it is quite possible, with a focused public will, to create a system where every child has an opportunity to succeed!

Language is so important to the way we see the world around us. Acountability implies distrust, reward and punishment. Responsibility implies trust, mutual respect, and working toward a common goal. I know which one I want my son to learn. I know which one works in class. Take it a step further; for most of my career, I spent a lot of time and effort focusing on what I learned in college as "behavior management" or "classroom management". Again, language epitomizes the problems I was facing. When I tried to "manage" my students, I was the one trying to control, and getting frustrated when the students saw no intrinsic reason to cooperate. When I finally realized that I was driving myself and my students crazy, I was able to back up, and start from language like "classroom atmosphere", "respect", "mutual trust", and "self control". I realized that my students had no idea how I wanted them to act in class, unless I showed them not only what I expected, but why it was important to help them learn and succeed. And to do this, I had to first show them that I trusted them and cared about them.

Ten years ago, I would have thought that was all a bunch of feel-good nonsense. I have heard (and agreed with) the argument that we are creating a generation of coddled brats, by always worrying about their self esteem and always being positive. Yet now I see that you can still be realistic, with high expectations and honest assessments, while simultaneously guiding children to trust you and work even harder toward the goals that you jointly set in class.

In my classroom today, things aren't perfect. Students get out of hand. I occasionally have to raise my voice. Yet the classroom atmosphere is one of cooperation and responsibility, where we each take responsibility for our own actions, including me! With this foundation of trust, I can take the class on a journey to things that they otherwise would shy away from, because they are new, strange, or different. And they can return the favor by surprising me with an even better way to proceed than what is written in my lesson plan.

Trust. Cooperation. Respect. Honesty. Fairness. Equality. This is what I want for my students, my classroom, my child, my life. This is what I believe most public school teachers want for themselves (from administrators, parents, the public), and for their students. Shouldn't this be the foundation of the next generation of school reform? Finland proves that the tests are not what matters. It's how you treat the people involved.

Iowa Core K-8 Music Guidelines

The Iowa Department of Education has posted guidelines for K-8 Music Education aligned to the Iowa Core Curriculum!

Arts and the Iowa Core

Notice that K-8 music was the first fine arts area to complete their work and have it approved by the DOE! A direct link to the document is here.

I'm very excited to have been a part of this writing process. It was an excellent chance to work with some fabulous minds, including Esther D'Agrosa and Linda Murphy, who spearheaded the process, Tom Sletto from Drake who brought in lots of Kodaly experience, and of course my good local colleague Aaron Hansen, who is an amazing Orff Schulwerk teacher. There were many others on our committee as well (listed at the top of the document), and we represented a diverse set of teachers from around the state.

This past week was the Iowa Music Educators' Association annual conference. The conference takes place at Iowa State University in conjunction with the OPUS Honor Choirs (5-9 grade) and All-State festival for choir, band, and orchestra. I had two students participating: one in the 5-6 Elementary OPUS Choir, and one in the high school All-State Choir. Both students really enjoyed the experience, and represented our school well!

During the conference, while not shepherding students around, I was able to attend several sessions on general music and choral topics. One was a choral reading session based on multicultural music from around the world. I really enjoy reading sessions where you get to keep copies of all of the music, because then you can really take it home and look through it at your own pace.

I also spent time in three different sessions by Kodaly-trained teachers. I really appreciate their organization and focus on sequential instruction. Tom Mahalek, one of the presenters, made a great comment about Orff and Kodaly teachers. He said (paraphrase):

Come January 15, if it suddenly starts snowing outside, the Orff teacher throws open the curtains, maybe throws on the coats, dances in the snow, writes a poem about snow, and creates a snow-themed performance. The Kodaly teacher closes the curtains and continues with the planned lesson, which happens to be about rain.

I love this story. Of course, I have never had any official Kodaly training, but my natural tendency is to be more like the Kodaly teacher in this story than the Orff teacher. I think that's why Orff Schulwerk has spoken so much to me over the years. When I see teachers and students who can create a meaningful, aesthetic, learning experience out of practically anything, I am in awe. And I know, for me at least, this will always be a bigger and more important challenge than making sure that my fourth graders can read every combination of sixteenth and eighth notes perfectly.

That being said, in the past few years, I have definitely strayed (probably too far) away from a clear, sequential curriculum. Partly this has been due to circumstance: I began my current position at Malcolm Price Laboratory School only one year ago, and it includes two multi-level groups of classes (PreK-K and 1St/2nd). Anytime you start a new position, it's starting over from square zero, spending a lot of time finding out what the students already know/don't know. The multi-age classes have the added effect of making a single-year, repertoire-based curriculum obsolete after one year. Sure, a bit of review in repertoire is expected and enjoyed. But the kids would get pretty bored if I taught everything the same way for the second year in a row.

Besides, is a standardized repertoire really what I want for my students, or for myself? There will always be more cultures, styles, and individual pieces of music (and dances) than I can ever hope to teach to all of my children. Likewise, each curricular goal in melody, rhythm, form, etc., can be achieved with a wide variety of pieces and activities. Sure, I might have some favorites that I believe all of my students should learn. But most importantly, I want them to value music so much that they continue to make it and learn about it for the rest of their lives.

I think where I'm heading (and where I was at my last job)
is a sequential curriculum based on grade level expectations of skills, and experiences, combined with a large database of songs and activities, catalogued by all their possible curricular uses. Of course, I have this started in about twelve different formats. I want something that's digital, easily accessible, easily editable, and thorough in its content.

What do you think? Should I start an online database of songs, dances, and activities, open to the public online for viewing and adding? There are very few such repositories in existence. I really think, if our goal is improving education for children, then we need to share our resources.

AOSA Conference Wrap-Up

The American Orff Schulwerk Association national conference has come to a close. It was an amazing conference, with quality sessions on pedagogy, process, multiculturalism, the history of Orff Schulwerk, and the future!

What really struck me this year was not the teaching sessions and process, although both were excellent (Sofia Lopez-Ibor, Nick Wild, Stephen Neely), but the conversations. Several conversations were begun or made public at this session that will have an impact on the future of music education.

• The Name of the Game: At the President's Panel discussion, after an excellent insight into questions such as "How do outsiders perceive AOSA and Orff Schulwerk?" and "Where do you want to see us in ten years?" the audience brought up the idea of moving away from the name American Orff Schulwerk Association towards something that would be more easily understood by a layman, and more in line with our future dreams of touching the lives of as many children and adults as possible. No concrete answer was proposed, but something along the lines of "American Elemental Music and Movement Association" would be the direction I am personally seeing, if this is pursued. Interestingly, in that particular meeting, I heard no objections raised to this concept, yet in following discussions with my colleagues and mentors, many were concerned about this as a "cutting-off" from the roots of Orff Schulwerk. Many people who have studied OS in Europe already feel that this is happening, that AOSA is splintering off in its own direction. The challenge is to allow AOSA to continue to serve the American music education needs of our children, while maintaining collegial dialogue with the Orff Institute in Salzburg, the Orff Forum, and the international Orff Schulwerk community. While I can see both sides of the issue, I certainly hope this becomes an association-wide conversation over the next few years.
  
• Building New Institutions: Along the same radical lines, there was un-sponsored, private discussion concerning the building of a new American Institute for Elemental Music and Movement. The title, location, funding, and mission are all still being determined, but this discussion has also begun.

After all of these great conversations, I finished my trip with a seat on a plane next to Barbara Haselbach, head of the Orff Schulwerk Forum in Salzburg, and professor at the Orff Institute! It was an exciting conversation! Barbara shared with me how thrilled she was by the energy and enthusiasm of American Orff Schulwerk teachers, and the strengths that she saw in our association. She then encouraged me to come visit the Orff Institute in Salzburg. We discussed many differences between European and American systems, private and public schools, and of course, our favorite parts of the conference. I told her my favorite was Sofia Lopez-Ibor, one of my mentors during my AOSA apprenticeship, and a student of Barbara's.

Today it was back to reality, but with a renewed sense of purpose. I started the day by guiding my middle school choir to add creative body percussion to the simple Christmas tune we were working on, and it was fun!

Amazing Happenings at AOSA

"What is Orff Schulwerk?" OS teachers hear this question all the time. The name comes from Carl Orff, the founder of the educational philosophy and approach, and the German word for "School Work", to distinguish it from Orff's compositions and other professional work. When the American Orff Schulwerk Association was founded in 1968, having a European training was a sign of prestige for American musicians. Conductors at all the major symphonies were European, and European educational models (OS, Dalcroze Eurhythmics, Kodaly) were becoming increasingly popular here.

Now, 40+ years later, the terminology is limiting the public understanding of what we do. At the President's Panel session today at the AOSA National Conference, it was proposed that the organization change it's name to something along the lines of "American Elemental Music and Movement Association". Of course, this was a completely impromptu and unofficial proposal from the audience, but everyone who spoke on it was positive about the possibilities of "rebranding" what we do to help get out our message of creative music making. The conversation has begun, and I predict the change will happen within the next decade (or hopefully sooner)!

UPDATE: fixed the link to Steve Owen's blog

Well, I survived day one of the Orff Schulwerk conference! I started the day with an invigorating run along the Allegheny river with my roommate and education guru, Steve Owens (check out his amazing blog). Then, it was off to be creative with Sofia Lopez-Ibor, one of my personal mentors, for 2 1/2 hours. Every time I see Sofia, I am amazed at what she does. She can take over an hour to do one project, which incorporates games, poetry, movement, drawing, and singing, and you are completely swept up in the process the entire time. There is no pressure to perform, yet you create beautiful music at the end. The inclusion of poetry, dance, and visual art demonstrate cross-curricular teaching at its finest.

Speaking of cross-curricular teaching, I believe that Orff Schulwerk is the general music method to connect with modern trends in education as a whole. The buzzwords I hear from my colleagues and administrators these days are all things that I have been doing in Orff Schulwerk for the past decade (and others have been doing for half a century):

• Student-centered Classroom: Orff Schulwerk students are in charge of the creative process and the final product/performance. The teacher is the facilitator of student and group work.
  
  
• Project-Based Learning: In my classroom, we take a song, theme, story, or activity, and begin exploring the concepts, improvising and composing original music, and arranging ideas into a final performance. Even when there's no concert in sight, we are finalizing projects year-round and performing for ourselves!
  
  
• Cross-curricular Teaching: As mentioned above, Orff Schulwerk integrates physical movement, speech, literature, poetry, and occasionally visual art into the music classroom. In addition, the project-based creative process allow us to draw in any theme from the regular classroom - dinosaurs, butterflies, Mother Goose, planets, Africa, etc.
  
  
• Authentic Assessment: As schools, districts, and states move away from high-stakes pencil and paper tests, they are moving directly toward a model from the music classroom. Authentic assessment means assessing the students as they are working on a project, giving direct and immediate feedback, and documenting the assessment in a meaningful way. With the use of video recording, audio recording, and project rubrics, I can travel around the room while my students work and assess their learning in real time.

By the way, the Rainbow Crow Native American inspired session today was a huge success! I'm hoping to post a video of our final performance soon!

Northeast Woodlands Native American Inspired Music & Storytelling

Tomorrow I am presenting at the American Orff Schulwerk Association national conference with my good friends and colleagues, Michelle Przybylowski and Laura Webster! Click here for notes from the "composition" breakout group that I'm leading.

Location:Livingston Ln,Waterloo,United States